Mary Kay Stein

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at University of Pittsburgh

Despite the evidence of its effectiveness on student learning, ambitious mathematics instruction has proven to be challenging for teachers to enact. Increasingly, instructional coaching programs have become a way of providing intensive one-on-one support to teachers to improve the quality of mathematics instruction. Researchers have identified vari...

This chapter focuses on the QUASAR project, one of the first endeavors in the United States to support and study the implementation of rigorous, student-centered, conceptually based mathematics for all students. After situating QUASAR historically, the chapter reviews research conducted by QUASAR researchers and others that demonstrates that—given...

The past decade has witnessed a strong, standards-based call for improving what mathematics is taught and how it is taught. In the USA, districts have hired instructional coaches to help teachers shift their teaching from algorithm-based instruction to instruction that is more student-centered and conceptually focused. The purpose of this study was...

The literacy improvement efforts of New York City's Community School District #2 serve as the locus of a study into the relationship between educational policy and practice. Based on 100 observations of classroom literacy instruction, a review of documentation related to the district's Balanced Literacy Program, and interviews with teachers, staff...

Teacher learning is a huge challenge in instructional change, but relatively little work has carefully examined the mechanisms by which teachers learn, in contrast to the extensive work on programs that help teachers learn and the high-leverage instructional practices that are strong predictors of student learning. Specifically, relatively little i...

Learning goals differ from performance goals. We elaborate on their function and importance as the guiding force behind maintaining cognitive rigor during mathematics learning. In MATHEMATICS TEACHER: LEARNING & TEACHING PK–12

Rigorous college-and-career readiness standards require significant shifts in typical mathematics instruction. Many schools and districts employ coaches to support instructional changes. Although there is evidence that coaching programs can support teaching improvement, research has yet to identify high-leverage coaching practices. In collaboration...

Informed by decades of research and standards-based policies, there has been a growing demand for high-quality teaching and learning in mathematics and science classrooms. Achieving these ambitious goals will not be easy; students’ opportunities for learning as shaped by the tasks they are assigned will matter the most. The purpose of this article...

A major influence on mathematics teachers' instruction is their beliefs. However, teachers' instructional practices do not always neatly align with their beliefs because of factors perceived as constraints. The purpose of this article is to introduce a new approach for examining the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices, an approach...

Purpose This study explores the teacher’s role for implementing a cognitive tutor (CT) intended to increase students’ knowledge of proportional reasoning and potential impacts on students’ learning. Design/methodology/approach Using a mixed methods approach to design-based research, the authors examine results from three different phases of the CT...

Attempts to scale up instructional interventions confront implementation challenges that mitigate their ultimate impact on teaching and learning. In this article, we argue that learning about adaptation during the design and implementation phases of reform is critical to the development of interventions that can be implemented with integrity at sca...

Science education communities around the world have increasingly emphasized engaging students in the disciplinary practices of science as they engage in high levels of reasoning about scientific ideas. Consistently, this is a critical moment in time in the USA as it goes through a new wave of science education reform within the context of Next Gene...

This special issue brings together four effective video-based professional development programs—two in mathematics and two in science—that use classroom videos as the centerpiece of their efforts and have “scaling up” as their goal. In each paper, the authors surface their design considerations for creating scalable and sustainable video-based prof...

Background Recent transformative changes in science education require new learning opportunities for teachers—opportunities that include rich images of classroom enactment of the reform vision. One fruitful way for doing that is to use video clips of instruction. Teachers do not, however, learn how to improve their instructional practice from simpl...

Attaining the vision for science teaching and learning emphasized in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) will require major shifts in teaching practices in many science classrooms. As NGSS-inspired cognitively demanding tasks begin to appear in more and more science classrooms, facilitating stud...

There is little consensus on the kinds and amounts of teacher support needed to achieve desired student learning outcomes when mathematics is inserted into science classrooms. When supported by educative curriculum materials (ECM) and heavy investment in professional development (PD), teachers implementing a unit designed around mathematical modeli...

