Highlights Of The MDPI
The first goal of the MDPI is to generate a students Mathematics Learning Profile (MLP), which offers a portrait of a students achievement and students processing style as well as explanations for why a student is being stymied in mathematics. This understanding helps teachers design a responsive instructional approach, or Prescription, that is compatible with the students inherent learning dispositions and needs.
Prescriptions can come in the form of general strategies that can be employed by the student that will be most conducive to building their understanding and skills or in the form of differentiated approaches for developing specific mathematics topics.
Knowing the nature of various processing styles in mathematics can help teachers adapt their approaches or fashion alternative approaches that are most comfortable for the student. By dealing with qualitative aspects of performance described by the MLP, accommodations and support can be offered which enhance the input of mathematical information and which help the student output or demonstrate learned skills more efficiently and effectively. The recognition of specific executive functions which can interfere with building concepts and skills will help the teacher develop of metacognitive strategies to help students manage the processing mathematical information.
To aid teachers in the application of findings of the MDPI, MathDiagnostics is in the process of compiling a collection of Prescriptions that have been developed to address specific processing styles in mathematics. Watch for further information on this website for the availability of this resource, probably in the form of a new book.
MDPI Prescriptions