Conference presentations 
Name:
Ayushi Chitranshi (Left; https://carleton.ca/mathlab/people/ayushi-chitranshi/)
and
Liza Kahwaji (Right; https://carleton.ca/mathlab/people/liza-kahwaji/)
Program Info:
In what program are you currently enrolled? Cognitive Science
What year of the program are you currently in? First Year Masters (Ayushi), Fourth Year Undergrad (Liza)
Area of Study / Concentration: Cognitive Science (Ayushi), Cognition and Psychology (Liza)
itation in APA format:
Kahwaji, L., Chitranshi, A., Merkley, R., LeFevre, J., Yu, S., Douglas, H. (2023, July 13-14). Connecting Cognitive Science and Education to Advance Assessment and Instruction in Mathematics: Sharing our Collective Voices [Poster Presentation]. McMaster EdCog Conference, Hamilton, ON, Canada. https://edcog.pnb.mcmaster.ca/
Plain language abstract:
The AIM (Assessment and Instruction for Mathematics) Collective is a partnership initiative engaging researchers and educators across Canada to co-develop math assessment and instructional strategies. In May 2023, AIM hosted a summit with 52 partners and collaborators covering 11 school districts across 4 Provinces to connect diverse perspectives and mobilize knowledge. This poster highlights the communication strategy devised at the summit, titled ‘Collective Voices’, encouraging bi-directional relationships between research and practice.
The underlying principle of Collective Voices is to bring together the expertise and experiences of cognitive researchers and math educators, using multi-media formats including newsletters, podcasts, videos, and a website. We strategized a two-prong approach that focuses on communication internally between partners and externally to the community beyond the collective. The goal is to facilitate open dialogue around math education and shape evidence-informed resources. The poster aims to further the discussion around effective research-education collaborations connecting cognition and education.
Getting started:
How did the idea for this research come about?
Ayushi and Liza are a part of the communication team for the Assessment and Instruction for Mathematics (AIM) Collective (https://www.aimcollective.ca/). The goal of the AIM collective is to create and curate mathematics assessments and instructional strategies that support all children in reaching their full potential. Part of this is to connect researchers and educators which created a need for a communication strategy.
Is this part of a larger project?
Yes – part of AIM Collective.
Was it for a class?
No.
Was this research conducted as part of your Honours/M.Cog./PhD. thesis?
No.
How was this project funded? (if applicable)
AIM Collective – funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
Collaboration:
Was this research conducted with your supervisor?
Yes – This project was supervised by Dr. Rebecca Merkley, Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre, and Dr. Heather Douglas.
Was this research conducted with fellow graduate students at Carleton?
Yes – Shuyuan Yu.
What program are they in? / What is their area of expertise?
Shuyuan Yu is a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre. Shuyuan’s research investigates children’s mathematical development and learning mechanisms underlying conceptual changes.
How did this collaboration come about?
Shuyuan Yu is the post-doc in Carleton’s MathLab. Ayushi and Liza are also members of the MathLab. https://carleton.ca/mathlab/
Was this research conducted with researchers external to Carleton?
Where are they from? (Affiliation/Country) / What is their area of expertise?
This poster was not conducted with external researchers. AIM Collective does include a large list of researchers and partners from all over Canada that are interested in building a community of researchers and educators devoted to sharing evidence-informed, teacher-approved math education tools and resources.
How did this collaboration come about?
Dr. Rebecca Merkley’s driving us to share the team’s strategy.
Were there challenges to conducting this research?
This poster focused on a communication strategy. The team met at the AIM Summit 2023 to create the communication strategy. This provided us with designated time to create and implement our plan. As a result, we had minimal to no challenges.
How was data collected for this project? (if applicable)
All data presented was shown through the analytics provided by the media sources (website, podcast, newsletter).
How was data analyzed for this project? (if applicable)
We presented the number of sessions on the website, the number of interactions with the newsletter (i.e., clicks and downloads), and the number of podcast listeners all shown over time.
Where did you present your work?
McMaster Conference on Education & Cognition (EdCog), July 2023.
Why did you choose this conference/colloquium/symposium?
The McMaster EdCog conference links education and cognition similar to the communication strategy for AIM Collective that focuses on brings together researchers and educators, presented in the poster.
Was your work presented as a poster and/or talk?
Poster
If you presented a talk, what was the duration?
N/A
How would you describe your overall experience presenting your work at this conference?
Presenting this poster was a great experience. We were able to engage with many new people from all different professional backgrounds. It was a rewarding experience to see our hard work pay off when our poster was announced best poster.
Were there any challenges in presenting your work?
The attendants ranged from researchers to educators to students. We quickly learned how to adjust our explanations to match the interests of our audience.
08-2023-LizaAndAyushi Will you be making any changes to your research project based on feedback received?
Currently, no changes are being made.