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Providing all students with equitable treatment and access has been a cornerstone of mathematics education reform (Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, 2015; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014). Studies in mathematics classrooms show that using hands-on and interactive materials (i.e., "manipulatives") support students' conceptual understanding (Carbonneau et al., 2013), even for those who have learning difficulties and disabilities (Jitendra et al., 2017; Marita & Hord, 2017). Unfortunately, instructional approaches that incorporate manipulatives have not been implemented on a regular basis in high school mathematics classrooms (Swan & Marshall, 2010), likely due to the misconceptions of the effectiveness of manipulatives with older students (Carbonneau et al., 2013) and teachers' belief that manipulatives can be distracting (Corkin et al., 2019). The concrete-representation-abstract instructional approach, which involves the use of manipulatives, provides a promising instructional method for use in high school mathematics classrooms.

Enhancing all students' academic performance continues to be a national priority, and although achievement gains have been made overtime, shortfalls in mathematics learning for students with disabilities (SWD) remain. Research reveals that a substantial portion of the variability in students' mathematics achievement gains is due to the teacher. To address the need for teacher professional development (PD) in mathematics for SWD and other struggling mathematics learners, we designed and studied "Prime Online"--a yearlong, online, PD program with support from an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Goal 2 Development and Innovation research grant. In this article, the development process and an exploratory study are discussed. Study findings suggest that "Prime Online" positively influenced general and special education teachers' reported beliefs and practices, and their learning of mathematics content for teaching, and generated high teacher satisfaction ratings. No difference in the performance of SWD on a state accountability measure of mathematics was found. Implications for further research are discussed.

Community engagement has been defined as a collaborative enterprise between higher education institutes and external communities where stakeholders can experience and benefit from a mutually beneficial knowledge exchange. A researcher examined a Research 1 university faculty's perception of community engagement in the form of service-learning and implemented an online community of practice for faculty and community members to increase the faculty's use of service-learning. The findings revealed that, although faculty see many benefits in implementing service-learning and report interest in learning about and using this pedagogy, service-learning practices are still considered an addition to faculty workloads rather than an integrated and expected role. The faculty reported concerns about the mixed messages within the institution around the value of their investment in this practice, including the lack of recognition in promotion and their feelings around professional obligations particularly related to research publications. Although faculty described teaching as equally important to research, they also perceived that the institution valued teaching and service as less important than research. Consistent with extant literature, this research provides evidence that community engagement activities need to be embedded in faculty roles and rewards to become institutionalized. Implications for practice and research will be discussed.

Algebra has been called the gatekeeper to higher level mathematics, college success, and higher wages, but many community college students struggle to pass college-level mathematics courses. The National Educational Technology Plan for higher education (U.S. Department of Education 2017b) calls for the integration of technology, such as real-time formative assessments, to support student learning. Community college faculty, however, struggle to implement technology to support student learning. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to describe barriers to technology implementation from the perspectives of mathematics community college instructors. A rural community college in the southeastern United States had a goal of increasing student success rates in developmental and college algebra courses by engaging in professional development to incorporate classroom connectivity technology, the Texas Instruments Navigator system coupled with the Nspire calculator, within their algebra sequence. Over the course of 3 years, mathematics faculty participated in 27 professional development days, provided input for lesson creation and revision, and had ongoing classroom support. Faculty interviews were conducted postintervention and analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Charmaz 2006). Barriers to the implementation of classroom connectivity technology at the instructor level included faculty beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning and about students' abilities. Other findings included lack of time for planning, inadequate technical support, lack of agency related to the college's quality enhancement plan, and the perception of misalignment between the activities and the state-mandated curriculum. Implications for supporting technology implementation in higher education will be discussed.

This study sought to identify components of an asynchronous online teacher professional development program, "Prime Online," that potentially affected participants' mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT). Twenty-three third- through fifth-grade general education and special education teachers completed a yearlong online teacher professional development program focused on improving MKT, instructional practices for all learners (particularly those with disabilities), and practitioner inquiry. Latent growth modeling and focus group data indicated growth in participants' content knowledge and initial growth in knowledge of students from pretest to midtest, with a decline at the end of the program. Module components are described to highlight the online teacher professional development program structure and specific activities that potentially supported participants' growth. Mathematical modeling, engaging with practitioner-focused journals and websites, developer-constructed materials, classroom implementation, and reflection and discussion provided participants with the opportunities for professional development resulting in increased MKT.

Mathematical manipulatives and the concrete–representational–abstract (CRA) instructional approach are common in elementary classrooms, but their use declines significantly by high school. This paper describes a mixed methods study focused on knowledge retention and perceptions of students in a high school Algebra I inclusion class after a lesson on square roots using a novel algebra manipulative. Twenty-five students in a high school Algebra I inclusion class engaged in an interactive lesson on square roots paired with the manipulative to support their conceptual understanding. Participants completed a pretest, a post-treatment questionnaire, and a delayed post-test. The two-sample t test showed a significant difference in students' pretest–post-test scores. However, conventional content analysis of the questionnaires showed that most students did not believe the CRA instructional approach supported their learning. Implications include increased use of manipulatives to teach abstract algebraic topics to support students' conceptual understanding and destigmatizing the use of manipulatives in secondary mathematics classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]