The edMe system was designed to explicitly handle long-term problem solving efforts, like STEM challenges, reading chapter books, and writing extended pieces. We know that these efforts are what students need to be successful in college and careers. We also know that too few states, districts, schools, and families have the supports they need to teach and document these efforts. In all of our outreach, we find that students more deeply engage in the content and develop a true love of learning when they are allowed to deeply explore this content.
In order to solve robust problems, students must have mastery of a variety of tools like reading fluently, broad vocabulary knowledge, math fact fluency, and scientific understandings. We also build students skills in these areas as necessary. But, these are not the end goals, they are steps toward strong, independent learning.
You can see a deeper explanation in some upcoming research, but we wanted to quickly highlight some educational models that are built into edMe Learning adventures.
This ongoing doctoral research allows students to take pictures and describe problem solving processes for mathematical word problems using whole numbers and the four operations. To date, findings highlight students’ need to have strong reading skills to be successful on the math questions.
