{"id":1565,"date":"2024-03-13T16:28:09","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T20:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/prism\/?page_id=1565"},"modified":"2025-03-05T12:02:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:02:50","slug":"nj-stem-innovation-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/prism\/nj-stem-innovation-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey STEM Innovation Fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bringing outstanding teachers together to explore and share innovative STEM teaching practices<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 2024 NJ STEM Innovation Fellowship program will form a Professional Learning Community (PLC) that includes elementary and middle school teachers as well as university faculty members. The PLC will learn to implement a design innovation that develops foundational through advanced understanding of the mathematical concepts of equality and equivalence. The innovation uses a familiar and ancient technology – the balance scale – as a powerful learning tool that students can think with as they explore and come to understand increasingly complex ideas. Because the PLC includes math and science educators at all levels, this innovation will support learning from a child\u2019s earliest mathematical explorations through college graduation and into the workforce.<\/p>\n

What are equality and equivalence? At the elementary level, children are introduced to these concepts through the basic arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Understanding the concept of equality \u2013 as in 5 = 3 + 2 \u2013 prepares children for more complex mathematical concepts such as equations and equivalent fractions. These concepts are essential for building a solid mathematical foundation and preparing students for middle and high school mathematics.<\/p>\n

In middle school, students encounter a broader range of mathematical concepts built upon equality and equivalence, from ratios and percents to linear equations and functions. Understanding equivalence \u2013 as in 2\/3 = 6\/9, 10 – 7 = 6 \u00f7 2, and 4x + 12 = 4(x + 3) \u2013 is needed to solve problems involving rate, ratio, slope, and similarity. Without these concepts, students cannot make connections across the mathematical topics that would enable them to solve real-world problems.<\/p>\n

In high school, students explore more advanced topics such as polynomial and exponential functions, rational expressions and equations, similar figures, and theorems and modeling involving area and volume.\u00a0Mastery of equality and equivalence remains important for understanding these subjects, as students must be able to manipulate equations, solve complex problems, and make logical deductions based on mathematical principles.<\/p>\n

Without a solid grounding in the foundational concepts, students may find themselves unready for college-level coursework in mathematics and natural science. Students who struggle with first-year math\/science courses are less likely to persist in STEM majors or enter the STEM workforce (Chen, 2013; Cohen & Kelly, 2020; PCAST, 2012). The innovative use of a balance scale as a mathematical model for teaching the concepts of equality and equivalence provides students with an engaging, meaningful, hands-on approach to thinking and reasoning about abstract concepts and deepening their understandings.<\/p>\n

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