Partnering to Improve the Capacity for High-Quality, Evidence-Based Mathematics Instruction for Diverse Learners (Poster 8)

• In Event: Centering Equity in Research-Practice Partnerships

Abstract

This poster describes a partnership initiated with the Chelsea School, which was the first high school in the Washington, D. C., area specifically designed to support the needs of students with learning differences who are unable to make educational progress in the local school setting. The Chelsea School has a strong track record for supporting student literacy, including remedial skills and targeted intervention. However, their current system lacks support for mathematics and numeracy development. While several school-wide and classroom systems exist for promoting and rewarding improvement in reading – no such system exists for mathematics. This is problematic because students’ mathematics scores are low and show no current sign for improvement. This is, in part, due to a lack of knowledge by the Chelsea School and staff to be able to integrate an evidence-based mathematics curriculum. As such, the Executive Director has reached out to and is excited about developing partnership with [BLINDED].

For this study, we will present initial Year 1 data. We have been co-developing a plan with the director and school staff for what is feasible for Fall 2022. There has been some turnover in the teachers of the math curricular classes and are hiring new staff for 2022-2023. The Year 1 goals of this partnership are to (1) install math focused positive behavior supports systems, rewards, and positive support for improvement in math (engagement and performance), (2) add math-focused school-wide competitions (to resemble the current one Chelsea has for reading, and (3) provide professional development to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to develop math-focused language intervention, math content and vocabulary during therapy. This area is potentially very opportunistic given limited math exposure students get as a part of the core curriculum (1 curriculum class, under 1 hour).

We will also continue to plan partnership activities for Year 2, which currently include assessing progress in Year 1 and considering retooling or continuing school-wide approaches. In summer 2023 we will prepare for year 2 of professional development/research which likely will include (1) initial SLP-math integration into therapy sessions, (2) collaboration with teachers (see Zimmerman et al., 2022), and (3) begin collaborative lesson study (Lewis et al., 2006) with SLPs and teachers in braiding mathematics into content area instruction.

Relative to content, we will focus on (1) planning around whole-building consistency around foundational numeracy concepts, targeting conceptual understanding (Fuchs et al., 2021; Powell & Bos, 2022) and (2) mathematical equivalence, schema-based word problem solving, measurement interpretation of fractions (Nelson et al., 2021; Shin et al., 2021)

We will be using ongoing progress monitoring assessments to determine the promise and feasibility of the school-wide and within-class practices we select for the primary partnership activities. We will collect baseline teaching and student performance data to help gauge the relative effects of any interventions put in place as a part of the partnership and use mixed methods approaches (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2009; Walker et al., 2011) to evaluate the promise of the initial partnership activities – which will inform the partnership development in subsequent years.

Authors

• Jason C. Chow, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Robin Sayers, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Yang Fu, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author