Progress 11/15/20 to 11/14/21
Outputs
Target Audience:Two types of audiences benefited directly from our efforts: 975 educators and 31,158 students. EDUCATORS During the project period, training was received by 975 educators. The overwhelming majority of participants were classroom teachers, with less than 25% of the participants comprised of paraprofessionals, resource specialists, administrators, after-school program staff and student-teachers. The goal of the Growing Math project was to provide math and agricultural science integrated with Indigenous history and culture and 94% of participants in training were from six targeted states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. An additional 3% of participants, while not residing or teaching in the target states, served students from reservations in those states, including teachers in the small portion of the Navajo Nation that extends into Utah and teachers in Nebraska who taught students from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, which extend from South Dakota to the Nebraska border. The remaining 3% of participants attending training were educators in programs serving predominantly Indigenous students with an interest in replicating the project in their region. The focus was on grades three through eight and 98% of participants served students in those grades. Although the training was available to any educator in the six target states, the majority of educators in attendance taught at schools on or adjacent to reservations. The modal teacher taught in a small school with multiple grades in his or her classroom. STUDENTS During the project period, 23,399 students used resources developed by the Growing Math project. These are students who accessed the online resources directly, tracked by username. Certainly, additional students were exposed to project resources indirectly through lesson plans downloaded and used by their teachers. While schools prohibit collection of individually identifying data on students, users are connected with classroom teacher for data reports and thus aggregate data can be reported. The students served were overwhelmingly in grades three through eight, as noted above, in the six targeted states and disproportionately attended schools that were on reservations and majority Indigenous students. Only one teacher reported teaching at a school where students did not have devices to access the Internet (Chromebook or iPad) provided to students, in a remote community that did not have Internet access. Students disproportionately (over 90%) attended Title I schools, where at least 40% of the students are from low-income families. Students had Internet access at all but one school, and access was provided out of school for remote learning, hybrid learning and homework through either subsidized home Internet access, MiFI (personal hotspot devices provided by schools), cards loaded with credit for data download or buses with hotspots that parked in local communities for scheduled hours each day. Changes/Problems:Changes that occurred were not as much in scope but in order of priorities and format. A significant change in priorities occurred as a result of input from the first two cohorts of teachers. Prior to remote learning, data on student engagement and performance had not been a major issue. As one teacher had said, "I know what my students are doing, they're right in front of me." With students no longer "in front of them", teachers were far more interested in data, particularly in time on task. Thus, new reports were created that showed not only the number of problems answered correctly (standards achieved) but also the number attempted and the number of sessions that students had interacted with the platform. This was positive in that it allowed more and earlier validation of data to be used to assess impact. It did, however, cause a small backlog of lessons and educational resources to be added to the platform as our staff created and validated reports. Addition of an asynchronous training option was not planned, but as many of the sessions are recorded for our own staff training purposes, for review for quality improvement and uploaded to the web for teachers who attended the training to review, much of the resources for asynchronous training were available. With high absenteeism and some schools moving back and forth among on-site, remote and hybrid learning, teachers were time-limited even more than usual. The possibility of asynchronous training was suggested by several teachers in cohorts to date, and thus will be added as an option for the next fiscal year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Thirty-nine teacher training workshops were offered - 37 of these online - in which teachers were trained in use of Growing Math for in-class, remote or hybrid learning. These are in addition to the 11 conference presentations reported. