Education professors work to enhance math curriculum for elementary grades

Meerkats may soon be coming to a school near you – to help teach mathematics.

Not the ones on Animal Planet, but cartoon characters created by M. Katherine Gavin, Tutita Casa, and their colleagues, as part of a project to engage children’s curiosity in learning geometry and measurement, and increase mathematics achievement.

Gavin, an associate professor in the Neag School of Education, is principal investigator and senior author of Project M2: Mentoring Young Mathematicians. Casa, an assistant professor in the Neag School of Education, is co-principal investigator.

Project M2 is funded by a five-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. It is designed for students in kindergarten through second grade.

It is an extension of Project M3, a series of 12 curriculum units for mathematically promising third, fourth, and fifth graders.

Gavin developed Project M3, along with Casa and colleagues including Linda Jensen Sheffield, Regents Professor of Mathematics Education at Northern Kentucky University, and Suzanne Chapin, an associate professor of mathematics education at Boston University. Project M2 is being devised by many of the same team.

Now in its sixth and final year, Project M3 uses content from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards, and teaching strategies from best practices in gifted education.

Project M2 will have two units per grade level, with each unit being four or five weeks long. That will enable students to develop a deeper understanding of math concepts, Gavin says, adding that a lot of math will be done in the context of scientific inquiry.

One of the units features two meerkat characters, Dru and Teller. The “detective duo” guide students through investigations such as simulated car crash tests with plastic eggs as passengers, and figuring out the amount of water they use while brushing their teeth – also a lesson in water conservation.

“A big piece of our project is students talking to each other about math as a community, not just answering questions posed by the teacher,” Gavin says.

She adds that students will write about their mathematical adventures in a journal, and will be encouraged to share their mathematical reasoning with classmates.

“What we’re trying to do is use the same kinds of high-end strategies to work with students across all socio-economic sectors and all ability levels,” says Gavin.

“The goal is that these students will perform as well as our M3 students.”

Mathematically talented students studying the M3 curriculum have outperformed control groups of similar ability students from the same schools on national standardized tests.

The U.S. curriculum is typically “a mile wide and an inch deep, meaning we try to cover about twice as many topics as the average country,” Gavin says.