Patton College of Education scholars Drs. Courtney Koestler and Mathew Felton-Koestler are engaged in a collaborative research project, in partnership with colleagues Drs. Eva Thanheiser and Amanda Sugimoto at Portland State University. The research project, funded by the National Science Foundation, seeks to create more equitable learning opportunities for elementary children (Award #2101456 and #2101463) .
This multi-year, $1.9 million project centers on making elementary mathematics meaningful and relevant by examining the design and implementation of tasks that connect mathematics to real-world issues, including social and political topics such as voting and the diversity in the world’s population. As part of this work, Dr. Koestler spent the 2022-2023 academic year teaching third grade with a partner teacher in a local classroom, collecting and analyzing data on their planning and teaching practices. The research team is designing a set of rich “records of practice” and continues to refine their theoretical framework of effective design and teaching practices related to creating and implementing real-world math tasks that connect to social and political issues.
For more information, please see
https://www.ohio.edu/education/teacher-ed/connecting-math
and
https://www.ohio.edu/education/OCEMS
Sample Publications Related to the Project
Koestler, C., Felton-Koestler, M., Thanheiser, E., and Sugimoto, A. (accepted). Core practices central to connecting mathematics to social and political issues when designing and implementing tasks in elementary classrooms. Proceedings of the 15th annual meeting of the International Congress on Mathematical Education. Sydney, Australia.
Thanheiser, E.,
Koestler, C ., Sugimoto, A. T., & Felton-Koestler, M. D. (2023). Construct it! What’s in a name? Collecting, organizing, and representing data.
Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12
,
116
(10), 746-752.
Koestler, C., Ward, J., Zavala, M. d. R., and Bartell, T. (2023). Early childhood mathematics lessons to explore, understand, and respond to social injustice. Corwin Press/National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Felton-Koestler and
Koestler, C. (2023).
Data in your world: Understanding finances
. Carson-Dellosa Publishing.
Robinson, M., Thanheiser, E., Sugimoto, A., Penner, D., Han, S. B., Koestler, C ., Felton-Koestler, M. D., Bartels, H. E., Thompson, J. A., and Wolfe, L. (2023). Building community in a research project team through identity sharing. In A. E. Lischka., E. B. Dyer, E. S. Jones, J. Lovett, J. Strayer, & S. Drown (Eds) Proceedings of the 44th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 479-487). Middle Tennessee State University.
Han, S. B., Thanheiser, E., Sugimoto, A., Robinson, M., Koestler, C ., Felton-Koestler, M. D., Thompson, J. A., Bartels, H. E., and Wolfe, L. (2023). Connecting mathematics to the real world: One group of elementary mathematics teachers’ experience. In A. E. Lischka., E. B. Dyer, E. S. Jones, J. Lovett, J. Strayer, & S. Drown (Eds) Proceedings of the 44th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1395-1399). Middle Tennessee State University.
Koestler, C. and Felton-Koestler, M. (2022). Data in your world: Exploring our schools . Carson-Dellosa Publishing.
Felton-Koestler, M. and Koestler, C. (2022). Data in your world: Communities near and far . Carson-Dellosa Publishing.
Koestler, C. (submitted). Leveraging collaboration to create opportunities for the development of children's agency and critical literacy.