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The Virtual Math Teams Project
The National Science Foundation awarded two major grants to
the College of Information Science & Technology to develop the first application
of digital libraries to small group collaborative learning. The project will
investigate issues involved in extending the Math Forum’s popular “problem of
the week” service for use by small groups of students who meet online to
collaborate on the problems.
The Virtual Math Teams Project includes the following
research activities:
 | Observation of students in math classrooms in
Philadelphia public schools working collaboratively on math problems. This
will include detailed analysis of their collaborative learning process. |
| Designing mechanisms to bring together compatible teams
of students who visit the Math Forum online. This will include experiments on
optimal groupings of students based on their math skills, interests and
backgrounds. |
| Developing math problems that are structured for
discussion, exploration and solution by small groups of students. |
| Designing, implementing and evaluating online support
for small groups of students to collaborate on math problems. |
| Studying the online collaborative learning process among
student groups solving math problems, teachers developing new problems and
researchers designing computer support technologies. |
| Scaling up the online service for use in Philadelphia
public schools and globally. |
| Evaluating the success of all aspects of the project. |
This project has significant consequences for research at
Drexel University’s College of Information Science & Technology:
| It is a major, long-term research effort that will
involve students in classes at all levels in leading-edge, hands-on research
in information science and technology. |
| It will strengthen the working relation between the
College, the Math Forum and other groups inside and outside of Drexel. For
instance, the Computer Science Department has a new related grant to develop
mobile technologies for use with the Math Forum. Faculty from Arts & Sciences
and Education are also involved. |
| It is the first large project to be part of a new
center for learning research at the Math Forum. This center will bring
together researchers from throughout Drexel, around the country and across the
globe. |
| It will support three PhD level students, thereby
helping to increase the size of the College’s doctoral program and allowing
more PhD students to be at Drexel fulltime. |
| It will involve leading researchers in educational
technology from around the world. About two dozen researchers from other
institutions (half outside the US) are collaborators on this project. |
| It will bring visiting researchers to Drexel for
presentations, professional discussions and extended stays. One of the
graduate student positions in the project will rotate among visiting students. |
| It will increase the visibility of the University and
the College in the world of research in information science and digital
libraries. |
| It will support the College’s research infrastructure
through indirect revenues. |
The NSF awarded the following grants to support this
project:
| "Collaboration Services for the Math Forum Digital
Library." Grant from NSF’s National Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program. Funded for $450,000 over
2 years starting August 15, 2003. This part of the Virtual Math Teams Project
emphasizes the development of the collaborative problem of the week service at
the Math Forum, including the development of special math problems structured
for collaborative solution and the design of the online service. |
| "IERI: Catalyzing & Nurturing Online Workgroups to Power
Virtual Learning Communities." Grant from NSF’s Information Technology
Research (ITR) Program and NSF’s Interagency Education Research Initiative (IERI)
Program. Funded for $2,300,000 over 5 years starting September 1, 2003. This
part of the Virtual Math Teams Project includes micro-analysis of students
collaborating on math problems in classrooms and online as well as the
development of technologies to support the online collaboration. It also
includes scaling activities to facilitate use of this service in the
Philadelphia public schools. |
For more information about this project, please contact
Gerry.Stahl@drexel.edu or see our Virtual Math Teams site at
http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/vmt.
Principle investigator: Gerry Stahl, associate professor,
College of Information Science & Technology. Co-Investigators: Stephen Weimar,
Director of the Math Forum @ Drexel, and Wesley Shumar, assistant professor of
Anthropology at Drexel and Math Forum ethnographer.
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This page last modified on
August 18, 2003
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