2005 MSP Learning Network Conference Plenary Sessions
Welcome: Reviewing the Current State of Affairs |
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Joyce Evans
National Science Foundation |
Joyce Evans welcomes attendees and thanks the planning committee.
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Diane Spresser
National Science Foundation |
Diane Spresser stresses the critical importance of the MSPs' R&D effort as they learn what works for whom and under what circumstances. This conference is designed to begin to develop a common understanding of what we mean by "Challenging Courses and Curricula" and what that means to individual projects both in K-12 and in higher education. This conference also offers the opportunity to identify and attend to differences among MSP stakeholders, to learn about what other projects are doing, to enhance knowledge of the work that the MSP-RETA projects are doing and what they have to offer, and to learn more about the Department of Education's MSP program.
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 How Do Our Stakeholders Envision Challenging Courses and Curricula? |
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The Task:
Nancy Shapiro University System of Maryland |
"Challenging Courses and Curricula" is really a question of audience, not just content. Who is the audience for the curricula we are designing? This team exercise is an attempt to define the attributes of Challenging Courses and Curricula in relation to key MSP stakeholders, identify the important differences in vision within individual MSPs and among the MSPs' stakeholders, and determine what MSPs need to do about those differences. Representatives from three MSP teams share highlights of their team discussions with the group as a whole.
view slides read proceedings Supplemental Materials: Key Features of MAP |
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The Result:
Iris Weiss Horizon Research, Inc. |
An analysis of the aggregated results of the exercise described above, highlighting commonalties and differences in how MSP teams view the attributes of Challenging Courses and Curricula in terms of their individual project teams and their stakeholders. view slides read proceedings |
Addressing Different Visions of Challenging Courses and Curricula |
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Uri Treisman
University of Texas at Austin |
How do MSPs fit into the changing landscape of K-16 education? Treisman examines the increasingly blurring line between K-12 and higher education; the need to examine the effects of our work on students; the shift in how higher education is perceived; the way we think about and allocate teacher resources and induct teachers; and the gaps that still exist in student achievement. What is needed? A better understanding of system capacity and outputs and what we mean by "increasing the capacity of systems," as well as reliable measurement tools; more clarity about tools to support teaching in classrooms as it actually happens; a research enterprise to develop an evidentiary base for our work; reliable standards regarding interventions and their effects; and a way of incorporating what we learn from research.
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The Challenges of Different Visions: The Pittsburgh Public Schools |
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Diane J. Briars
Pittsburgh Public Schools |
Diane Briars offers MSP teams a real-world scenario from the Pittsburgh Public Schools, outlining the challenges involved in gaining stakeholder support from the School Board for a new mathematics program. MSP teams are assigned the task of generating strategies to engender Board support. After a number of teams report their recommendations, Briars describes the actual strategies she employed. |
Is This What We Mean by Challenging Courses and Curricula? |
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Mathematics Plenary Session
Reporting Facilitator: Joan Ferrini-Mundy Michigan State University Co-facilitator: Herbert Clemens The Ohio State University |
Participants discuss the optimal balance at three levels of instruction (7th grade pre-algebra, high school algebra, and college linear algebra) between: procedural understanding and conceptual understanding; telling and discovering; and real-world examples and abstractions. Participants then view a videotape of a teacher using Geoboards to engage a mixed 4th-5th grade class in the concept of "halves" as the focus for a discussion on Challenging Courses and Curricula.
