Date: October 12, 2010
Contact: Carol Connelly, Director, Media & Communication Services, ext. 5267, cconnelly@pnc.edu

PNC Professors Earn National Science Foundation Grant

Westville – The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant a team of Purdue University North Central faculty members for their project "Connecting Mathematics for Elementary Teachers (CMET) Type II: Dissemination, Enhancement and Research."

The team members are Dr. David Feikes, PNC professor of Mathematics; Dr. David Pratt, PNC associate professor of Education and coordinator of Learning & Technology; Dr. Keith E. Schwingendorf, PNC dean of the College of Science and Dr. Jeff L. Gregg, Purdue Calumet, associate professor of Mathematics Education.

The project team will expand on their first two National Science Foundation grants where they developed the textbook, “Connecting Mathematics for Elementary Teachers: How Children Learn Mathematics” authored by Feikes, Schwingendorf and Gregg. This book describes how children learn mathematics and is designed to be used by prospective elementary teachers as they are learning mathematics and how to teach mathematics to children. The team has demonstrated that using an approach that focuses on how children learn mathematics fosters more positive beliefs about teaching mathematics with prospective teachers and enhances their knowledge of how to teach mathematics to children.

In this new grant the team will develop videos designed to illustrate how children learn mathematics. The project team will video children in local schools doing mathematics and then edit these videos so that prospective teachers and teachers can use these videos to improve their teaching of mathematics to children.

Team members will evaluate the effectiveness of the videos testing to see if using the videos enhances the teaching of mathematics to children. In addition to making videos, the team will lead faculty workshops at universities across the country on how these videos and CMET can be used.

Information about the project will be shared through conference presentations and a website which the team will develop.

There will also be a consulting board of four internationally recognized mathematics education researchers consisting of Dr. David Tall, professor Emeritus of Mathematical Thinking at the University of Warwick; Dr. Randy Phillip, professor of Teacher Education, Center for Research in Mathematics & Science Education, San Diego State University; Dr. Paul Cobb, Peabody Chair in Teaching and Learning, professor of Education, Vanderbilt University and Dr. Grayson Wheatley, professor emeritus of Mathematics Education at Florida State University.

Additional information may be obtained by contacting Feikes at dfeikes@pnc.edu or 785-5200, ext. 5489 or Pratt at dpratt@pnc.edu or 785-5200, ext. 5578.

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