National tests in mathematics achievement of K-12 students indicate a performance gap across geographic regions of the country. Researchers have demonstrated that students in extreme rural areas receive among the least exposure to advanced mathematical understanding and have lower levels of educational aspirations and math achievement than their non-rural counterparts (Blackwell & McLaughlin, 1999; Roscigno & Crowley, 2001). Additionally, math disabilities (MD) are on the rise. Rural communities are deeply affected by these trends because disabilities are a significant though often overlooked part of the complex rural American situation. Additionally, a rural county's ability to provide a high quality math education has direct implications for the community's future economic prosperity. Programs that raise education levels are an essential part of a successful strategy to improve the economic well-being of rural America, however, economically disadvantaged rural schools are increasingly challenged to provide high quality, up-to-date, low cost math education reform. This investigation will produce professional development distance learning software that equips general classroom teachers with the skills to recognize unsuccessful mathematics performance patterns in their students and to make the best instructional decisions to ensure that each student can find academic and social success.
OBJECTIVES: Learnimations goal is to design, build and validate a web-based professional development tool that equips rural teachers with the knowledge and skills to make effective instructional decisions for each student struggling in mathematics. In order to reach that goal, the team will have to meet the following objectives: 1. Design the pedagogical framework and operational definition for a series of professional development units and author the content for 1-2 sample units in the framework. 2. Define an instructional design for a web-based professional development tool with the requirements of Universal Design that is inclusive of vision and hearing impaired individuals. 3. Build a functional prototype based on those specifications and the sample unit content. 4. Begin to assess the validity and effectiveness of the content and the tool with classroom-based field tests in rural schools in New York State. Questions we will investigate include: (1) How will the professional development materials provide historical simulations of students performance patterns for the teachers? (2) How do the curricula adopted in rural schools in New York State differ from curricula in inner city New York? (3) What subject matter is emphasized and what subject matter is downplayed in the math curricula of rural schools? (4) How do rural math educators want to learn about math difficulties? (5) How do rural educators make sense of state-mandated, and NCTM math curriculum reforms?
APPROACH: Learnimations approach is to apply scientific methodologies to the field of educational technology. The Learnimation team will begin with the existing Learnimation research base (currently at 416 relative articles in the fields of math education, math disabilities, educational research, cognitive science, and instructional design). Using that as a foundation the team will next formulate the design and pass each specification decision by one of our national expert review panels for approval. The software prototypes will be reviewed by our expert panels to assure content and design validity. A significant step in the Learnimation process is field testing. Rigorous and comprehensive field testing will refine the product into an effective and efficient decision-support tool. The software development methodology that Learnimation employs is Rapid Prototyping Development (RPD). This methodology produces market-ready products in a shorter amount of time with higher quality. Learnimation follows a very rigorous work plan to design a product and effectively translate that design to a commercial prototype. It is uncommon that Phase I investigations result in functional prototypes of new systems, however, Learnimation is committed to providing this high level of quality and value. The design process maintains the following guiding principles: (1) Special Population: to target a niche population that has been historically ignored by the mainstream market and research communities alike, teachers and students in rural populations faced with math difficulties; (2) Research to Practice: to facilitate educational reform in this population by bringing state of the art cognitive research into the classroom; (3) Innovation: to leverage (a) the potential of computer technology, (b) the latest neurological research, (c) the latest educational research validated interventions, and (d) the highest quality animation and design to build educational technology that helps teachers to optimizes individual instruction for each student; (4) Customer Satisfaction: to enhance customer satisfaction by using an iterative information technology prototyping methodology that includes a series of in classroom field tests based on a rigorous educational research plan; (5) Expert Guidance and Approval, Learnimation has partnered with nationally recognized experts that guide the content validity of each product; (6) Reliability and Prescriptive Validity, Learnimations methodology is a comprehensive validation plan that includes both formative and summative assessment, and standardized test scores.
PROGRESS: 2004/05 TO 2005/12
The Phase I award successfully validated the feasibility of an effective, next generation professional development program that helps rural educators acquire the knowledge and skills to meet the diverse learning needs of K-5 students struggling with math difficulties. The team achieved these results by completing each of the technical objectives proposed within the Phase I original proposal: **Objective #1: Design the pedagogical framework and operational definition for a series of professional development units. Author the content for 1 to 2 sample units in the framework. The team began work on this objective by analyzing the database of existing MD professional development research. The learning objectives for each unit of the professional development program were outlined. Importantly, the feasibility of the designs and the pedagogical content was validated with this objective. **Objective #2: Define an instructional design for a web-based professional development tool with the requirements of Universal Design that is inclusive of vision and hearing impaired individuals. In this objective, the GUI was designed across several iterations. The Usability Blueprint was also completed. The team successfully built four different iterations of the GUI across the Phase I timeline. Importantly, the feasibility of the instructional design was validated within this objective. **Objective #3: Build a functional prototype based on those specifications & the sample unit content. The feasibility of the technical architecture proposed in the Phase I investigation was successfully validated in several smaller prototypes and one final prototype. First, the Usability Blueprint was translated into the Technical Blueprint. Next, the GUI, the FlashMX components, the controller, and the transition manager were constructed. Importantly, the technical feasibility of the Phase II system was successfully validated within the Phase I timeline. **Objective #4: Begin to assess the validity and effectiveness of the content and the tool with classroom-based field tests in rural schools in New York State. Phase I supported field test iterations with high-needs rural school in upstate New York. The team worked with a small rural district with a rural high-needs index 4. Importantly, the field tests were very successful. This facilitated the feasibility validation of the product definition and general use and technical requirements in Phase I. In Summary: Meeting all of the Phase I objectives has successfully illuminated the priorities and concerns of the target end users - rural elementary school math teachers. These priorities will continue to be assessed and refined within the system over the next few months as the team works with additional rural classroom teachers and rural school administrators. It has been an honor and a tremendous opportunity to work with the talented math educators in rural communities in upstate New York. Thank you.
IMPACT: 2004/05 TO 2005/12
Math performance has consistently remained one the nations foremost goals in education. The development of these skills our society is essential to progress in science and technology, economic prosperity, and (according to the Hart-Rudman National Security Report), our Nations Security. Learnimations professional development product will help prepare more rural teachers to make effective instructional decisions for a substantial subset of the student population that has been left behind in mathematics education. In doing so, the benefits of this product will extend throughout rural communities as a higher skilled labor force and human capital attracts manufacturing contracts, entrepreneurship, and industry clusters to non-metro regions. This economic development has been strongly correlated with higher quality of life and sustainability for rural communities, including those with disabilities. The commercial impact of this innovation is significant and the benefit to struggling math learners in rural communities will be measurable
