CRMSE Currently Funded Projects

CRMSE has grown steadily since its inception in 1985. There are currently 31 SDSU faculty associated with CRMSE, 13 from the College of Education, 17 from the College of Sciences, and one who belongs to both. The Center's currently funded projects employ approximately 28 staff as well as student assistants.

In addition to its support of faculty research efforts, CRMSE also houses the SDSU-UCSD Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education. There are currently 11 doctoral students enrolled in the program, many of whom play an integral part in the research projects led by CRMSE faculty.

Leland Beck (PI) and Alexander Chizhik (co-PI), Cooperative Learning Methods for Java-based CSI Courses, funded by the National Science Foundation, CCLI. 

Nadine Bezuk and Lionel “Skip” Meno, Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics, Qualcomm. 

The Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics (ISAM) project was created to help improve students’ mathematics understanding and achievement by extending teachers’ content knowledge of mathematics and effective mathematics teaching in grades K - 12. The project staff works with district partners to design and implement programs to meet district, school, and teacher needs. ISAM currently has partnerships with several local school districts, including Lemon Grove School District, Ramona Unified School District, Sweetwater Union High School District, and the City Heights Educational Pilot. 

Kathleen Fisher, Nadine Bezuk, and Cheryl Mason, Springboard To Success! Robert C. Noyce Scholarship Award. 

The Springboard to Success! Noyce Scholarship program at San Diego State University aims to open the science and mathematics education pipeline in middle and high schools in Sweetwater Union High School District and City Heights Educational Collaborative. Included are 28 schools serving highly diverse, low socioeconomic populations. The aim is to infuse 24 ethnically diverse, reform-minded science and mathematics teachers into the systems. A related goal is to build a community of practice among science and mathematics teachers and prospective teachers, to enhance and sustain momentum, energy and knowledge about hands-on minds-on learning for understanding. Springboard Scholars are actively recruited, carefully selected, well educated, appropriately placed, and supported by collaborative support providers drawn from the districts and SDSU Colleges of Science and Education. Scholars participate in professional development workshops year-round during their student and teaching years. They engage in action research to monitor and improve both instructional practice and personal growth. They also attend professional meetings with such groups as CSU/NASA and AAAS – Pacific Division. A continuing goal is to promote understanding of the nature of science and of science as a process as well as a body of knowledge. 

Fred Goldberg and Sharon Bendall, Systems and Interactions: Constructing Ideas in Physical Science (CIPS), funded by the National Science Foundation. 

The CIPS project is developing an inquiry-based, computer-supported physical science course that engages middle school students in constructing meaningful understandings of important physical science concepts. Topics drawn from the NRC National Science Education Standards and AAAS Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy include the physical science concepts of properties and changes in the properties of matter, the structure of matter, motion and forces, and transfer of energy; the unifying themes of systems, models, constancy and change, and equilibrium; the nature of science and the scientific enterprise; and some experiences with the history of science and science and societal issues. A pedagogical model will be applied, based on two decades of research on science learning, which indicate the importance of checking student understanding and building conceptual knowledge through tangible experiences. 

Fred Goldberg, Sharon Bendall, Robert Poel and Patricia Heller, CIPS Professional Development Project, funded by the National Science Foundation. 

This project will produce a robust professional development (PD) package for school districts to use to support implementation of the Constructing Ideas in Physical Science (CIPS) middle school curriculum.  The CIPS PD package will engage teachers in 120 hours of substantive and innovative PD over two years.  The package will consist of materials for a Getting Started Workshop, materials for seven Follow-up Workshops, a CIPS Users Site and two CIPS Discussion Forums.  Together, these components address national standards in science teaching and learning.  The weeklong Getting Started Workshop introduces teachers to CIPS and to pertinent issues in teaching and learning.  Subsequent Follow-up Workshops address teachers’ emergent needs during their first two years of teaching CIPS, and introduce and support the use of the CIPS Users Site and the CIPS Forums.  The CIPS Users Site is a web site that will provide hyper-linked information about all aspects of CIPS, along with tutorials to support pedagogical issues and science content beyond the face-to-face workshops.  The CIPS Forums will support web-based discussions about science teaching, student learning, and physical science.  The CIPS PD package will be developed by an experienced team of university physical science education researchers, middle school teachers and other experts, and piloted and field tested at three large school systems around the United States.  Project evaluation will be conducted by monitoring teacher activity and the impact on students’ learning.  At the end of the project, the package will be disseminated by a commercial publisher. 

