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Hispanic Education in Math Gets Grant

Posted on: Wednesday, 25 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $10 million grant to create a Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos and Latinas that will be centered at UA and span four states.

The effort to improve math instruction and learning - particularly for the nation's large and rapidly growing Hispanic population - will team math and education researchers at the University of Arizona with the Sunnyside and Tucson unified school districts.

"In a sense, we're trying to personalize math education so the relevance and importance of it is recognized by the kids so they invest in it," said Luis Moll, an associate dean at the College of Education.

The goal of the five-year grant is to advance math education by developing a model that connects math instruction and learning to the cultural, social and linguistic contexts of Hispanics, UA officials said. To that end, researchers from the mathematics department in the College of Science and the College of Education's department of language, reading and culture will work with teachers and families in the schools.

The center also teams the UA with the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of New Mexico.

Those researchers will come to the UA early next month to plan the start of the project, Moll said. "The heart of the project is here," he said.

In Tucson, researchers will concentrate on kindergarten through the eighth grade, Moll said, noting relatively little research has been done at middle schools.

"The growing presence of Hispanic students in the nation's schools, particularly in Arizona and other Southwestern states, requires new approaches to curriculum and instruction," Dean of the College of Education Ron Marx said in a written statement.

"The cultural and linguistic diversity that Hispanic students bring to the classroom needs to be recognized as a resource that can benefit all students."

He said the center's work would help all students succeed in math.

In addition to Moll, the center's principal investigators will be mathematics professor Marta Civil and associate mathematics professor Virginia Horak.

The center will also use doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows in research and teacher-education activities.

* Contact reporter Inger Sandal at 573-4115 or by e-mail at isandal@azstarnet.com.

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