I fundamentally believe that a key to learning mathematics is to develop habits of mind that, among other things, help you reason about mathematical situations. To be prepared for the future, students need more than just a memory bank of facts and procedures. They need conceptual understanding, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, and a productive disposition to be able to use mathematics to solve new problems.
My research aims to address the growing need for students to learn mathematics at the middle and high school grade level by supporting teachers to incorporate opportunities to engage in mathematical practices, such as justifying and proving, as part of every student’s everyday experience in the mathematics classroom.
Currently, I am involved with three projects, all funded by the National Science Foundation, to address these aims.
Leveraging Justification to Advance Equity Goals in Secondary Mathematics Classrooms. Collaborative grant with Dr. Megan Staples (University of Connecticut). Recommended for funding by the NSF EHR Core program.
UTEMPT (Undergraduate Teaching Experience for Mathematics Prospective Teachers). Collaborative grant with Dr. Fran Arbaugh (The Pennsylvania State University) and Dr. Michelle Cirillo (University of Delaware). Funded by the NSF IUSE program.
Enhancing the Teacher-Curriculum Relationship in Problem-based Mathematics Classrooms by Connecting Teacher and Student Digital Collaborative Environments. Co-PI with Elizabeth Phillips (Michigan State), Dr. AJ Edson (Michigan State), and Dr. Chad Dorsey (Concord Consortium). Funded by the NSF DRK-12 program.
Outcomes of my previous work include:
an innovative model for an early clinical experience that immerses secondary prospective teachers in the work of teaching ambitiously in the context of an undergraduate mathematics course, with support from mathematics teacher educators (Bieda et al., 2020a)
understanding of the influences of teachers’ social networks (Frank, Kim, Salloum, Bieda & Youngs, 2020), and the designated curriculum of their school districts (Bieda et al., 2020b), on early career teachers’ planning and enactment of mathematics instruction
an empirically-grounded framework (Bieda et al., 2021) for investigating the extent to which collaborative group work in mathematics classrooms reflects productive disciplinary engagement (Engle & Conant, 2002); and
analysis of the possibilities, and challenges, to supporting middle school students in mathematical justification and proof (Bieda, 2010), insights about students’ understanding of how to evaluate arguments (Bieda & Lepak, 2014); and how existing curricula support learning about mathematical argumentation (Bieda, Ji, Drwencke & Picard, 2014; Bieda, 2010).