Fred Goldberg, Professional Development Materials for Constructing Physics Understanding Among Prospective and Practicing Elementary Teachers, funded by the National Science Foundation.  

This project will develop a robust professional development package with three major components: (1) a set of curriculum materials to help prospective and practicing elementary teachers develop a deep understanding of target physics ideas included in the NRC National Science Education Standards and the AAAS Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy at the middle school level; (2) a complementary set of materials to help the teachers develop an understanding of how elementary students learn the corresponding standards and benchmark ideas at the elementary level; and (3) a set of materials to guide University faculty and other professional development providers in using the materials described in (1) and (2) in courses or workshops. The curriculum materials in (1) will include exemplary use of computer technology and will be adapted from two other NSF-funded projects (Constructing Physics Understanding and Constructing Ideas in Physical Science). The sets of materials for (2) and (3) will include extensive use of video showing how elementary students and prospective and practicing teachers learn the target physics ideas. All three components will be extensively piloted and field tested through a series of workshops and courses. Dissemination of the entire professional development package through diverse channels will also be explored during the project period. A substantive evaluation plan will examine the impact of the professional development experiences on both prospective and practicing elementary teachers and University faculty. 

Joanne Lobato, Coordinating Social and Individual Aspects of Generalizing Activity: A Multi-tiered ‘Focusing Phenomena’ Study, 2005-2008, funded by the National Science Foundation. 

Sandra P. Marshall and Robert Pozos, Understanding and Measuring Cognitive Workload: A Coordinated Multidisciplinary Approach, funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research via subcontract through George Mason University.  

This project is part of a joint effort with George Mason University. The main scientific objectives are to develop predictive (based upon cognitive modeling) and descriptive (based upon physiological data) measures of cognitive workload. The SDSU research group will focus on the physiological measures, using eye-tracking and electromyographic instrumentation to study pupil dilation, eye blinks, and muscle fatigue as indicators of cognitive workload. 

Cheryl L. Mason (Co-PI), Dennis Sunal (PI) & Cynthia Sunal (Co-PI), University of Alabama; & Dean Zollman (Co-PI), Kansas State University, STEEP (Science Teacher Education and its Effect on Practice), funded by the National Science Foundation. 

This $2.1 million, 5-year project (2006-2011) focuses on critical needs in the undergraduate preparation and long-term professional development of K-6 teachers of science. The goal is to investigate the impact on these students of undergraduate, standards-based, reform undergraduate science courses developed by faculty in the NASA Opportunities for Visionary Academics (NOVA) professional development model. Thirty reform and 30 comparison undergraduate science courses from a national population of 101 diverse institutions, stratified by institutional type, will be selected and compared in a professional development impact design model. CRMSE’s Dr. Cheryl Mason and MSED first-year doctoral student, Corinne Lardy, will serve as the western region research team for STEEP, collecting data from study institutions within the Western United States, as well as helping to coordinate larger aspects of the project as a whole. 

Ricardo Nemirovsky, SLC Catalyst: Research on Embodied Mathematical Cognition, Technology, and Learning. 

The goal of this SLC Catalyst activity is to bring together leading researchers in the fields of education, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and mathematics to develop plans for a Science of Learning Center that pursues research on embodied mathematical cognition, technology, and learning. The Center will develop theory and empirical research that can encompass (a) the rapid emergence of new technologies and types of professional work that involve mathematical description and analysis, (b) the challenges of providing all students with equitable access to powerful forms of mathematical thinking, and (c) the need to prepare learners for the increasingly unpredictable demands of work and public life. 