We argue that large-scale, standards-based improvements in the teaching and learning of mathematics necessitate advances in our theories regarding how teaching affects student learning and progress in how we measure instruction. Our theory—an embodiment of the interaction of high and low levels of two constructs that past research has shown to infl...

We investigated the alignment between a teacher survey self-report measure and classroom observation measure of ambitious mathematics instructional practice among teachers in two urban school districts using two different standards-based mathematics curricula. Survey reports suggested mild differences in teachers’ instructional practices between th...

This volume offers a historical and critical analysis of the emerging field of the learning sciences, which takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and improving how children and adults learn. It features a wide range of authors, including established scholars who founded and guided the learning sciences through the initial turbulence...

Background/Context Which ideas should be included in the K–12 curriculum, how they are learned, and how they should be taught have been debated for decades in multiple subjects. In this article, we offer mathematics as a case in point of how new standards-related policies may offer an opportunity for reassessment and clarification of such debates....

Education innovations often have a complicated set of assumptions about the contexts in which they are implemented, which may not be explicit. Education technology innovations in particular may have additional technical and cultural assumptions. As a result, education technology research and development efforts as well as scaling efforts can be slo...

This study sought to understand the opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation of state designed Race to the Top (RttT) funded reform networks. Drawing on a conceptual framework developed from the networked governance literature, we analyzed the 12 state RttT grantees’ applications. Our analysis revealed that states designed la...

Many countries, including the United States, emphasize the importance of developing students' scientific habits of mind and their capacity to think deeply about scientific ideas in an integrated fashion. Recent science education policies in the United States portray a related vision of science teaching and learning that is meant to guide the improv...

Model tracing tutors represent a technology designed to mimic key elements of one-on-one human tutoring. We examine the situations in which such supportive computer technologies may devolve into mindless student work with little conceptual understanding or student development. To analyze the support of student intellectual work in the model tracing...

Students’ opportunities to learn how to think are embedded in the instructional tasks with which they are invited to engage in the classroom. Prior research has revealed that the selection and use of cognitively demanding tasks does not guarantee high-level student thinking during their enactment. To address this challenge, we designed and implemen...

Prior research indicated the challenges of getting students to think at high levels as they work on cognitively demanding tasks. Teachers often unwittingly lower the cognitive demands of tasks during their enactment. We argue that teachers should be provided with opportunities that can support them to make sense of the ways in which teachers' actio...

In this paper, we suggest a different conceptualization of teachers' practices in supporting students' mathematical learning in a cognitive tutor or computer-directed learning environment. The CT program examined in this study aimed to enhance students' learning of proportional reasoning through an engaging engineering/robotics context. Students of...

The purpose of this study was to develop and test the viability of a conceptual framework for analyzing mathematics instruction and mathematics teacher development within the context of policies regarding district-wide adoption of curriculum. The framework takes three dimensions of curriculum-based instruction into account independently: use, congr...

This article examines how a coding scheme for mathematics classroom discussion that was created to highlight how teachers negotiate student responses during whole-class discussion around high-level, cognitively demanding tasks was used to help teachers shift what they notice when analyzing classroom discourse. Data from an intervention that trained...

Scaling up instructional improvement remains a central challenge for school systems. While existing research suggests that teachers’ social networks play a crucial role, we know little about what dimensions of teachers’ social networks matter for sustainability. Drawing from a longitudinal study of the scale-up of mathematics reform, we use qualita...

The authors review what is known about early and universal algebra, including who is getting access to algebra and student outcomes associated with algebra course taking in general and specifically with universal algebra policies. The findings indicate that increasing numbers of students, some of whom are underprepared, are taking algebra earlier....

This study explores the relationship among three dimensions of curricular fidelity in the context of systemic change: teachers' use of curriculum materials, the congruence of their instructional practice to the suggested pedagogical methods in the curriculum (e. g., use of group work and manipulatives), and the quality of their instruction in terms...

