Mathematical Thinkers Like Me

August 2020

Mathematical Thinkers Like Me (MLM) seeks to support Black, Latinx, and low income students with an online collaborative problem solving and storytelling context that helps develop their identity and strength as mathematical thinkers. In response to the educational debt inherited by our Black and Brown students, Mathematical Thinkers Like Me will provide a rich, challenging mathematical experience that rehumanizes mathematics, expanding what math is and what is valued in math learning, and that centers and supports the student voice in the math classroom.

The use of online collaborative problem solving and story-telling is an innovative context that integrates a focus on executive functions in practice (EFP) while developing conceptual understanding and fostering equity. Through collaborative practices both executive functions and the mathematical thinking needed for the development of conceptual understanding are made accessible and relevant for students. In this time of Covid-19 and the ever-increasing use of educational technology, and in this time of action on the injustice that burdens our Black and Brown students in particular, we need to plant a stake in math education that shows ways in which technology can rehumanize, rather than traumatize. We want to expand the access that students of color have to their mathematical selves and to the power and beauty of math.

Project research includes iterative, rapid cycle, as well as short-term and long-term, quasi-experimental studies. It will make use of quantitative analysis of mathematics knowledge and executive functioning, students’ collaborative practices (EFP), and interest development, as well as qualitative analysis of their development in these areas and of the instructional and cultural elements of the learning environment.

MLM Website: https://mathematicalthinkerslikeme.org/

https://vmt.mathematicalthinking.org/

Principal Investigator: Stephen Weimar

Staff:

21PSTEM

Annie Fetter

John Witter

Richard Tchen

Rutgers University-Newark

Arthur Powell

Miriam Rosenberg-Lee

Luis Rivera

Sophie Kuchynka

Swarthmore College

Ann Renninger

University of Sydney

Michael Jacobson

John Vulic

Desmos

Dan Meyer

Matt Jenny

Collaborators:

Patricia Buenrostro

Jamaal Matthews

Ilana S Horn

Adele Diamond

Partners:

Swarthmore College

Rutgers University-Newark

Desmos

University of Sydney

Funding Source: New Schools Venture Funds (EF+Math Program)

Start Date: August 2020
Duration: 5 Years
Award (first 3 years): $2,699,997.00
Location: Regional
Fiscal Agent: 21PSTEM