Scaling Up Innovative Technology-Based Mathematics

Research–practice interactions as reported in recent design studies: still promising, still hazy

“…As expected, teachers all contribute by using the newly developed products. In three primary school cases (and in one professional development program, see below), their role is limited to this (Hickey et al 2009;Lamberg and Middleton 2009;Tatar et al 2008): after instructions, these primary level school teachers are asked to implement what has been designed by the researchers/designers such as a game-based ecology curriculum or a series of math lessons. These projects share their focus on testing the 'robustness' and generalizability in producing an artifact (instructional solution) and/or of theoretical understandings, requiring teachers to implement a new design or teach a control group.…”

“…However, in these projects other teachers had been involved in an earlier stage more substantially (e.g. Tatar et al 2008;also Tiberghien et al 2009). …”

“…Also Hickey et al (2009) involved a doctoral student as a content expert for making improvements to the feedback system of the game they were developing. Tatar et al (2008) reported on the development of a math replacement unit, which was created by a designer with prior experience writing school mathematics curriculum. In two studies, students were involved in design activities.…”

“…Data is gathered to research interaction patterns, but these are not related to improvements. For the changes made to their designs, Barnes et al (2008), So et al (2009), Tatar et al (2008 and refer to project data only but do not specify in much detail how. In one case (Tatar et al 2008), the phase of the project is to establish the effectiveness of a math replacement unit implemented at quite a large scale and compared to a control group.…”

“…For the changes made to their designs, Barnes et al (2008), So et al (2009), Tatar et al (2008 and refer to project data only but do not specify in much detail how. In one case (Tatar et al 2008), the phase of the project is to establish the effectiveness of a math replacement unit implemented at quite a large scale and compared to a control group. Where no reference is made to literature to inform the design, this is most likely due to the phase of the project (beyond the initial design, as in Tatar et al 2008) or to the originality of the topic (e.g.…”