- Year 2022
- NSF Noyce Award # 1849948
- First Name Jeremy
- Last Name Zelkowski
- Discipline Mathematics
- Co-PI(s)
Bill Bergeron, Martha Makowski, Jim Gleason
- Presenters
Jeremy Zelkowski, University of Alabama; Bailey Avina, The Alberta School for Performing Arts; Nathan Kenny & Kim Anderson, Hillcrest High School
Need
We identified many target areas justifying our proposal for a Track 3. We focus on these three for this poster: 1. The need to reduce regional math teacher turn-over. 2. The need to build a high-capacity network of master teachers for supervising field experience teacher candidates. 3. The need to have long-term, sustained, and high-quality PD to form partnerships and support high needs students in regional schools.
Goals
Our work is guided by the following research and evaluation questions.RQ1: How does student engagement in mathematical practices change as teachers develop into MTFs?RQ2: How does the ability of teachers to facilitate learning change as they develop into MTFs? RQ3: How do teachers facilitate growth in preservice mathematics teachers’ development as MTFs develop into teacher leaders?RQ4: How does the participation of administrators impact mathematics education in their schools?EQ1: How effective have each of the project’s major activities been in terms of their contributions to achievement of the project’s purpose and goals?EQ2: What aspects of the project went well? What unanticipated challenges arose and how were they addressed?EQ3: How has this project affected the relationships between and among the project’s stakeholders, and especially their capacity for collaboration?EQ4: What has been learned regarding the implementation of teacher leadership programs?EQ5: What aspects of this project should be sustained beyond its funding period and what strategies for sustainability have been identified?
Approach
The research and evaluation process will follow the project’s Logic Model using Guskey’s five-level framework: (1) participants’ reactions; (2) participants’ learning; (3) organization support and change; (4) participants’ use of new knowledge and skills; and (5) student learning outcomes. We further are guided by the NCSM leadership principles and indicators for mathematics teacher leaders.
Outcomes
This project poster will present the results to date, about 35-40% of the project timeline. We will focus on the improved math teaching practices and sustained practices using classroom observation data from the MCOP2 (Gleason et al, 2017). We will further present data findings from four other instruments in use, the TPACK (Zelkowski et al, 2013); the MTEBI (Enochs, 2003); the ATSEI (Wilkerson, 2019); the MTPs (under review). Coming next is the results from national boards submission results from the first cohort submissions, and the first projects plans from the first annual admin/MTF summit in June 2022 in which MTFs will implement with support from their admins.
Broader Impacts
The UA-PLUS-M partnership spans a 50-mile radius (expanded due to covid hurting recruitment efforts) from the UA campus consisting of approximately 30,000 students, of which approximately 35% are racial & ethnic minorities, and more than 55% qualify for the free & reduced lunch program. Both inservice and preservice teachers who are mentored by MTFs will influence the local STEM pipeline by improving student engagement in the mathematics classroom. We estimate an impact that will directly benefit 50,000-75,000 students in the next 10 years (+50,000 indirectly). The project will provide a summit conference each summer with partner school administrators that has the potential to transform advisory relations with mathematics education outcomes as the central focus. The program will serve as a model for other School & University Partnerships to improve mathematics education outcomes. Results and products from this project will be disseminated at local conferences (ACTM) and national conferences (AMTE, NCTM, NCSM, T3) to share findings and knowledge about the development of teacher leaders and improved outcomes in high needs schools. The development of a well-structured, intense MTLS graduate program (online during the academic year and face-to-face on campus during the summer) will provide regional and national outreach, particularly to teachers in rural areas.
