Developing Facilitators of Practice-based Professional Development

Wested, San Francisco CA

Investigators

Abstract

The project is a three-year project to develop facilitator capacity and leadership for scaling up the use of "Video Cases for Mathematics Professional Development (VCMPC)" materials for professional development as well as adapting the materials for use in pre-service courses. Using teacher written work, video clips from VCMPD seminars and other PD sessions, an online forum for facilitators and other materials as tools, the project staff will design a Facilitator Institute to engage participants in experiences as learners and to consider implementation issues. The first Facilitator Institute will be conducted during the summer of 2003 with recruitment to emphasize districts with large numbers of underrepresented students, district teams and Mathematics and Science Partnership projects. Using feedback from the first FI, additional FIs will be held the following two summers, with the development of a leader guide and responsibility for leading such institutes shifted toward participants in previous institutes to develop a larger leadership capacity culminating in technical assistance to sites wishing to offer their own FIs. One member of the project staff will establish a framework for using PD curriculum, beyond just VCMPD, as a vehicle for developing the skills and sensibilities of secondary teachers to take on roles of leadership in mathematics professional development. This framework will be tested in Seattle and Philadelphia. All FI participants will be subscribed to the online facilitator forum using the LessonLab web-based, course builder software and portal and will participate in a lesson-study approach to preparing, enacting and reflecting on the use of the VCMPD materials with teachers. The project PIs will also provide technical assistance to MSPs and districts that have had facilitators trained to use VCMPD. The materials will also be customized to meet the needs of teacher preparation programs by creating a supplemental guide and initially tested at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Washington for use in elementary and secondary methods courses. The project will study teacher learning, teacher integration into practice and facilitation, as well as identify areas for future research. Horizon Research, Inc., will conduct formative evaluation focusing on the quality of the DFPBM institutes and the development of the pre-service supplement materials and summative evaluation on the quality and impacts of the project. The project will impact at least 75 facilitators, 1000 teachers, and pre-service teachers at four universities.