Susan Nickerson, Collaborating to Learn Mathematics and Improve Practice, funded by the Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program (California Postsecondary Education Commission).  

A primary goal of the project is to provide middle school teachers in low-performing urban schools with the opportunity to develop a profound understanding of mathematics and to couple this with support for developing stronger instructional practice. The project activities are grounded in the study of mathematics and provide opportunities for collaborative learning and reflection focused on instructional practice at the school site. The teachers' professional development experience is planned and tightly coordinated with the Secondary Site Mathematics Administrators. This project represents a significant effort at promoting coherence between university-based and school-based learning experiences. The first research study investigates the effectiveness of our professional development efforts. The second research study takes a perspective that the learning processes of teachers encompass more than explicit teaching events and that the practices of the teachers are situated within the communities of the schools and school district in which they work. The second study has a goal of understanding the projects' coherence, scalability, and sustainability. 

Walter Oechel and Donna Ross, GK–12: K–6 Science Corps Fellows for the San Diego PISCES Project, funded by the National Science Foundation. 

The PISCES Project is a district-based, community-supported elementary science improvement program for grades K through 6. For the first time in the participating school districts a collaboration model has been built through the consensus of all the partners (schools, universities and local corporations) to form science leadership teams across San Diego County and carry out the following enterprises: 1) Nurture systemic leadership for ongoing science education improvement in each school district. 2)Provide a high-quality, research-based professional development program in elementary science for district leadership teams and teachers and support its in-depth replication within each district. 3) Create a Science Corps in collaboration with higher education and industry to support schools and teachers in the use of exemplary science instructional materials and pedagogy. The project is the next step in an ongoing countywide initiative to exploit the full benefits of collaboration between schools and the region’s science-rich corporations, research centers, and universities. Eight district teams of teachers, administrators, and university and industry scientists have collaboratively developed a five year plan for curriculum, materials support, professional development, assessment, and administrative and community support. 

Randy Philipp and Vicki Jacobs, Studying Teachers' Evolving Perspectives (STEP): A Cross-Sectional Snapshot of Teachers Engaged in Sustained Professional Development Focused on Children's Mathematical Thinking, funded by the National Science Foundation. 

In this 5-year (2005–2010) Teacher Professional Continuum project, the researchers seek to map a trajectory for the evolution of elementary school mathematics teachers engaged in sustained professional development related to children’s mathematical thinking. Four cohorts of 30 teachers each are differentiated on the basis of the length of their participation in such professional development: initial participants (in the beginning stage), advancing participants (completed 2–3 years), teacher leaders (completed at least 4 years and assumed leadership roles), and prospective teachers, a critical anchor for the initial participants’ evolutionary trajectory. Using a cross-sectional design to investigate teachers at distinct points along the trajectory, the researchers will design and employ beliefs surveys, noticing instruments to assess teacher interpretation of classroom interactions, observation protocols for professional development and classroom instruction, and content assessments to answer their research question: What are the similarities and differences among elementary school teachers at three points during sustained professional development in terms of their knowledge, beliefs, and practices? Additionally, a longitudinal analysis of six cases will provide important information about the changing needs of teachers while they evolve from initial participants to advancing participants. Secondary to the central research question is a formative assessment of the relevance and application of the research findings to providers of disparate models of professional development for both prospective and practicing teachers. 

Chris Rasmussen, Differential Equations: Building a Theory of Student Reasoning and Understanding, funded by the National Science Foundation. 

The purpose of this project is to enlarge our understanding of how emerging analyses of student thinking, technology, context problems, and symbol use can be profitably coordinated to promote student learning of advanced, undergraduate mathematics, using differential equations as a specific case. The project will illustrate how theory-driven work at the elementary and secondary level can inform, guide, and sustain the learning and teaching of university mathematics in technology-rich classrooms. The particular perspective that guides this research is a version of social constructivism termed the “emergent perspective.” The project also draws on the theory of Realistic Mathematics Education, developed over the past two decades at the Freudenthal Institute. The research methodology employed in this project falls under the heading of “design research.” Design research highlights the dialectical relationship between research and practice, centering on the learning-teaching process with particular attention to the mental activities of students. Three, semester-long classroom teaching experiments and individual student interviews will be conducted over a period of five years. Data sources will include videorecordings of all classroom sessions, videorecordings of student interviews, copies of student work, and records of project meetings. Data analysis will follow the constant comparative method adapted for longitudinal classroom videorecordings and multiple data sources. The integrated education plan focuses on the creation of a shareable, local instructional theory underpinning a sequence of instructional activities designed to promote students’ mathematical development in differential equations 

