Conversation About SimCalc, Its Evolution and Lessons Along the Way

Abstract

We come to this chapter with complementary perspectives around the building and supporting of research communities in learning and education research. The chapter is organized as a mutual commentary by former program officials from the National Science Foundation (NSF), built around a few questions to allow different perspectives to be visible—from mathematics education, from the interplay between technology and pedagogy, from policy, and from funding strategies. We use SimCalc’s history and achievements to discuss the need for vision and long time frames in funding, and point to multiple levels of research entailed in the process of achieving broad impact.

The NSF funding of SimCalc research amounts to a total of $19,332,911 for nine NSF awards (covering 17 years, from July 1993 until June 2011), and covers development, pedagogy, and research on its implementation and scaling up.