Center for Mathematics Education (CFME)

Together Math

Collaborative Research: Parents, Teachers, and Multilingual Children Collaborating on Mathematics Together

Beatriz Quintos, Ph.D.

Carolina Napp-Avelli, Ph.D.
Carolina Napp-Avelli, PhD.

Claudia Galindo, Ph.D.

Melinda Martin-Beltran, Ph.D.
Melinda Martin-Beltran
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The connections between students' home and family contexts and the activities of formal schooling are critical to support meaningful learning and family engagement in formal schooling. The need to better understand and make use of those connections is particularly important for multilingual learners whose family and cultural contexts may differ significantly from school contexts and their teachers' own experiences. The goal of this project is to develop and study a mathematics partnership that engages multilingual children, their teachers, and their parents in mathematical experiences together. These mathematical experiences are designed to advance equity in mathematics education for multilingual students. The project will design professional learning opportunities for parents, teachers, and students, and study the ways in which the professional learning opportunities influence teacher beliefs, quality of instruction, parent beliefs, and teacher and parent understanding of positioning.

This project uses a design-based implementation research (DBIR) approach, along with principles of Social Design Experiments to engage in iterative cycles of inquiry to develop, implement, and refine the model. Parents, teachers, and students in three states (Arizona, Maryland, and Missouri) will be recruited that represent diverse populations both with respect to demographics and with respect to the policy contexts surrounding multilingual learners. 

This project is funded by NSF, The Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12) that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by PreK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.