Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2015
The goal of this study was to examine the impact of the integration of global experiences on in-s... more The goal of this study was to examine the impact of the integration of global experiences on in-service teachers’ international perspectives in mathematics classroom teaching through offering a graduate course “Global Perspectives in Mathematics Teaching” in the form of the East Meets West Program. This program engages teachers in an interactive faceto-face learning process in a dual language immersion setting. The opportunity of learning effective teaching strategies from Chinese topranked mathematics teachers and applying these strategies in teaching mathematics by working with a group of Chinese and US children in the East Meets West Program has benefited classroom teachers in various ways. The results of the study show that observing Chinese teachers’ mathematics lessons, doing the case study on student learning, and observing and discussing the US colleagues’ mathematics lessons highly have benefited them as classroom teachers.
Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2012
A growing number of single-gender and after-school programs for youth continue to gain popularity... more A growing number of single-gender and after-school programs for youth continue to gain popularity within schools despite little empirical research regarding how these programs should be designed to achieve maximum success. The present study examined the effectiveness of a comprehensive middle school male academy program in terms of student achievement and attitudes toward learning. The results indicated that students who participated in the program improved their algebra readiness and interest in mathematics. Furthermore, there were gains in students’ perceived importance of assignment completion, attitudes toward learning, goals for college, and self-concept. Implications for similar programs and future studies are discussed.
Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2016
This study examined the effects of using the Model-Strategy-Application with Reasoning Approach (... more This study examined the effects of using the Model-Strategy-Application with Reasoning Approach (MSAR) in teaching and learning mathematics in linguistically and culturally diverse elementary classrooms. Through learning mathematics via the MSAR, students from different language ability groups gained an understanding of mathematics from creating visual models, developing procedural fluency from using various strategies, and building competence in problem solving from real world application. The findings demonstrate that the MSAR results in improved diverse student mathematics learning in urban areas.
The purpose of this research was to contribute to a better understanding of how to enhance teache... more The purpose of this research was to contribute to a better understanding of how to enhance teachers’ knowledge in student mathematics learning and assessment through implementing the Model, Strategy, and Application approach (MSA) in a teacher education program. Participants were 23 classroom teachers in a graduate program in mathematics education at a university in Southern California. The MSA approach was used weekly to support the participants’ learning and understanding of the three components of the MSA approach in each course of two advanced mathematics methods courses. The participants learned to develop the MSA assessment items at their grade levels and provided the assessment to evaluate their students’ mathematics proficiency course 2. They were also trained in coding and analyzing their students’ mathematics learning using the MSA rubrics. The results show that both groups of elementary and secondary teachers improved their knowledge of assessment, knowledge of student th...
grades at 37 schools in six cities/regions in four provinces in China participated in the study. ... more grades at 37 schools in six cities/regions in four provinces in China participated in the study. The findings showed that Chinese teachers’ knowledge of multi-digit division had multiple dimensions and they were able to use estimation as a main approach to foster students’ conceptual understanding and computation fluency in learning multi-digit division. The study provided a rigorous and empirical way to measure teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and provided statistical evidence of how teachers’ content knowledge connects to their pedagogical knowledge in the three areas of content and six areas of pedagogy in multi-digit division.
Research Anthology on Computational Thinking, Programming, and Robotics in the Classroom
United States education has experienced a big push for students to learn coding as part of comput... more United States education has experienced a big push for students to learn coding as part of computer science and more explicitly address computational thinking (CT). However, CT remains a challenging subject for many students, including pre-service teachers. CT, which overlaps mathematics and computer science, tends to be offered as an elective course, at best, in P-16 education. Pre-service teaching profession students usually do not have foundational knowledge to guide them in integrating computational thinking into the curriculum that they will eventually teach as instructors themselves. This chapter explains computational thinking in light of K-8 education, discusses issues and needs in integrating CT into K-8 curriculum, identifies relevant theories and models for teaching CT, describes current practice for integrating computational thinking into K-8 curriculum, and discusses pre-service teachers' preparation that can lead to their successful incorporation of CT into the cur...
Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning
PurposeThis study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-b... more PurposeThis study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and skills of integration with adding an art component to STEM as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) for K-8 children, and developing their own STEAM tasks. The purpose of this project was to explore how STEAM integration in mathematics methods courses influenced K-8 preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration.Design/methodology/approachThis project used a mixed-research design in data collection and analysis to examine the effects of using the STEAM integration on preservice teachers' knowledge and disposition. The preservice teachers in two EDEL 462 classes in Spring 2019 participated in STEAM learning and development in the inquiry process of four steps of STEAM integration. D...
This study examined how gender; race/ethnicity; language; socioeconomic status; California Standa... more This study examined how gender; race/ethnicity; language; socioeconomic status; California Standards Test (CST) scores in mathematics, science, and ELA; and California High School Exit Exam mathematics predict college-ready results on the Early Assessment Program (EAP) in mathematics in urban areas of southern California. Approximately 1,700 high school students with nearly 45 teachers participated in this study. Logistic regression and discriminant analysis were used for this research, and the results showed that most variables were not significant predictors to students’ passing the EAP, except the CST science exam. However, discriminant analysis shows that CST science and CST mathematics contribute most to distinguishing those who are college ready, using these predictors.
Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2015
The goal of this study was to examine the impact of the integration of global experiences on in-s... more The goal of this study was to examine the impact of the integration of global experiences on in-service teachers’ international perspectives in mathematics classroom teaching through offering a graduate course “Global Perspectives in Mathematics Teaching” in the form of the East Meets West Program. This program engages teachers in an interactive faceto-face learning process in a dual language immersion setting. The opportunity of learning effective teaching strategies from Chinese topranked mathematics teachers and applying these strategies in teaching mathematics by working with a group of Chinese and US children in the East Meets West Program has benefited classroom teachers in various ways. The results of the study show that observing Chinese teachers’ mathematics lessons, doing the case study on student learning, and observing and discussing the US colleagues’ mathematics lessons highly have benefited them as classroom teachers.
Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2012
A growing number of single-gender and after-school programs for youth continue to gain popularity... more A growing number of single-gender and after-school programs for youth continue to gain popularity within schools despite little empirical research regarding how these programs should be designed to achieve maximum success. The present study examined the effectiveness of a comprehensive middle school male academy program in terms of student achievement and attitudes toward learning. The results indicated that students who participated in the program improved their algebra readiness and interest in mathematics. Furthermore, there were gains in students’ perceived importance of assignment completion, attitudes toward learning, goals for college, and self-concept. Implications for similar programs and future studies are discussed.
Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2016
This study examined the effects of using the Model-Strategy-Application with Reasoning Approach (... more This study examined the effects of using the Model-Strategy-Application with Reasoning Approach (MSAR) in teaching and learning mathematics in linguistically and culturally diverse elementary classrooms. Through learning mathematics via the MSAR, students from different language ability groups gained an understanding of mathematics from creating visual models, developing procedural fluency from using various strategies, and building competence in problem solving from real world application. The findings demonstrate that the MSAR results in improved diverse student mathematics learning in urban areas.
The purpose of this research was to contribute to a better understanding of how to enhance teache... more The purpose of this research was to contribute to a better understanding of how to enhance teachers’ knowledge in student mathematics learning and assessment through implementing the Model, Strategy, and Application approach (MSA) in a teacher education program. Participants were 23 classroom teachers in a graduate program in mathematics education at a university in Southern California. The MSA approach was used weekly to support the participants’ learning and understanding of the three components of the MSA approach in each course of two advanced mathematics methods courses. The participants learned to develop the MSA assessment items at their grade levels and provided the assessment to evaluate their students’ mathematics proficiency course 2. They were also trained in coding and analyzing their students’ mathematics learning using the MSA rubrics. The results show that both groups of elementary and secondary teachers improved their knowledge of assessment, knowledge of student th...
grades at 37 schools in six cities/regions in four provinces in China participated in the study. ... more grades at 37 schools in six cities/regions in four provinces in China participated in the study. The findings showed that Chinese teachers’ knowledge of multi-digit division had multiple dimensions and they were able to use estimation as a main approach to foster students’ conceptual understanding and computation fluency in learning multi-digit division. The study provided a rigorous and empirical way to measure teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and provided statistical evidence of how teachers’ content knowledge connects to their pedagogical knowledge in the three areas of content and six areas of pedagogy in multi-digit division.
Research Anthology on Computational Thinking, Programming, and Robotics in the Classroom
United States education has experienced a big push for students to learn coding as part of comput... more United States education has experienced a big push for students to learn coding as part of computer science and more explicitly address computational thinking (CT). However, CT remains a challenging subject for many students, including pre-service teachers. CT, which overlaps mathematics and computer science, tends to be offered as an elective course, at best, in P-16 education. Pre-service teaching profession students usually do not have foundational knowledge to guide them in integrating computational thinking into the curriculum that they will eventually teach as instructors themselves. This chapter explains computational thinking in light of K-8 education, discusses issues and needs in integrating CT into K-8 curriculum, identifies relevant theories and models for teaching CT, describes current practice for integrating computational thinking into K-8 curriculum, and discusses pre-service teachers' preparation that can lead to their successful incorporation of CT into the cur...
Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning
PurposeThis study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-b... more PurposeThis study intended to provide such an opportunity to preservice teachers with a project-based learning (PBL) approach and an inquiry-based pedagogy to engage them in learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and skills of integration with adding an art component to STEM as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) for K-8 children, and developing their own STEAM tasks. The purpose of this project was to explore how STEAM integration in mathematics methods courses influenced K-8 preservice teachers' disposition and knowledge of STEAM integration.Design/methodology/approachThis project used a mixed-research design in data collection and analysis to examine the effects of using the STEAM integration on preservice teachers' knowledge and disposition. The preservice teachers in two EDEL 462 classes in Spring 2019 participated in STEAM learning and development in the inquiry process of four steps of STEAM integration. D...
This study examined how gender; race/ethnicity; language; socioeconomic status; California Standa... more This study examined how gender; race/ethnicity; language; socioeconomic status; California Standards Test (CST) scores in mathematics, science, and ELA; and California High School Exit Exam mathematics predict college-ready results on the Early Assessment Program (EAP) in mathematics in urban areas of southern California. Approximately 1,700 high school students with nearly 45 teachers participated in this study. Logistic regression and discriminant analysis were used for this research, and the results showed that most variables were not significant predictors to students’ passing the EAP, except the CST science exam. However, discriminant analysis shows that CST science and CST mathematics contribute most to distinguishing those who are college ready, using these predictors.
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