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to one peer-reviewed article, 11 conference presentations and 39 teacher training workshops, project staff have engaged in community dissemination activities, including: Presentation at Twin Cities Start-Up Week Burns Ortiz, M., Young, S. & Wulf, M. "Too Many Children Left Behind: Improving Equity in Education through Innovation." . Sept. 23, 2021. Minneapolis. Exhibitors at Minot State University Pow-wow, Minot, ND April, 2021. Yuba City Pow-wow, Yuba City, CA , June, 2021 North Dakota Indian Education Summit, Bismarck, ND, July, 2021 United Tribes Technical College pow-wow, Bismarck, ND, September 2021 Silver City Red Paint Pow-wow, September, 2021 Cahokia Art Gallery (Native-owned art collective) , Phoenix, AZ, October, 2021 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?As noted above, with the first priorities completed,the three issues now most requested are; more resources for middle school, more resources for special education and pre-packaging lessons into units. We are currently working on all three of these areas. We have five new educational games under development, all targeting middle school mathematics standards integrated with agricultural science, with an emphasis on traditional Indigenous aquaculture, diet, food handling, food preparation and farming. Supplemental funding to support these activities was received from four Indigenous nations. This funding will allow us to exceed the objective for number of new educational modules developed. To make the training accessible to more teachers around their schedules, we are developing asynchronous training, with short videos followed by forms for teacher assessment and input. We will be experimenting with this format for the next two quarters and offer both asynchronous and synchronous training, evaluating outcomes in terms of both teacher participation in the training and completion of educational modules by their students. With regard to impact evaluation, we will be merging teacher and student records to assess percentage of correct responses to in-app mathematics and science challenges by grade level across Fall, 2021, Spring 2022 and Fall 2022 semesters. A small amount of data is also expected to be collected in schools that offer summer sessions.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
To meet these goals, the project addresses the following seven objectives: Develop a web-based portal for grades 3- 8,centered around 106 existing modules aligned with math and social studies integrated with lesson plans for food and agricultural science, where resources can be accessed directly or downloaded for lateroff-line use. This portal has been created and is hosted at growingmath.org . Each educational module includes a game, cultural component, mathematics component, agricultural science component and data collection. Modules are combined by grade level in game format of 10-20 modules each. To supplement these resources the site currently contains 82 lesson plans, 127 videos and 10 miscellaneous resources (e.g., random sample simulator). More resources are added weekly. To date, 975 educators have attended training on the Growing Math platform. Lesson plans are accessed by an average of 70 teachers per day. Educational games accessible through the portal have been accessed by over 31,000 students in the past year. 2. Conduct a multi-phase rollout of curriculum, beginning December 2020, from teacher training through implementation and formative assessment with 240 schools served by the end of the 2022 academic year. Teachers from 141 schools attended training during the first year. Rollout of the curriculum began in January, 2021. For the first six months, individual interviews were conducted with teachers following the training to gather feedback on usability and improvements. Initial interviews included "think aloud" activities of teachers using the website, games and lesson plans while verbalizing their thoughts and experiences. Based on responses from the first two cohorts (N=65), in the 2020-21 academic year, a feedback form was developed and subsequent teachers had the option of submitting their feedback in writing or through interviews with the Principal Investigator or Project Director. In compliance with social distancing protocols, over 98% of interviews were conducted via web meeting. It was anticipated at the start of the project that the highest demand from teachers would be for more curriculum, more lesson plans for at home learning. Although these were one aspect of the program teachers accessed, they placed an early priority on more data on student time on task and performance, since during the initial months of the project most students were learning from home. Thus, expanded reporting was moved ahead in the development schedule. As students have returned to school, and report features have been completed, the three issues most requested are; more resources for middle school, more resources for special education and pre-packaging lessons into units. 3. Provide technical support to schools with a maximum 24-hour response time. Frequently asked questions are answered both during the online training and on the Growing Math website. Technical support can be requested using the contact form on the project website or via email to the email address provided during the Growing Math training. Both contact forms and email address are forwarded to four staff members with overlapping hours, such that the correspondence is monitored from 7am to 9pm Central time. All questions receive a response within one business day. In over 90% of the issues, one of the staff members on the response list can answer within the current business day. For more technical issues, for example, pop-up keyboard covering the question on small, mobile devices, the issue will be referred to a developer for update, and the teacher kept informed of progress. 4. Significantly increase student completion of mathematics and science assignments, both in-class and remote learning. Prior to USDA Growing Math funding, an average of 7,662 students per year completed educational modules - a total of 38,312 students over the previous five years. In the current year alone this has increased to 23,399 students - a 200% increase over the previous year. While the number of educational modules completed is triple the previous year, the engagement of students has not declined. The average student completed 5.3 modules in prior years and 5.3 in the current fiscal year. The number of educational modules completed by students prior to USDA funding averaged 40,634 per year. In the current fiscal year, students have completed 123,743 modules, again a 200% increase over the prior year. The stable level of engagement is noteworthy as teachers reported both in needs assessment conducted prior to funding and during the current fiscal year, that overall student task completion of school assignments and homework had dropped dramatically during remote learning in the target schools. 