Our ELM2 project is just ending. We are summarizing our research findings and finalizing our professional development modules. While we welcome all comments and questions, we are especially interested in hearing your thoughts about any of the following:

1. Regardless of your role as educator, researcher, or other interested parents or community members, what did you learn from our project? Could you take things from this project and apply it to your own situation? If so, what would you take? If not, why not?

2. Which of our project outcomes do you think are most compelling? Why?

3. How could our project resources be leveraged to support preschool teachers and families in their exploration of mathematics? What are some potential next steps for this work?

4. Changing the attitudes toward math of the adults interacting with young children-- both educators and parents, takes active learning opportunities, and TIME. We started with 20 days over two years for educators and reduced it to 12 days in 3 modules. How do we find the time for these learning experiences for early childhood educators, most of whom have extremely limited professional development time. We welcome your thoughts and potential partnership in creating time and space for this learning.

5. In particular, how might we best share these professional development modules? We are discussing whether to offer the PD in Pittsburgh, inviting those interested to travel there. Or should we seek an audience large enough to warrant travel elsewhere? If so, do you have suggestions for potential avenues? If you are personally interested, you can contact michael.fierle@aiu3.net.

6. Looking at the larger theoretical picture, what media have you incorporated into your PD and for what purpose? How did it support participant learning?

7. What do you see as the role of media in supporting teachers’, parents’, and preschool children’s engagement with mathematics?

 

Thanks for this great video (great to have Peg and Cat in the video!).  This project interests me both as an education researcher, and as the parent of a preschooler.  In answer to your question #1 above, one thing I take away from the project is the value of having coordinated materials for parents and teachers - presumably, this helps both audiences move towards the same math goals for their students/children.  Which makes me wonder, do you think the materials helped to improve communication between parents and teachers around math?  Or do you think they promoted synergy (between parents and teachers) in some other ways?  (Or do you think that would even be a useful outcome?). Thanks.

Hi! Thanks for your interest! I am the Director of the program that received this wonderful opportunity! My administrative team and I sat in on the 20 days of PD and learned along with our teachers! We bonded much like summer camp! In turn, the teachers bonded with families in efforts to promote the notion that math is everywhere! This was an excellent way to build internal and external relationships! thanks

These materials are wonderful, and address the very real need of early childhood educators and parents to bring more math into early learning opportunities. Were you able to read teachers beyond those who may have volunteered to participate? How did you help teachers and parents overcome their own mathematics anxiety to become comfortable with early math with children?  How explicit is the professional development for adults in addressing math anxieties and how adults are able to transmit those anxieties to children?

Rather than inviting volunteers, ELM2 involved all athe Head Start teachers and administrators employed by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit.  Buy-in was sought by allowing them to choose the scheduling they preferred, i.e. whether they wanted to participate in a partial summer cohort or an entire school year cohort.  We are hoping to reach educators beyond the AIU, and are especially inviting suggestions for avenues to reach them.

ELM2 used Peg+Cat to show educators the accessible joy in mathematics, and engaged them actively in math activities so they could experience math positively.  We often used manipulatives, enabling them to SEE mathematics.  We were quite explicit in surfacing and discussing math anxiety, and together explored research that described the impact on children of adult attitudes.  Positive experience over time changed attitudes.  Finding sufficient time to offer similar experiences to other early childhood educators is a challenge.  We welcome suggestions!

Nancy - Project dissemination/replication/scaling up - all hard for sure - especially when that is not necessarily your mission. I think partnering with organizations that have easy access to those wanting this PD would be critical, as would thinking beyond teachers to include OST professionals, museum educators, and parents who would perhaps have less time constraints as noted. As someone who works at a growing children's museum - these sorts of resources can be great tools as we advocate for early learning and parent engagement, and support those who support children's learning. Happy to talk further....

So exciting to hear about the different communities - teachers, parents, and students - who have been positively affected by the program. Very impressive! I think the finding that is most compelling to me is that teachers and parents began to interact differently with children, and to ask different kinds of questions. That seems particularly important to me because it extends beyond a specific math activity (like sorting) and applies to a wide range of activities! I'm interesting in hearing more about the kinds of tasks you had parents and teachers do with children, and how closely that matched the kinds of activities you did with the adults in the PD. Really interesting project!

 

Thanks for the great video :)

Super interesting to hear that teachers take suggestions but then develop activities that work for their own students and classrooms. I think that approach has strong potential to be able to be successfully scaled up - of course there are also inherent risks in that activities may be used in ways that don't align with your goals. Thanks for this information!

Thanks to everyone who viewed our video, and to those who left comments for us.  This has been a most interesting experience for us