Math and science and the ability to solve problems in those disciplines lie at the heart of technical innovation and economic security in todays global marketplace. It has been shown that the acquisition of higher skill levels in problem solving can have significant effects on labor market success. For students with learning disabilities, access to the quality math and science education that will prepare them for this level of competition is severely limited. This situation becomes even more urgent when the statistics regarding the increasing numbers of students with disabilities are considered. Todays rural leaders are well aware that sustainable development at the local level requires a technically proficient workforce and high achieving schools, especially to attract the agriculturally-related manufacturing and alternative or renewable energy innovation contracts that are drivers in economic development for rural communities. The challenges to provide these key ingredients are complex at baseline, but for rural communities these challenges are magnified. Counties that produce a low-skill labor force are finding that rapidly-changing production technologies and overseas competition severely limit the prospects for local employment growth and long term economic development. With the advent of alternative and renewable energy and agricultural technology innovation, high tech cluster economic development initiatives will be looking for rural areas that have nurtured their math and science labor pool. Therefore, a rural countys ability to provide a high quality math education has direct implications for the communitys future economic prosperity, including their ability to limit any outmigration trends and build a sustainable ecosystem. Programs that raise problem solving abilities in math and science are an essential part of any successful strategy to improve the economic well-being of rural America. With this in mind, the Learnimation team will design, build, and validate a web-based, distance learning Problem Solving Practice System that will provide rural students and educators with ample practice across the complete range of problem types required for problem solving mastery prior to work in algebra. The method that will be used is rapid prototyping with frequent focus group and field test input. The expected outcomes in the Phase I award include an instructional design, a functional prototype of the system and feedback gleaned from high need rural educators and expert panelists. The anticipated benefits to participating high need rural teachers include exposure to research-based problem solving materials, educational technology design processes and problem solving curricula. The anticipated social benefit of this investigation exists in the creation of a tool that will allow rural communities to reinvest in their math education programs and prepare their communities for future development. Following a successful Phase II timeline, the anticipated benefits include larger-scale design and implementation of a web-based resource for improving problem solving performance in math and science in high need rural communities. OBJECTIVES: This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project targets math and science problem solving in high need rural elementary and middle schools that are struggling to provide at risk students and students with disabilities with ample intervention and practice across the full breadth of problem types mandated by the National Math Panels 2008 recommendations. Todays rural leaders are well aware that sustainable development at the local level requires a technically proficient workforce and high achieving schools, especially to attract the agriculturally-related manufacturing and alternative or renewable energy innovation contracts that are drivers in economic development for rural communities. The challenges to provide these key ingredients are complex, however, telecommunications and distance learning applications hold the potential to alleviate these challenges by helping to distribute high quality and low-cost problem solving math and science materials to enable differentiated instruction across rural America. The proposed Phase I timeline will produce a functional prototype and the initial validation study for a Problem Solving Practice System - a web-based educational software product designed to enable rural educators to offer the carefully sequenced ample practice as mandated by the National Math Panels 2008 recommendations. The tool will be designed specifically for at risk students and students with learning disabilities but could easily be used for gifted and talented groups of students in earlier grade levels. The problem solving interface will enable rural educators to provide individualized problem solving practice on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to individual, small group, or whole classes of students, aligned with state performance indicators, state standards, and importantly, the leading curricula scope and sequences. The system will be browser-based and the design will provide access to thousands of problem examples. In order to reach that goal, the team will have to meet the following objectives - translate the problem type ontology into the generator design and complete the instructional design for both educator and student interfaces, build a functional prototype of the system and begin to assess effectiveness of the instructional design within high need rural schools in upstate New York. Successful completion of this Phase I timeline will lay the foundation for the development of the market-ready product by the end of the Phase II timeline. There are already several high need rural schools interested in purchasing this tool and the Learnimation team will be working closely with them to build to their needs. A browser-based tool of this sort has the potential to be distributed quickly to rural school districts across the country
