The Center for Classroom Training and Learning at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory is joining with the Departments Mathematics at Oregon State University and Portland State University to investigate the effectiveness of a mathematics assessment professional development model. The adjectives of the project address the effect of the NWREL Mathematics Problem-Solving Model (NWREL MPM) on instructional strategies, patterns of classroom discourse, and student achievement in and attitudes toward mathematical problem solving. The project will also investigate the technical quality of the NWREL MPM when used by classroom teachers; the nature of teachers' implementation of the NWREL MPM in classrooms'; the effect of the use of web-based technological support of rubric-based discourse with middle school mathematics students to facilitate implementation by teachers'; and the nature of post-intervention changes in teachers' instructional and assessment practices. The mixed-methodological research design will combine a quasi-experimental field test of the professional development program with a qualitative analysis of the implementation of the program. A quantitative quasi-experimental field test will compare the performances of students of treatment and control teachers on project-designed mathematical problem-solving tasks and on state or district standardized tests. A detailed ethnographic qualitative analysis of the implementation efforts in the classrooms of both treatment and control teachers will provide information about how problem-solving instruction is carried out and about the nature of classroom discourse patterns will be examined. A manual for problem solving assignments will be developed, field tested by teacher leaders in the project, and sisseminated in 4 regional invited conferences.
Intellectual Merit of the Proposed Research Project Much of the research in teacher assessment knowledge and practice has been carried out with a strictly qualitative approach. This project seeks to expand that research to include a field-based examination of the effect of a particular assessment-focused professional development intervention on the practices of teachers and the academic performance of students. Both the impact of the professional development and the ways in which that impact is realized in the complex environment of the classroom are the target understandings that will be developed. Connecting the significant technical assistance resources of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory with the content rich expertise of university researchers strengthens the capacity for the development of new understandings about how assessment influences instruction and student learning.
Broader Impact on the Proposed Research Project The focus of this research is to develop casual explanations of how assessment that is both formative and summative in nature contributes to student learning. New knowledge about how helping students to develop an understanding of the criteria by which they are evaluated enhances achievement will be an out come of this project. With connections to institutions that enhances achievement will be an outcome of this project. With connections to institutions that have a strong history of participation in teacher preservice education and the potential to include the results of this research in teacher education courses on assessment, this proposal will provide direct impact on teachers learn about assessment in the classroomevidence of the interactions between teachers and students focused around conversations about performance and criteria for evaluation will contribute to teacher networks that support work in the classroom.
