R&D Projects
Our Funded Projects and Teams
EF+Math funds project teams which are developing math learning approaches that embed EF skill-building opportunities and technical capacities that boost the effectiveness of these learning approaches by making student learning visible and guiding actionable next steps for learning within equitable, high-quality math content and instruction.
EF+Math’s entire portfolio of projects have been developed through deep partnership with educators who specialize in working with Black and Latinx students and students experiencing poverty using Inclusive Research & Development processes. Currently five projects are continuing to be improved, evaluated, and pushed to scale.
Currently Funded
Lead Organization
CueThink
Current & Former District Partners
Cajon Valley Union School District and Hillside Public Schools
CueThinkEF+ is a web-based learning approach for problem-solving for students in grades 6-8. CueThinkEF+ builds on the CueThink product to enhance collaborative mathematical discourse and problem-solving with EF scaffolds and supports to create safe spaces for historically excluded students to express their ideas and share their thinking and reasoning.
Lead Organization
University of California, Irvine
Current & Former District Partners Santa Ana Unified School District
Fraction Ball is a series of movement-based games that make meaningful connections between math learning in the classroom and the schoolyard, and provides a playful context for students to engage in embodied rational number learning while strengthening executive function skills. Fraction Ball transforms schools’ existing basketball courts into a working fraction game, which includes a suite of games that each address a conceptual target, along with embedded opportunities to exercise EF skills.
Lead Organization
MIND Research Institute
Current & Former District Partners
Ocean View School District, Santa Ana Unified School District, and Attleboro Public Schools
MathicSTEAM is an innovative three-layer instructional approach that uses individual game-based learning for training executive function skills in a math context, collaborative learning experiences that facilitate teamwork and academic discourse, and interactive graphic novels that engage students in problem-based learning activities that link to math in the real world.
Lead Organizations
University of Pennsylvania and University of Minnesota
The Pennesota team is developing scalable and equitable real-time detectors for constructs related to executive function during math learning to improve learning.
Previously Funded
Lead Organizations
University of California, Irvine and Washington University in St. Louis
The MAT^EF team is developing a low-cost mobile app technology to assess ability and fluctuations in executive function skills and math learning for grade levels 3-6 using Multidimensional Active Testing (MAT).
Lead Organization The 21st Century Partnership for STEM
Current & Former District Partners Vista Unified School District and Newark Public Schools
Mathematical Thinkers Like Me (MLM) is 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 (“Virtual Math Teams”) integrates content from Desmos and Geogebra, as well as content developed by the MLM team.
Lead Organization
Saga Education
Current & Former District Partners Middletown City Schools, East Jasper Consolidated School District, and Meridian Public School District
Spark Math is a set of four replacement units for 6th grade mathematics that attend to cultural relevance, math identity, and belonging, mathematization of concepts that students find relevant, the realities of classrooms and current practice, and classroom social norms. Spark Math units support students in developing a conceptual understanding of mathematics through high-quality and engaging PD, curriculum materials, and online adaptive practice opportunities for students that integrate EF skill development opportunities into math instruction.
Lead Organization
Purdue University and Virginia Tech
Current & Former District Partners Middletown City Schools and Alum Rock Union School Distric
Our Mathematical World (OMW) is a student-centered, teacher-implemented program that provides 3rd and 4th grade students opportunities to engage with mathematics in their everyday environments while building EF and multi-step problem solving skills. The program is a 9-week multi-stage curriculum overlay in which students design stories that center themselves as strong mathematical problem solvers while learning to use appropriate EF skills to guide their process.
Lead Organizations
Enlearn
Enlearn is developing embedded, real-time measures of executive function skills in math based on digital student interactions and teacher observations. Insights from these measures will provide actionable, equitable insights to teachers in real-time.
Lead Organizations
University of Maryland, College Park
The Prather team is developing a computational model of learners’ executive function states that is accurate, precise, and useful for math educators.