5. Significantly increase achievement on mathematics and science standards. Year one will provide the baseline for mathematics and science standards, with year two used to assess increase. Baseline data have been collected for fall semester, 2021 and are being collected for spring, 2022. However, it must be noted that there is likely to be a history effect, in that the 2021-22 school year has been impacted by students' remote learning the prior year, multiple school closures due to COVID-19 and high degree of absenteeism, particularly due to the omicron variant. Thus, anticipated improvement in achievement in the Fall, 2022 semester cannot be attributed wholly to the impact of the project. 6. Create 24 new modules in response to formative evaluation data. To date, 20 new educational modules have been created within three educational games, Making Camp Navajo (integrating ratio and proportion with traditional Navajo farming and crafts), Making Camp Dakota (integrating division word problems with traditional Dakota diet and medicinal plants) and AzTech Empiric Empire (teaching basic statistics, fractions and basic epidemiology in the context of Latino history). An additional 21 modules are under development. Exceeding the target was enabled byfinancialsupport from four of the Indigenous nations provided training under the project. 7. Conduct multi-state analysis of impact on student performance and engagement. This objective is scheduled for year two. With nearly all data collection issues addressed, teachers trained, modules completed and platform accessible, we are well-poised to begin the summative evaluation on schedule.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
De Mars, A., Taken Alive, J. R. , Burns Ortiz, M. , Ma, Z. & Wang, M. (in press). Educators Perspectives on Factors Impacting STEM Achievement in Rural Indigenous Student- Serving Schools , Rural Educator.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
De Mars, A. , Taken Alive, J. R., Hanson, C. & Sanchez, D. (2021). Building STEM capacity in indigenous nations: Research, Practice and Future Plans. Presentation at the Indigenous Education Research Conference (virtual)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burns Ortiz, M., Taken Alive, J. , Hanson, C. & De Mars, A. (2021); Growing Math: Engaging Students through integrating Indigenous culture, agriculture and mathematics. Presentation at the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum annual conference in Albuquerque, NM
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Taken Alive, J. , De Mars, A., Ma, Z. & Wang, M. (2021). Educators Perspectives on Barriers to STEM Achievement in Title I Schools Serving Rural Native American Students. Paper presented at National Indian Education Association annual conference in Omaha, NE.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Hanson, C. & De Mars, A. (2021). Learning math through Indigenous history and culture: The Growing Math Project. Presentation for the Din� Bi Olta School Board Association. (Virtual).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burns Ortiz, M. & Hanson, C. (2021). Growing Math: No One Benefits from Educational Resources They Dont Use. Din� Bi Olta School Board Association. (Virtual)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burns Ortiz, M., De Mars , A.,Mondaca, D. & Sanchez, D. (2021). Everybody Has a Backstory. Noche de Ciencias, sponsored by Arlington Public Schools and USPTO. (Virtual)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burns Ortiz, M. (2021). Addressing Barriers to Connectivity in Rural Communities, hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. Department of Education ED Games Expo. (Virtual)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Gutierrez, C. , Doshi, R. & Burns Ortiz, M. Federal Opportunities to Fuel Small Business DevelopmentFostering Access, Growth, and Engagement. Presentation at Reservation Economic Summit. July 21, 2021. Las Vegas.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Taken Alive, J., De Mars, A. , Burns Ortiz, M. & Hanson, C. (2021). Building STEM capacity in Indigenous Nations: Research, Practice and Future Plans. Presentation at the National Indian Education Association Annual Convention, Omaha, NE
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Taken Alive, J. R. & De Mars, A. (2021). Resources to promote STEM achievement in schools serving indigenous students. Presented at Technology and Innovation in Education conference. (Virtual).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Burns Ortiz, M. (2021).Games That Make You Smarter. Invited Speaker by U.S. State Department, Consulate, Istanbul. Indieway Conference. Oct. 8, 2021. Virtual.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
De Mars, A. M., Taken Alive, J., Hanson, C. , Sanchez, D. & Burns Ortiz, M. (2020). Growing Math. https://www.growingmath.org/
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Carpenter, K., Bell, D. , Ochoa-Hendrix, J. & Burn Ortiz, M. (2021). SBIR Women Entrepreneurs Got Game, hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration. U.S. Department of Education ED Games Expo. June 4, 2021. Virtual.
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