- Jeffrey Barrett
- https://about.illinoisstate.edu/jbarrett/Pages/default.aspx
- Professor
- Children's Measurement Project
- http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
- Illinois State University, Center for Math Science and Tech ISU
- Douglas Clements
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Douglas_Clements
- Kennedy Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning; Executive Director, Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy; and Professor
- Children's Measurement Project
- http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
- University of Denver
- Craig Cullen
- Associate Professor
- Children's Measurement Project
- http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
- Illinois State University
- Laura Dietert
- Graduate Research Assistant
- Children's Measurement Project
- http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
- Marsico Institute for Early Childhood Learning
- Julie Sarama
- Kennedy Endowed Chair of Innovative Learning Technologies
- Children's Measurement Project
- http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
- University of Denver
- Douglas Van Dine
- Project Director
- Children's Measurement Project
- http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
- University of Denver
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Public Discussion
Continue the discussion of this presentation on the Multiplex. Go to Multiplex
Gerald Kulm
Senior Professor
Hi.Nice project, building on research, your previous work, and developing teachers’ understanding? How do you help teachers to scaffold students’ progressions from hands-on experiences to more formal or symbolic representations of measurements?
May Jadallah
This is very exciting. Earlier in the video a little child was working with a researcher, later you indicated that the project was implemented with 3rd and 4th grade students. Can you talk a little more about the age groups you are working with and how each age group is assisted to understand and develop through conceptualization of measurement?
Jeffrey Barrett
Professor
Thanks for your question Prof. Jadallah,
As Doug Clements noted, we have worked with students across a range of grades. The video segment at the end shows tools we used with students in grade 8, where students are working to explain the measure of the area of a circle by connecting to a related triangle measure. We prompted this work through use of Geometer’s Sketchpad constructions, as well as a video clip showing a way to rearrange wax strings from a circle shape to a triangle shape.
Douglas Clements
Kennedy Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning; Executive Director, Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy; and Professor
Hi, Dr. Kulm! Haven’t communicated you in a while, thanks for writing. We use a lot of oral language at all levels, but especially in the earlier years. Then, we follow the classic reminder (Bob Davis, e.g.!) to ensure the first formal representations are recordings of what you do with manipulatives and pictures, rather than replacements of them.
Douglas Clements
Kennedy Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning; Executive Director, Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy; and Professor
This was, across two university sites (ISU and DU) a pre-K to 8th grade project!
Across all those ages, we worked on all three domains of geometric measurement. The way we worked with them is in our papers, and pretty complex to summarize here!
Alissa Lange
Thank you for posting this interesting video. I am curious if you have already produced or have plans to produce any practitioner-focused publications based on this work? That is, how educators can use what you’re learning about children’s measurement development in the classroom. I’m interested in early childhood STEM professional development and how best we could use information like what you have learned to support our teachers. Thanks!
Jeffrey Barrett
Professor
Prof. Lange,
Thanks for the question about practitioner-focused publications based on this work. We are in the final stages of writing a book that includes activities to promote conceptual understanding of measurement across grades K to 5, with links to the Learning Trajectories research from this project. That is being published by NCTM. We hope it will come out this year!
Douglas Van Dine
Senior Researcher
More information about out project is available at: http://www.childrensmeasurement.org/
Andrew Izsak
Hi Jeff et al.,
We watched your video with interest! One thing we were wondering about was your decision to present tasks with with computer simulations, especially the 3D tasks. Were there particular aspects of the environment that scaffolded students’ structuring of volume?
Andrew, Sybilla, and Torrey
Jeffrey Barrett
Professor
Thanks for your note about the video, and your question. We have chosen to engage children in a computer-based environment to investigate children’s ways of relating paper drawings of solids (prisms) to renderings of those solids, as we did here in GeoGebra. We also related paper drawings and computer images to a pair of prisms, one a unit cube and the other the prism represented on paper and in the dynamic computer images. Our findings, thus far, suggest over half the children gained understanding by relating these varied representations.
Michelle Perry
Researcher
Fascinating project! Thanks for sharing. You mentioned part of the project included offering 10 PD sessions to teachers. I’m curious if you received feedback from the teachers on the work and if/how the PD improved their instruction and student learning.
Julie Sarama
Kennedy Endowed Chair of Innovative Learning Technologies
Thanks! Actually, the PD was an offshoot from this project. We used the results to inform the PD and we had 10 sessions specfically dedicated to measurement. We heard good things from the teachers and leaders in the district regarding their instruction and student learning. We’d love to follow up with observations and interviews, but that will have to wait.
Michelle Perry
Researcher
Thanks for the response and clarification. I hope you’ll be able to follow-up at some point!
Carolina Milesi
Senior Research Scientist
This is very interesting! The snippet of teachers and students making the connection between measurement and geometry are priceless. Do you work with students at different K-12 levels?
Jeffrey Barrett
Professor
Yes, thanks for your question. We are always interested in understanding how children and teachers connect geometry with measurement. Our work extends from pre Kindergarten level up through Grade 8.
Douglas Clements
Kennedy Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning; Executive Director, Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy; and Professor
For those interested in the “offshoot” Julie mentions, see the Dev-Te@m project at:
http://www.umich.edu/~devteam/
Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.