Dr. Anthony Petrosino's grant with the National Science Foundation receives recognition.
Dr. Anthony Petrosino and colleagues have received recent recognition for a $2,448,189 NSF grant (# 2115393) with the National Science Foundation. Petrosino (Co-Principal Investigator) along with colleagues Candace Walkington (Principal Investigator), Cathy Ringstaff (Co-Principal Investigator); Koshi Dhingra (Co-Principal Investigator); and Elizabeth Stringer (Co-Principal Investigator) are involved in work developing an application for learning math outside of school.
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Math is everywhere in the world, but youth may see math as disconnected from their everyday experiences and wonder how math is relevant to their lives. There is evidence that informal math done by children is highly effective, involving efficiency, flexibility, and socializing. Yet, more is needed to understand how educators can support math engagement outside of school, and the role these out-of-school experiences can play relative to the classroom and lifelong STEM learning.
This Innovations and Development Project seeks to conduct research on a location-based mobile app for informal mathematics learning. This research takes place at 9 informal learning sites and involves iteratively designing an app in which learners can view and contribute to an interactive map of math walk stops at these sites. Learners will be able to select locations and watch short videos or view pictures with text that describe how mathematical principles are present in their surroundings. For example, learners could use the app to discover how a painting by a local Latino artist uses ratio and scale, or how a ramp in downtown was designed with a specific slope to accommodate wheelchairs.
Research studies will examine the affordances of augmented reality (AR) overlays where learners can hold up the camera of their mobile device, and see mathematical representations (e.g., lines, squares) layered over real-world objects in their camera feed. Research studies will also examine the impact of having learners create their own math walk stops at local informal learning sites, uploading pictures, descriptions, and linking audio they narrate, where they make observations about how math appears in their surroundings and pose interesting questions about STEM ideas and connections they wonder about.
