RESEARCH

Best algebra curriculum = x

Mathematicians at UD and Marquette University have been awarded a $2.4 million National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant to compare the effectiveness of different algebra curricula for middle school students.

Jinfa Cai, UD professor of mathematical sciences, and John Moyer, professor of mathematics at Marquette, will investigate the effects of using the Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) curriculum on algebraic learning. They will compare those results with the effects of using other school mathematics curricula.

The CMP curriculum is a complete, NSF-funded, middle school mathematics program. The comparison will try to determine the ways and circumstances under which the CMP curriculum can or cannot enhance student learning of algebra.

“I am very pleased to receive the funding for this line of research. It is truly an honor for UD to host this five-year project,” Cai says. “So far, this is the largest grant NSF awarded to ‘independent researchers,’ those who have no associations with the curricula or authors of the curricula to be studied, in this program.”

The research will be conducted in 12 public middle schools in Milwaukee. Six schools that have adopted the CMP curriculum will be randomly selected, as will six non-CMP schools with comparable ethnicity, family incomes, accessibility of resources and test results. About 1,200 students will be selected in each of the two groups and followed for four years through high school.

“The project includes three major components,” Cai says. “First of all, we will investigate how selected curricula were designed and developed, then we will investigate how teachers actually implement the curricula in the classrooms, and finally, we will examine what students actually learn in the classroom.

“No comprehensive longitudinal studies have ever been conducted to investigate curriculum issues under the implementation conditions that arise in urban settings while controlling for variation among teachers and specific classrooms of students.”

Findings from the project are expected to eventually help close achievement gaps between minority and nonminority students.

“I am interested in how students learn mathematics and solve problems and how teachers can provide and create learning environments that would help students make sense of mathematics,” Cai says.

— Martin Mbugua