This twenty-eight month project adapts, pilots, and publishes a set of professional-development materials that middle-grade schools can use to improve pre-algebra and algebra instruction. The Algebraic-Thinking Data Toolkit, a set of modular tools for teacher learning, guides teachers as they gather and interpret a variety of data relevant to the development of algebraic-thinking habits of mind in their students, and as they implement decisions to improve the school's instructional program. The materials adapt the processes used in the Linked Learning in Mathematics project, an existing NSF-supported Teacher Enhancement project in the Milwaukee Public Schools, in which teachers use artifacts of their practice to help them recognize and understand algebraic thinking in student work and reflect on implications for their classroom practice. Drawing from those experiences and building on them, the Toolkit is comprised of four components, which will be piloted and field-tested in a dozen different sites:
1. Analyzing Written Student Work. Focus: looking for threads of algebraic thinking in students' written work on mathematics activities and identifying areas of difficulty in understanding, as well as ways to improve instruction.
2. Reflecting on Classroom Observation Data. Focus: observing classes to identify types and frequencies of questions and other moves intended to elicit algebraic thinking; also, providing debriefing opportunities for teacher reflection on their use of questions.
3. Analyzing Student Interview Data. Focus: analyzing algebraic thinking, based on questioning and listening to students as they work on mathematics activities.
4. Using Test Data. Focus: establishing alignment issues between the school's intended mathematics curriculum and district testing, and supplementing district-level information.
Cost sharing, which approximates 6% of the NSF request, is derived from participating school districts.
