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Connecting a teacher dashboard to a student digital collaborative environment: supporting teacher enactment of problem-based mathematics curriculum

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Abstract

Teacher dashboards in mathematics classrooms tend to provide teachers with information on student performance that are often linked to classroom management systems, online course systems, or peer-tutoring software. Teacher dashboards also tend to emphasize features that support teachers using a “transition” or “direct instruction” model. In our approach, we iteratively designed, developed, tested, and refined a teacher dashboard that is linked to a student digital collaborative environment with an embedded problem-based mathematics curriculum. In this study, we investigate teacher dashboard features that support teacher enactment of problem-based mathematics curriculum embedded in a digital collaborative platform. We report on design principles that guided the development of three teacher dashboard features: (1) monitoring evidence of student thinking in real-time or after class, (2) accessing workspace for whole-class discussions of the problem, and (3) creating and sending “just-in-time” supports. The pedagogical advantages and challenges teachers face throughout the iterative development process are also discussed. Evidence from observational data and teacher interviews suggests that the organic synergism generated from the student and teacher digital platform offers several ways that teachers are provided with new and timely information from teacher dashboards that supports problem-based mathematics teaching.

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Notes

  1. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grants, DRL-1660926, DRL- 1,620,934, and DRL-1620874. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Funding

Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (Grant no. DRL-1660926, DRL- 1620934, and DRL-1620874).

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  1. Michigan State University, 619 Red Cedar Rd, C-723 Wells Hall, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Alden J. Edson & Elizabeth Difanis Phillips

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  1. Alden J. Edson
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Correspondence to Alden J. Edson.

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Edson, A.J., Phillips, E.D. Connecting a teacher dashboard to a student digital collaborative environment: supporting teacher enactment of problem-based mathematics curriculum. ZDM Mathematics Education 53, 1285–1298 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01310-w

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