Integrating Cognitive Principles to Redesign a Middle School Math Curriculum

Does a middle school mathematics curriculum that is redesigned using principles based in cognitive research improve student outcomes? To test whether research can be effectively translated into practice, the Connected Mathematics Project 2 (CMP2) curriculum was revised according to four principles 1) integrating visual with verbal information, 2) prompting for self-explanation of correct and incorrect worked examples, 3) spacing learning over time, and 4) using formative assessment. This study of 6 grade and 8 grade mathematics education addresses the research question: “Do students who are exposed to specific redesigned CMP2 curriculum modules (treatment) exhibit greater improvements in mathematics performance in the module-specific content area than their counterparts exposed to the regular CMP2 curriculum (control)?” Preliminary analyses show statistically significant effects of the redesigned CMP2 units in three of the four curricular units in this study.