view slides read proceedings Supplemental Materials: Is this Challenging Courses and Curricula? Group Math Math Plenary Task |
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Science Plenary Session
Reporting Facilitator: Carlo Parravano Merck Institute for Science Education Co-facilitator: Ron Henry Georgia State University |
Participants discuss the optimal balance in each of three instructional levels (7th grade life science, high school biology, and college intro biology) between: telling and discovering; and concrete phenomena and theoretical frameworks. Participants then view a videotape of a teacher engaging 9th grade biology students in the relationship between form and function and an understanding of the scientific process through an investigation of crickets as the focus for a discussion on Challenging Courses and Curricula. view slides read proceedings Supplemental Materials: Is this Challenging Courses and Curricula? Group Science Science Plenary Task |
Using Evidence in the Math-Science Partnerships |
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Catherine Callow-Heusser
Utah State University |
Catherine Callow-Heusser reviews how evidence-based design, decision-making, and outcomes can guide an MSP project and details how the DIO cycle works-Design (How are we going to intervene?), Implementation (What are the results?), Outcomes (What changes need to be made?). Conference participants, working in MSP teams, utilize the DIO Cycle of Evidence by applying it to a case study of a Mathematics MSP, with select team representatives reporting back to the group as a whole.
read proceedings Supplemental Materials: Applying the DIO Framework |
U.S. Department of Education Mathematics and Science Partnerships Program |
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Pat O'Connell Ross
U.S. Department of Education John Holton South Carolina Department of Education Eric Suhr New York State Education Department |
Pat O'Connell Ross offers an overview of the Department of Education's Mathematics and Science Partnerships, John Holton provides the perspective of a state-funded MSP project in a small, rural state, and Eric Suhr offers information about a state-funded MSP in a state with large, urban centers. O'Connell Ross proceeds to identify areas in which the ED state-funded MSPs could use input and assistance from the R & D efforts and outcomes of NSF-funded MSPs. She concludes by calling for input on the current Title I effort to focus more attention on mathematics and on strategic ways to help schools improve mathematics instruction. view slides read proceedings |
Introduction of Knowledge, Management and Dissemination (KMD) Project |
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Barbara Miller
Education Development Center |
Barbara Miller reviews the KMD goal of synthesizing findings from MSP work and integrating them into a larger knowledge base for educational reform, and outlines the Knowledge Management Framework of knowledge acquisition, sharing, and utilization. MSP teams are offered information regarding the ways in which they will contribute to this effort over the coming year. To offer the KMD Project a sense of MSP teams' knowledge, as well as where the KMD Project should be focusing its attention, teams participated in a reflection task focused on their project research, lessons learned, and project knowledge/information needs. view slides read proceedings Supplemental Materials: KMD reflection sheet |
MSPnet: Continuing the Conversations |
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Joni Falk
TERC |
Joni Falk emphasizes the benefits of MSPnet to helping the MSP projects evolve as a learning community and outlines ways in which the MSPnet is helping projects to facilitate collaboration between their partners. An overview of MSPnet goals in creating such a community is accompanied by a review of MSPnet tools, new features, and ways in which MSP teams can better contribute to and benefit from this ongoing resource.
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Policy Perspectives |
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Susan Sclafani
U.S. Department of Education |
Susan Sclafani offers an overview of the changing nature of the workforce, the concerns of the business community, the kind of education students now require, and findings from student assessment data to underscore the importance of teacher preparation and professional development, coherent curriculum in K-12, and published research on student learning of specific ideas. She encourages MSPs to use the data offered to communicate to those in their communities about this crisis for our children, our communities, and our country, and outlines current initiatives, principles, and policies that are being undertaken to address this crisis. view slides read proceedings |
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Donald E. Thompson
National Science Foundation |
Donald Thompson reviews the ways in which MSP investments have embraced opportunities to improve STEM education, and the ways in which the MSPs are contributing to the national capacity for a deeper understanding of the teaching and learning of K-16 mathematics and science.
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MSP: The Future |
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Diane Spresser
National Science Foundation |
Diane Spresser reviews the history of the parallel funding of MSPs through NSF and ED, and the consolidation of the funding in the current '05 fiscal year at ED with increased funding to state MSPs. Spresser addresses the implications of this consolidation for NSF-funded MSPs, noting that while there will be no new MSP grants through NSF, those currently funded will continue; the investment in those projects will continue; the data collection, dissemination, knowledge management, and evaluation will continue; collaboration and communication with state-funded MSPs will continue; and the work being conducted is important and visible. read proceedings |
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