Steve Reed, Bob Hoffman, and Daphne Chen, Animation Tutor Project. 

The Animation Tutor research project dynamically links bar graphs to equations so students can see how variables in the equation change as they change the height of the bars. We are hoping that manipulating these quantities will improve students' estimation skills and their ability to construct equations for word problems. 

Donna Ross,  Bahia: Secondary Students Teaching Teachers, funded by the Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program (California Postsecondary Education Commission). 

The BAHIA program uses an intensive educational experience, including 5 weeks at a field station in Bahia de Los Angeles, to teach marine science content to high school English Learners. The Hoover High School students will spend 17 weeks together, with support from scientists, museum educators, graduate students and the primary investigators. Close mentorships will be forged, building on the academic strengths of 11th graders and Spanish skills of 9th graders. BAHIA will provide an intense science experience in a novel and scientifically rich environment. 

After thorough preparation, the students, with support from scientists and educators, will lead professional development for science in-service and pre-service teachers. BAHIA recognizes and values the community's existing cultural and linguistic strengths and strives to improve attitudes about students' abilities, equity in science, and environmental stewardship while imparting science content knowledge. 

Rafaela M. Santa Cruz, San Diego Mathematics Project, funded by the California Mathematics Project through the UC Regents. 

The primary purpose of the San Diego Mathematics Project (SDMP) is to develop the leadership potential of teachers of mathematics, grades K-12, in order to improve the quality of mathematics instruction in San Diego and Imperial Counties. SDMP is a collaborative effort among personnel from the  SDSU College of Education, the SDSU College of Sciences, the San Diego County Office of Education, San Diego City Schools, and other school districts.  In response to growing demands and interests by educators, both inside and outside the mathematics education community, various interest groups, California Mathematics Project initiatives, and collaborative projects have developed. Based on the belief that these groups are fluid and should be lead by teacher leaders, the project has a leadership team structure. Participation in any of the teams is voluntary and open to all SDMP teachers and other interested educators. The major components of both the three-year leadership institute and the one-year program are two and three-week summer workshops, a three-day fall retreat, and winter and spring follow-up days. Other activities include working with two partner schools and sponsoring special events and workshops to meet local needs particularly those related to equity and second language learners.  

Rafaela M. Santa Cruz, Mathematics Professional Development Institute, funded by the San Diego County Office of Education. 

AB 466 programs were awarded as supplemental funding to existing Mathematics Professional Development Institute (MPDI) funding. The AB 466 programs are  MPDIs that work with target school districts that are not a part of current MPDIs. San Diego State University will: 1) Lead the collaboration with  SDCOE and regional consortia to develop a coordinated and cohesive plan aligned with AB 466, MPDI requirements, and regional consortia goals; 2) Lead  the collaboration with SDCOE and regional consortia to develop coordinated menu of mathematics sessions to meet regional consortia goals; and 3)  Collaborate with SDCOE and regional consortia district leadership in the development of a coordinated menu of district AB 466 programs that are  connected to the prior 80 hours of mathematics training. 

Rafaela Santa Cruz, The San Diego State University Mathematics Science Teacher Initiative (MSTI).  

MSTI is a comprehensive program to double its credential enrollments in mathematics and science.  The first component of the program will focus on expanding numbers of candidates seeking other credentials who also obtain mathematics or subject-matter authorizations.  The second component will create a new pathway for community college transfer students interested in mathematics and science credentials.  The third component will seek to add new pools of students by identifying and mentoring high school students interested in teaching mathematics or science.