Articulating Effective Middle Grades Instructional Practices in a Teacher-Researcher Alliance

One of the most intransigent problems in mathematics education is the culturally-influenced divide between classroom practice and educational research. This paper describes our explicit attempt to bridge that divide by translating research on instructional practices linked to improving students' mathematics achievement into a brief guide outlining constructs, features, strategies, routines, and tools for use in a teacher-researcher alliance. We outline the design and development process, share the guide itself, and summarize data addressing the utility of the guide for a research and professional development project in which 100 U.S. Grades 6-8 teachers are collaborating to improve middle grades modeling and problem solving achievement. [For the complete proceedings, see ED629884.]