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SunBay Digital Math
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Project Overview
The Helios Education Foundation and the Pinellas Education Foundation, in partnership with the Pinellas County School District, is funding SRI International and
the College of Education at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg to conduct the SunBay Digital Mathematics research project, a pilot study on the use of digital mathematics resources and teacher professional development in Pinellas County, Florida.
Project objectives are to begin implementation of digital mathematics materials coupled with associated teacher professional development, build a strong foundation for collaboration between SRI, the District, and the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, and to develop a strategic plan that will allow for sustainability scaling the digital math materials in future years.
SRI will lead the effort to revise digital mathematics materials that have been shown to be successful in prior work. These materials will be evaluated to see if they meet the requirements of the Next Generation Sunshine State Math Standards, and the needs of Pinellas County. SRI will revise and deliver teacher professional development sessions on the use of these materials and will work with University of South Florida St. Petersburg to create ongoing professional development materials on the use of technology and research-based teaching methods. SRI will also work with all partners on the creation of the strategic plan. |
SunBay project news release:
Related (SimCalc) news releases and technical reports:
SunBay Digital Math Project Leader/Expert Source
Phil Vahey, SRI senior research scientist (bio | high-resolution photo)
News Coverage
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St. Petersburg Times: A Collaboration Hopes to Help Seventh-Graders in Pinellas County Master Algebra I
This article reports that the Pinellas school district will have a trio of allies this fall as it increases its efforts to get middle school students fired up about math. SRI International, the Helios Foundation and the University of South Florida St. Petersburg will partner with the district in a half-million-dollar project to get more kids ready for Algebra I by the end of seventh grade. Pinellas superintendent Julie Janssen, who began her career as a middle school math teacher in the 1980s, was impressed with a Texas project conducted by SRI International. Over a two-year span, a group of 95 Texas teachers from 74 schools used SimCalc, a digital software similar to the kind used in Pinellas. The interactive software creates models students can manipulate to better learn math concepts such as proportionality. When the software was bolstered by professional development and a curriculum geared to the state's math standards, Texas students saw a 46 percent improvement in their math scores, according to SRI data. SRI hopes to produce similar results in Pinellas — and sustain them.
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Tampa Bay Business Journal: Pilot Math Project Involves SRI, USF and Helios Education Foundation
This article reports that SunBay Digital Mathematics, a math education pilot project, began this week in Pinellas County. According to the article, the Helios Education Foundation and the Pinellas County School District are partnering with SRI International and the University of South Florida’s College of Education in a project to set the direction for middle school mathematics.
- Hot Chalk, July 7, 2009: A Conversation with Jeremy Roschelle: This interview details SRI’s latest math education research. Jeremy Roschelle, director of SRI’s Center for Technology in Learning, is an expert on computer-supported collaborative learning and the uses of innovative technology in learning. According to Jeremy, "We have been conducting research with technology to address two of the most difficult math concepts—fractions in elementary school and proportionality in middle school". Also discussed in the article is SRI's software to enhance math learning called TechPALS, and SRI's Scaling Up SimCalc that uses animation and graphs to address the difficult topics of proportionality and related pre-algebra concepts.
- National Science Foundation, June 24, 2008: Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge: This National Science Foundation (NSF) piece includes mention of SimCalc, developed by Jim Kaput, Stephen Hegedus, and SRI's Jeremy Roschelle. According to the article, "SimCalc is an important example of how new properties of technology enable a restructuring of fundamental mathematics content, enhancing student learning. SimCalc signature MathWorlds software gives students the ability to sketch graphs and see resulting motions."
- Education Week, September 25, 2007: R&D Project on Algebra Software Seen to Show Promise:This article reports that recent research on SimCalc, computer software that shows students visual models of mathematical concepts, is providing some of the best evidence so far that the approach can lead to gains in student learning. Data released by SRI show "large effects" from the use of SimCalc, when it is bolstered by professional development and curriculum that are both geared to the state's math standards.
Related websites
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