- Year 2016
- NSF Noyce Award # 934761
- First Name Davida
- Last Name Fischman
- Discipline Mathematics
- Co-PI(s)
Carol Cronk, Victor Valley Union High School District, ccronk@vvuhsd.org
- Presenters
Jeremy Aikin, CSU San Bernardino, jaikin@csusb.edu
Need
The CSUSB Noyce Teaching and Master Teaching Fellowships program addresses local challenges by developing, implementing and evaluating a comprehensive professional development program in mathematics education that will result in improving the quality of instruction, and ultimately increasing student achievement among secondary students in the Inland Empire school districts such as San Bernardino City Unified School District, Chaffey Joint Union High School District, Victor Valley High School District, Moreno Valley, Rialto, Hesperia, Perris, Ontario-Montclair, and Redlands Unified School Districts.
Goals
All Teaching and Master Teaching Fellows will earn a Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics at CSUSB. It is our experience that most Master’s degrees earned by teachers in our service area are not specifically content-related but rather focus on general curriculum and instruction or on administration; thus this degree will significantly enhance the depth and breadth of mathematical content knowledge as well as content knowledge for teaching among the Fellows.
Approach
During the five-year Fellowship, Teaching Fellows and Master Teaching Fellows engage in lesson study in mixed grade teams. Each team is provided ten full days to meet with a facilitator during the regular school day, to study mathematical concepts and prepare, teach, and analyze and discuss research lessons. The lesson study teams have formed a strong and supportive bond, and in addition to the designated lesson study time, the teachers frequently meet together on their own time to share strategies, do their own homework, and plan instruction.
Outcomes
The Fellows were so excited about the lesson study process that they attended the Chicago Lesson Study Conference in May 2011, and since then have shared their lesson study expertise with the larger Noyce community in breakout sessions at the Western Regional Noyce Conferences and the Annual Noyce Conferences. In 2012, they conducted a public research lesson and follow-up discussion at a State-funded lesson study conference in San Bernardino. The lesson study teams are supported also by their districts in acknowledgement of the value of the process. As a result of the collaborative work involved in engaging in study for a Master’s degree in teaching mathematics and ongoing lesson study, the Fellows have become a supportive and productive community of teachers focused on enhancing all aspects of their teaching.
Broader Impacts
The Noyce Fellowship project will have a broad impact on underrepresented groups: Hispanics and African Americans comprise 84% of the SBCUSD student population, and the new SBCUSD hires in the past three years reflect similar ethnic compositions. The recruitment processes for the Fellows will be targeted to attract a diverse range of applicants, many of whom are likely to be from these historically under-represented groups.
