This Synthesis Project intends to integrate the literature bearing on the transition from elementary to secondary mathematics in interventions (approaches to high school structure and curriculum), the literature in learning and cognitive sciences, and comparative analyses of mathematics curricula that are more theory-driven. The intent is to examine the effects on student learning. The design of providing a triangulation of the findings from the three literatures is expected to better guide practitioners to promising practices and researchers to potentially high payoff research questions. The literature reviews and the synthesis of findings will be organized around three research questions: 1) Which features of secondary mathematics programs are most often associated with learning gains for under-prepared students? 2) What do these literatures suggest as possibilities for improving mathematics programs for low-income high school students? 3) What are the incompatibilities and tensions between generally effective mathematics curricula and instruction? The analysis is designed to highlight themes (develop a framework and apply it in an analysis) in the three literature reviews noted above (interventions, cognitive science, and curriculum comparisons) and then to synthesize the reviews through some sort of conceptual integration around the three research questions. An Expert Review Group (ERG) of mathematics educators, mathematicians and math theorists, mathematics education researchers, learning scientists, and mathematics high school intervention PIs will be formed to provide an ongoing analysis and critique of the five stage process (recruiting expert group, identifying and summarizing the three literatures, coding the mathematics intervention data, evaluating and refining the syntheses, and disseminating the syntheses).
