When an email from the principal lands in teacher inboxes asking for volunteers, it doesn’t always lead to transformative experiences. For Pam Barrett and Chris Davis, two veteran mathematics teachers at Vista Magnet Middle School in California’s Vista Unified School District, responding to that call changed not only their teaching practice but also their understanding of the power of authentic co-design on math learning approaches for their students.
Experienced Educators Meet Real-World Research
Mathematical Thinkers Like Me (MLM) is a project team that was funded by EF+Math, one of the Advanced Research and Development Fund’s (AERDF) inclusive research and development (R&D) programs. MLM developed an online collaborative problem-solving and storytelling program that supports students in developing their identity and strengths as mathematical thinkers with strong executive function skills. The online environment developed by MLM, known as “Virtual Math Teams” (VMT), integrates content from Desmos and Geogebra along with original content. In 2020, MLM partnered with Vista Unified School District in California to engage in inclusive research and development with seasoned educators as part of its work with EF+Math. When the principal of the Vista Magnet Middle School reached out for volunteers to work on this R&D project, Pam, in her 28th year of teaching mathematics and Chris, who brings 30 years of math teaching experience across high school and middle school, answered the call. They were exactly the type of educators which the MLM team were seeking, experienced educators willing to collaborate on something new. What Chris and Pam didn’t expect was how much they would learn about themselves as teachers in the process.
“At first, we didn’t know our role and neither did they,” Chris reflects on the early days of the project in fall 2020. The pandemic had created an already challenging educational landscape, and they engaged in this early work without a real sense of what it would entail. As they worked through the initial confusion, they emerged into a team where educators felt their voices and their contributions were highly valued and reflected in the VMT tool they were working to develop and improve.
Co-design is a collaborative development process where educators and researchers work together as equal partners to create educational tools, with teacher expertise and feedback actively shaping the final product rather than simply being consulted on predetermined solutions. As the co-design process emerged and MLM heard the educator feedback, there was more and more listening and active intention to engage the educators in the co-design process. The evolution from peripheral participants to central collaborators became a defining feature of their co-design experience.
Discovering Executive Function in Mathematics
For Chris, the MLM co-design project revealed something profound about his teaching philosophy that he hadn’t fully realized before. “The goal with my teaching was about teaching thinking skills. What I didn’t realize was my passion was EF (Executive Function) skills. Learning about and naming EFs in this work was when I realized those are the skills I had been focused on all along with my students.”
This realization came at a particularly poignant time. Chris became increasingly focused on EF skills because of the impact of COVID on student well being. EF skills are foundational skills that all students possess that allow them to have agency over their attention, thoughts, emotions, and behavior. EF skills include the ability to hold and work with information in mind, the ability to focus attention on what a student deems important and ignore what she deems unimportant, and to be flexible in her thinking. Chris understood that their work with MLM was creating a tool that would leverage and strengthen the EF skills that all students possess, and this project felt very urgent and critical.
The alignment between the teachers’ existing practices and the project’s focus on executive function skills in mathematics created a powerful foundation for collaboration. Rather than asking teachers to abandon their expertise, the project amplified what they already knew worked while giving them new vocabulary and frameworks to understand why it worked.
The Power of Teacher Voice in Product Development
One of the most striking aspects of the Vista teachers’ experience was how their feedback directly shaped the VMT product. Unlike many educational technology initiatives where teachers are expected to adapt to predetermined tools, this collaboration prioritized teacher expertise and student needs.
“So many little things we suggested had outsized impacts,” Pam recalls about the iterative design process. “We suggested making the VMT environment anonymous and this had tremendous impact. I immediately saw a different level of student participation.” This seemingly simple feature, allowing students to participate anonymously in mathematical discussions, transformed classroom dynamics in ways the original developers hadn’t anticipated. The anonymous feature revealed students who had been invisible in traditional classroom discussions. “Kids who often didn’t speak in class became very engaged in math discussions in the anonymous environment. Pam observed, “In the VMT setting, they would be very engaged. This engagement led to additional interest among many students.”
There were several impactful educator-driven product improvements. The educators suggested:
- creating mixed-class VMT rooms to generate excitement among students
- adding sub-room functionality for smaller group work
- developing teacher-friendly data reports that didn’t require excessive time investment to understand what their students were engaged in
- including emoji options for students because, as the teachers noted, “students like to use them”
- building a dashboard where teachers could monitor all groups simultaneously.
All of these recommendations strengthened the product, and the teachers felt valued for their expertise. This is the transformational impact that true co-design can have on educational products.
Transforming Student Identity and Discourse
The impact on students went beyond engagement metrics. The anonymous discussion environment created space for students to develop new mathematical identities. “Some sub-groups who didn’t feel smart in math, through the VMT process and reflections, they would shift their perspective to see themselves as strong mathematicians,” Chris observed.
This shift in student identity had ripple effects in traditional classroom settings. Students who gained confidence through anonymous VMT discussions became more willing to take risks in face-to-face interactions. “I saw consistent improvement in students who were reluctant to participate in traditional classroom discussions after they were well received in the VMT environment. They would take more risks in the classroom environment,” Chris noted.
Lessons for Inclusive R&D Success
The Vista teachers’ experience offers valuable insights for others considering inclusive research and development and co-design processes:
1. Embrace the Uncertainty
Initial role confusion isn’t a bug—it’s a feature of authentic collaboration. The process of figuring out how teachers fit into product development teams can lead to a more meaningful integration of classroom expertise.
2. Value Teacher Expertise
“We aren’t used to people taking our knowledge and having respect for it,” Pam reflected. “It was unusual and they truly did.” This respect for teacher expertise created conditions where real innovation could happen.
3. Prioritize Practical Usability
As Pam put it bluntly: “I won’t use it if it’s hard to use.” The development team’s commitment to teacher-friendly design made adoption possible and sustainable.
4. Foster Real Relationships
Beyond the professional collaboration, lasting friendships developed. “Our friendships with the MLM team are invaluable to me and something that warmed my heart. I learned so much from sharing our different perspectives on how people work together,” Pam shared.
A Call for Authentic Collaboration
The Vista experience demonstrates that when researchers, product developers, and teachers work together as true partners, the results can transform not just products but practice. The key lies in recognizing that teachers are not just implementers of educational innovations—they are co-creators whose classroom expertise is essential for developing tools that actually work for students.
For educators considering similar collaborations, Chris and Pam’s advice is simple: “Take risks as an educator and try in the classroom and see what impact it can have. It was engaging for the students. [You] can’t see what could happen if you don’t try.”
In an educational landscape often dominated by top-down initiatives, the Vista story reminds us that the most powerful innovations emerge when those closest to students have a genuine voice in shaping the tools they use. The result isn’t just better products—it’s renewed passion for teaching and deeper understanding of how students learn mathematics.
The Mathematical Thinkers Like Me project represents a collaboration between educators, researchers, and product developers focused on integrating executive function skills development into mathematics instruction. Vista Unified School District serves nearly 19,000 students in northern San Diego County, with Vista Magnet Middle School operating as an International Baccalaureate program focused on developing student thinking skills.
