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UGA doctoral student in mathematics education Andy Tyminski (L) works with 3rd grade teachers Johnnie Burch and Michelle Crawford from Hains Elementary in Richmond County.
Helping Teachers Deepen Knowledge
Researcher Chandra Orrill is helping Richmond County teachers develop skills for using technology in ways that align with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards.
Chandra Orrill, an associate research scientist in the College of Education’s Learning and Performance Support Laboratory (LPSL), will continue a program aimed at helping Richmond County elementary school teachers enhance student mathematical thinking and problem solving.
“The goal of the program is to improve mathematics instruction through the integration of technology and the use of open-ended mathematic problems,” Orrill said.
Orrill and her team of UGA faculty, staff and students, who worked last year with 24 teachers in third through fifth grades from four elementary schools in Richmond County, will continue working with that group as well as 20 more teachers from four additional elementary schools. The team will also work with 36 math coaches who the district assigns to each elementary school.
The program is being continued through an internal grant of $157,352 competitively awarded from Title II Teacher Quality funds received by UGA’s College of Education from the U.S. Department of Education. The project begins this month and runs through May 2007.
Although this is the fifth time the Technology Integration in Mathematics project has been funded, it is just the second year the UGA team will work with teachers in Richmond County.
Building from other initiatives in the school district, Orrill will help teachers develop skills for using technology in ways that align with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards, growing as reflective practitioners and increasing strategies for teaching mathematics.
Victor Brunaud-Vega, a second-year UGA doctoral student in math education, works with 3rd grade teacher Kathy Tobias from Hains Elementary in Richmond County.
Throughout this year-long professional development program Orrill will use the Evidence Based Decision Support, a model developed by Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Technology Enhanced Learning and LPSL Director Michael Hannafin, and Art Recesso, an associate research scientist in the LPSL.
Teachers participating in the project will attend a 20-hour, face-to-face workshop over the summer. During the school year, they will meet for several workshop sessions totaling 30 more hours in designing and implementing lesson plans that integrate technology and open-ended mathematics.
The UGA team includes Denise Mewborn, professor and head of the mathematics and science education department; Sybilla Beckmann, an associate professor of mathematics; staff member Laurel Bleich of the LPSL and graduate students Rachael Brown, Victor Brunaud-Vega, Natasha Brewley.
Orrill came to UGA as a research scientist in 2000. She received her Ph.D. in instructional systems technology from Indiana University.
Michael Childs is Director of Public Information for the College of Education.
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