Mobilize: Everyday Data Collection

Assessment, Data Use, Evaluation, Learning Design, Methodology, Technology

Project Mobilize, a National Science Foundation Math Science Partnership (NSF MSP) grantee, engages students in statistical investigations that promote computational thinking practices while drawing upon real-world data. Hundreds of teachers and thousands of high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) have participated in Mobilize since its inception in 2010.

Over the life of the project, the Mobilize team has led professional development activities for inservice teachers and developed lessons for Algebra, Biology and computer science classes. These lessons call for students to use everyday mobile devices as data collection tools. In 2014-2015, Mobilize launched a year-long course, Introduction to Data Science (IDS). As a statistics course, students passing the IDS course fulfill their Algebra II requirement towards UC/CSU admission.

CRESST has served as the external evaluator for Project Mobilize. Using a mixed method design, the CRESST team has documented the implementation and evolution of Mobilize curricula while examining teacher learning in computational and statistical thinking practices as well as their growth in using inquiry-based strategies. CRESST has also developed a series of computational thinking tasks to capture student learning. Findings from Year 6 (2015-2016) indicate that teachers and students demonstrated growth in their conceptual understanding of statistics and computational thinking skills based upon pre/post assessment data.