Collaborative Research: PEARL: Peers Engaged As Resources for Learning

正在进行的加强美国数学教育的努力强调了学生参与和坚持有意义和具有挑战性的数学问题的需要，并在问题解决中发挥积极和协作的作用。教师经常使用小组教学来实现这些目标：70%的中学数学课堂每周至少进行一次小组教学，平均占中学数学课堂教学时间的25%。然而，有效的小组工作对中学教师来说是具有挑战性的。学生们很快就会从困难的任务中脱离出来，他们的同伴互动往往会破坏富有成效的合作。PEARL项目带来了一个跨学科的团队：(1)研究小组工作；(2)了解促进成功的小团体所涉及的挑战；(3)确定帮助教师实现小组工作承诺的方法。PEARL研究包括一系列精心排序的研究阶段，包括课堂观察、访谈和对教师和学生在自然环境和实验条件下的数学小组学习的调查，以开发和测试理解小组学习环境的框架和帮助教师支持成功小组工作的策略。研究结果将为教师准备和继续教育、数学教学实践和教育研究提供参考。《学校数学原则与标准》和《国家数学共同核心标准》强调了学生与同龄人深入接触有意义的数学内容对发展数学理解的关键作用。数学课堂的结构通常是为了满足这些目标，将学生安排在小组学习环境中，期望创造点对点的互动，促进概念学习，数学交流，并利用同伴作为学习资源。有效的小组工作取决于具有认知挑战性和适合小组努力的任务，促进参与和意义创造的小组话语，以及支持协作和学习的同伴关系过程。PEARL项目引入了一个跨学科团队来研究初中数学课堂中的小组合作，整合了三个概念框架——数学任务、数学话语矩阵和努力与成就的同伴文化——以了解在促进成功的小组学习环境中所涉及的挑战，并确定帮助教师实现小组合作承诺的方法。PEARL研究包括一系列精心排序的研究阶段，包括课堂观察、对学生和教师的访谈和调查，以及在自然主义和实验环境中实施的设计实验，以建立、测试和完善一个具有研究和实践基础的综合框架。这个框架，以及研究设计和工具，可以激发数学教育家和教育心理学家之间关于教师如何协调任务、话语和同伴文化以追求成功的小组工作的进一步跨学科研究。

Ongoing efforts to strengthen mathematics education in the United States have emphasized the need for students to engage and persevere with meaningful and challenging mathematics problems, and to take active and collaborative roles in problem solving. Teachers often use small group instruction to work toward these goals: small group work occurs in 70% of middle grades mathematics classrooms at least once a week, and on average, accounts for 25% of instructional time in middle grades mathematics classes. Yet effective group work can prove challenging for middle school teachers. Students quickly disengage from difficult tasks and their peer interactions often undermine productive collaborations. The PEARL project brings an interdisciplinary team to: (1) study small group work; (2) understand the challenges involved in promoting successful small groups; and (3) determine ways to help teachers deliver on the promise of group work. The PEARL study involves a carefully sequenced set of research phases that include classroom observations, interviews and surveys with teachers and students regarding mathematics small group work in both naturalistic settings and experimental conditions in order to develop and test both a framework for understanding small group learning environments and strategies to help teachers support successful group work. Results of the study will inform teacher preparation and ongoing education, mathematics teaching practice, and educational research.The Principles and Standards for School Mathematics and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics emphasize the critical role of students' deep engagement with meaningful mathematical content with their peers to support development of mathematical understanding. Mathematics classrooms are often structured to meet these goals by arranging students in small group learning environments expected to create peer-to-peer interactions that promote conceptual learning, mathematical communication, and use of peers as learning resources. Effective group work depends on tasks that are cognitively challenging and appropriate for group efforts, group discourse that promotes engagement and meaning making, and peer relational processes that support collaboration and learning. The PEARL project brings an interdisciplinary team to study small group work in middle grades mathematics classrooms, integrating three conceptual frameworks - Mathematics Task, Mathematics Discourse Matrix, and Peer Cultures of Effort and Achievement - to understand the challenges involved in promoting successful small group learning environments, and to determine ways to help teachers deliver on the promise of group work. The PEARL study involves a carefully sequenced set of research phases that include classroom observation, interviews and surveys with students and teachers, and design experiments implemented in naturalistic and experimental settings in order to build, test, and refine an integrated framework that has foundations for research and practice. This framework, and the research design and tools, can stimulate further interdisciplinary study among mathematics educators and educational psychologists in terms of how teachers can coordinate tasks, discourse, and peer cultures in pursuit of successful small group work.