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IES Grant

Title: Mathematics and English Language Development for English Language Learners: Project MELD for ELLs
Center: NCER Year: 2014
Principal Investigator: August, Diane Awardee: American Institutes for Research (AIR)
Program: Policies, Practices, and Programs to Support English Learners      [Program Details]
Award Period: 3 years (9/1/2014–8/31/2017) Award Amount: $1,494,992
Type: Development and Innovation Award Number: R305A140199
Description:

Co-Principal Investigator: Kirk Walters

Purpose: Mastering math and the academic language of math is essential for all students, but especially for English Language Learners (ELLs) who are acquiring content knowledge and English proficiency concurrently. The goal of this study is to enable sixth-grade Spanish-speaking ELLs to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to meet the new Common Core Sate Standards for Mathematics and Literacy in the Technical Subjects. Researchers will develop, revise, and test an intervention called Project Meld (Mathematics and English Language Development) to provide scaffolds for use with the Common Core System of Courses- Mathematics curriculum to bolster learning by ELLs.

Project Activities: Researchers will devote the first two years of the grant to the development and refinement of Project Meld. The grantee will develop enhanced materials for ELLs for seven of nine curricular units, with a focus on pre-algebra skills. Researchers will collect data from teachers and students on the usability of the curriculum, partner training, and professional development and will use these findings to revise Project Meld materials. After several revisions, researchers will create digital materials that ELLs can use to further support their learning while completing the curricular units. A pilot study will be conducted in Year 3 in nine new schools where 18 classrooms will be randomly assigned to treatment or control condition. The effects of the intervention will be measured for both ELLs and English proficient students.

Products: Products of this project include a fully developed version of Project Meld for sixth grade ELLs, as well as a set of results from the pilot study. Researchers will disseminate findings through peer-reviewed publications, publications for practitioners, and presentations at conferences for researchers and practitioners.

Structured Abstract

Setting: For the iterative development process, the project will take place in four sixth grade classrooms in four middle schools in a large, urban district in California. This district has a mix of Latino English Language learners and English proficient students. For the pilot phase of the study, the study will take place in 18 sixth grade classrooms in nine schools in the same district, with a mix of Latino ELLs and English proficient students.

Sample: The sample for the iterative development phase of the project consists of 32 Latino ELLs and 32 English proficient sixth grade students per year from four middle schools. The sample for the one year pilot consists of 144 Latino ELLs and 144 English proficient sixth grade students from nine middle schools.

Intervention: Project Meld will consist of enhancements to improve access for ELLs for seven out of nine units of the Common Core System of Courses – Mathematics curriculum. Enhancements will include illustrations, graphic organizers, sentence frames, word banks, strategies for linking to background knowledge, and support for posing questions to connect text to prior experience. Although the focus of instruction is English, the intervention will include multi-media materials in Spanish that students may choose to access as needed. ELLs will partner with English proficient peers in activities designed to build skills in elaborating, clarifying, supporting ideas, building on and challenging ideas, paraphrasing, and synthesizing. A two-day, on-site professional development program will be developed for teachers. Online seminars and tutorials will also be available to teachers to help them implement Project Meld.

Research Design and Methods: In the first two years of the grant, materials will be developed and tested in two sixth grade classrooms in each of four middle schools with poor math performance and a mix of ELLs and English proficient students studying math in the same classrooms. The researchers will begin by refining data collection instruments and developing three units in the fall of 2014 that will be field-tested in the spring of 2015. Professional development materials and peer support training components will be created in conjunction with the development of each unit. Teachers will also receive two days of face-to-face training in use of the Common Core System of Courses – Mathematics curriculum. ELLs will receive two hours of training in peer activities prior to participation, and will join weekly sessions to talk about their experiences and challenges in participating in Project Meld. Researchers will collect data for use in revising materials through an observation checklist, classroom observation, weekly teacher logs, teacher focus groups, student focus groups, and teacher survey. End of unit curriculum-based assessments will be administered to students and used to assess potential effects of Project Meld on student learning. After the paper and pencil scaffolds are finalized, they will be digitized. Project Meld materials will be reviewed by a technical review board prior to field-testing. The materials will be revised based on information from the qualitative data sources and student assessments. A similar process will be used to develop the remaining 4 units in the winter of 2015, with field-testing in the fall of 2015.

A pilot study will be conducted in Year 3 in 18 classrooms in nine new schools also with poor math performance and a mix of ELLs and English proficient students studying math in the same classrooms. Classrooms will be randomly assigned to treatment or control condition within each school. Eight ELLs and eight English proficient students will be randomly selected within classrooms to participate. Fidelity of implementation will be assessed through use of a classroom observation protocol specifically designed for this purpose.

Control Condition: Students in the control condition will receive the standard Common Core System of Courses – Mathematics curriculum without the Project Meld materials.

Key Measures: Measures of student academic outcomes will include curriculum-based assessments developed to accompany the base curriculum. Assessments include the Woodcock-Munoz Language Survey – Revised (both Spanish and English), a researcher-developed end-of-unit language assessment, and the Smarter Balanced assessments in math and ELA administered by the district.

Data Analytic Strategy: Feasibility will be assessed through coding and analysis of classroom observations, teacher focus groups, student focus groups, and teacher logs. During the pilot study, fidelity of implementation will be studied by coding classroom observations and reviewing the data to determine patterns of implementation. Researchers will investigate the relationship between Project Meld and changes in teachers’ disposition toward teaching math and students’ dispositions using HLM. The impact of Project Meld on student math outcomes will also be estimated in the pilot study using HLM to account for clustering of students in classrooms.


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