Developing Elementary Mathematics Instructional Leaders (DEMIL)

Portland State University, Portland OR

Investigators

Abstract

This Noyce Capacity Building project is a collaborative effort by faculty at Portland State University and the Hillsboro School District to increase the number of talented STEM teachers in high-needs public, elementary schools in the region. The goal of the project will be to build capacity by improving the capabilities of an initial cohort of seven master teachers to serve as teacher/leaders in their schools and mentors for new teachers. Thus, the Master Teaching Fellows will participate in coursework to learn about and plan lessons based on pedagogies that have been shown to increase student engagement in mathematical practices. They will then implement these lessons in the classroom in collaboration with a learning community composed of their colleagues. The project will establish a model for the professional development for mathematics teachers along the professional continuum (expert to novice). The project is based on a theory of action, which claims that course-based learning coupled with the classroom-based learning will deprivatize instructional practice, availing the Master Teaching Fellows with a greater opportunity to perform effective inquiry and analysis as they teach. The investigators hypothesize that this professional development model will supply the "connective tissue" that research has shown to be missing in teacher education. This model also provides a common focus on increased student engagement in mathematical practices defined by the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. Formative and summative evaluation will be used to monitor progress toward the project goal and to inform potential revisions of the professional model for future implementation including scaling up. Classroom artifacts (Instructional Quality Assessment), learning community observations, and focus group interviews will be collected and analyzed to provide insight into whether or not student achievement in mathematics will be improved by evidence-based instruction that focuses on their engagement in mathematical reasoning, sense making, and discourse.