This article begins to unravel the question, ‘‘What curricular materials work best under what kinds of conditions?’’ The authors address this question from the point of view of teachers and their ability to implement mathematics curricula that place varying demands and provide varying levels of support for their learning. Specifically, the authors...

In today's climate of accountability and standards, increasing attention is focused on teacher "quality," with less emphasis on what teachers actually do to interest and engage students in learning. This path-breaking volume addresses this research problem with a clear definition and a content-specific analysis of the most essential teaching moment...

Five practices constitute a model for effectively using student responses in whole-class discussions that can potentially make teaching with high-level tasks more manageable for teachers.

Increasingly, districts are being recognized for the role that they can play in improving instructional practice and, in turn, improving the academic performance of students (Hightower, Knapp, Marsh, & McLaughlin, 2002; Supovitz, 2006). With the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, improvement in student achievement is no longer just a lauda...

Teachers who attempt to use inquiry-based, student-centered instructional tasks face challenges that go beyond identifying well-designed tasks and setting them up appropriately in the classroom. Because solution paths are usually not specified for these kinds of tasks, students tend to approach them in unique and sometimes unanticipated ways. Teach...

This article explores the usefulness of communities of practice theory for understanding how districts can create organizational environments that foster teachers' opportunities to learn the new ideas and practices required to carry out ambitious reforms. It draws on data from a longitudinal study of the implementation of ambitious mathematics curr...

Offering perspectives focused on the meaningful goal of measuring and assessing teacher quality, Measurement Issues and Assessment for Teaching Quality brings together leading researchers and practitioners from the fields of education, economics and policy who contribute provocative, illuminating, and coherent articles that explore key issues surro...

Looking closely at the recent reform efforts in San Diego, this book explores the full range of critical issues pertaining to urban school reform. Drawing on the systemic school reform initiative that was launched in San Diego in the 1990s, this book explores all layers of the school reform process - from leadership in the central office, to work w...

In a previous paper, we described the process in which a reform, grown in the soil of one school district (Community District #2 in New York City) was transplanted to new soil, a new context (the San Diego City Schools). In this paper we examine the condition of the reform 6 years later, at the time Anthony Alvarado, the architect of the reform in...

District reform has captured attention nationally (Hightower, Knapp, Marsh & McLaughlin, 2002). Whereas districts have traditionally been cast as slow moving bureaucracies that impede change, recent research suggests that districts can actually be engines of change (Elmore, 1993; Hightower, 2002; Hightower, Knapp, Marsh & McLaughlin, 2002; McLaughl...

Drawing inspiration from Shulman’s (1986) construct of pedagogical content knowledge, we propose that leadership content knowledge is a missing paradigm in the analysis of school and district leadership. After defining leadership content knowledge as that knowledge of academic subjects that is used by administrators when they function as instructio...

The literacy improvement efforts of New York City's Community School District #2 serve as the locus of a study into the relationship between educational policy and practice. Based on 100 observations of classroom literacy instruction, a review of documentation related to the district's Balanced Literacy Program, and interviews with teachers, staff...

Perhaps the most difficult recommendation of the NCTM's Standards to put into practice is that of orchestrating classroom discourse—moving from a teacher-centered classroom to one that is centered on student thinking and reasoning. Some researchers argue that traditional “chalk and talk” classrooms put all the intellectual authority in the hands of...

This article has no abstract

Describes a study on how effective teachers use manipulatives successfully. Presents factors to recognize when manipulative-based lessons are identified and discusses ways in which the use of manipulatives can go astray. (YDS)

Acknowledgements: This paper was prepared under the sponsorship of the High Performance Learning Communities Project at the Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, under research contract #RC-96-137002 with the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education. The authors wish to thank...

