Every student is a powerful learner capable of success in math. And, every student brings core innate assets into the classroom: cultural wealth, lived experience, and executive function skills. EF+Math, AERDF’s inaugural R&D program, shares what its teams have learned over several years of research and development to improve math learning outcomes for Black and Latino students and all students experiencing poverty.
“By developing executive function skills in a math context, students are building their overall cognitive capacity for math learning and problem-solving. This new understanding helps us progress as a society towards the day when all students are mathematically equipped to solve the world’s most challenging problems,” explains Matthew Feldmann, Vice President of Product at MIND Education and member of EF+Math’s MathicSTEAM R&D Project Team.
Teams are working to co-create math learning experiences that allow students to bring their assets into the math classroom, so their brilliance is celebrated throughout their learning process.
“Executive function is… being cognizant about how you’re thinking about problems… We want all of our students to be good problem solvers… That means to go against one of the narratives in math education, which is to go fast. The CueThinkEF+ platform, instead, says ‘you’re presented with this word problem, let’s break this into four steps–let’s explore, plan, and then solve,’” explains Dr. Aris Winger, associate professor of mathematics at Georgia Gwinnett College and member of EF+Math’s CueThinkEF+ and Pennesota R&D Project Team.
At the heart of Advanced Inclusive R&D is creating and implementing an inclusive, equity-centered approach that blends the expertise and talents of students, educators, researchers, and developers to tackle education’s most pressing challenges.
“The curriculum and program we have now has undergone changes from the very beginning. We go through iterative cycles of design and implementation, find impact, and engage teachers and students to refine the program. And we now have a program that is 16 activities long,” highlights Lourdes Acevedo-Farag, Ph.D student at the School of Education of UC Irvine and member of EF+Math’s Fraction Ball R&D Project Team.
Watch the video to hear directly from the teams about the promising progress they’re making in math education!