In this article, Mary Kay Stein, Margaret Schwan Smith, and Edward A. Silver identify and describe the challenges that practicing teacher educators and professional developers are likely to encounter as they design and implement new programs to help teachers learn new paradigms of teaching and learning amidst current educational reforms. The author...

Case studies designed by the National Institute for Science Education reveal various dilemmas and decision points faced by professional developers. Planners must decide whether to focus on philosophical or pragmatic issues; aim at a broad or narrow audience; and engage teachers in developing curriculum or in adopting existing curricula. (MLH)

One of the proposals of the North American educational reform movement is that teachers should stress scientific argumentation more than the manipulation of symbols and algorithms in their mathematics instruction. The aim of this article is to apply some theoretical concepts, drawn from the fields of sociolinguistics and rhetoric, to the analysis o...

What features of a mathematics classroom really make a difference in how students come to view mathematics and what they ultimately learn? Is it whether students are working in small groups? Is it whether students are using manipulalives? Is it the nature of the mathematical tasks that are given to students? Research conducted in the QUASAR project...

According to the professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM 1991), a primary factor in teachers' professional growth is the extent to which they “reflect on learning and teaching individually and with colleagues” (p. 168). Reflecting on their classroom experiences is a way to make teachers aware of how they teach (Hart et al. 1992) and h...

In order to develop students' capacities to "do mathematics," classrooms must become environments in which students are able to engage actively in rich, worthwhile mathematical activity. This paper focuses on examining and illustrating how classroom-based factors can shape students' engagement with mathematical tasks that were set up to encourage h...

In order to develop students' capacities to “do mathematics,” classrooms must become environments in which students are able to engage actively in rich, worthwhile mathematical activity. This paper focuses on examining and illustrating how classroom-based factors can shape students' engagement with mathematical tasks that were set up to encourage h...

This study examines the usefulness of selected aspects of Tharp and Gallimore's (1988) theory of assistance as a theoretical framework for describing and analyzing change efforts in a middle school mathematics reform project. Drawing upon Tharp and Gallimore's redefinition of teaching as assisting performance and learning as the result of assisted...

This article focuses on mathematical tasks as important vehicles for building student capacity for mathematical thinking and reasoning. A stratified random sample of 144 mathematical tasks used during reform-oriented instruction was analyzed in terms of (a) task features (number of solution strategies, number and kind of representations, and commun...

In the present study the relationship between teaching and learning was examined using a conceptual framework that links dimensions of instructional tasks with gains in student learning outcomes. The greatest student gains on a performance assessment consisting of tasks that require high levels of mathematical thinking and reasoning were related to...

Conventional mathematics instruction has failed to help many students in urban schools to develop desirable forms of mathematical proficiency. A promising alternative is offered by instruction that is oriented toward helping students develop a meaningful understanding of mathematical ideas through engagement with challenging mathematical tasks. For...

The purpose of the present investigation was to describe the relationship between teachers’ knowledge of mathematics and their instructional practice. An experienced fifth grade teacher was videotaped as he taught a lesson sequence on functions and graphing. In addition, a subject matter knowledge interview and card sort task were conducted with th...

This review of the introductory instructional substance of functions and graphs analyzes research on the interpretation and construction tasks associated with functions and some of their representations: algebraic, tabular, and graphical. The review also analyzes the nature of learning in terms of intuitions and misconceptions, and the plausible ap...

The overall goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship between teacher success in implementing innovative programs, teacher perceptions of self-efficacy, and the teacher-perceived value of the programs. Using behavioral observations, interviews, and questionnaires, teachers' performance, self-perceptions, and attitudes were measu...

P) ERHAPS THE MOST DIFFICULT RECOMMEN-dation of the NCTM's Standards to put into practice is that of orchestrating classroom discourse-moving from a teacher-centered class-room to one that is centered on student thinking -and reasoning. Some researchers argue that tradi-tional "chalk and talk' classrooms put all the intel-lectual authority in the h...