Center for the Scholorship of School Mathematics
CSSM is a two-part initiative—a one-week summer institute and an academic year on-line follow-up—to serve education faculty who are developing content courses for graduate students in mathematics education. During the week, institute participants will experience aspects of being a “student” in such a course and will gain tools and materials to create a course at their home universities. During the subsequent academic year, on-line materials and interaction will support them as they develop and teach courses.
Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) Leadership Institute
EDC collaborates with SummerMath for Teachers at Mount Holyoke College to offer two-week institutes for staff developers, teacher educators, and teacher-leaders to consider the goals of professional development in mathematics, analyze the role of facilitator, and learn about the Developing Mathematical Ideas professional development materials. DMI Leadership Institute 1 is based on DMI's Number and Operations modules; DMI Leadership Institute 2 on the Geometry and Data materials.
Effective Use of Mathematical Instructional Materials
In recent years, national attention has focused on the use and role of instructional materials in mathematics education to improve student achievement. New national standards, international comparisons, and demands for increasing accountability suggest the need for broader research and stronger evidence about the effective use of mathematics curricula. Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) proposes a five-year project to understand mathematics curriculum leaders’ needs for research that informs their decision-making, and to increase researchers’ understanding of those needs. The proposed project aims to identify and organize research that is most useful to K–12 mathematics curriculum decision-makers and to develop improved mechanisms for them to make good use of such research.
Facilitating Lenses on Learning: Developing Leadership to Support Excellent Teaching in Elementary Mathematics
Facilitator Institutes prepare a national group of prospective facilitators to teach the two Lenses on Learning courses, which help school and district administrators support standards-based elementary mathematics instruction. Institute topics include elementary mathematics, the nature of standards-based mathematics instruction, what administrators need to know, and how they learn it.
Focus on Mathematics
Focus on Mathematics will increase student achievement and teacher quality through three programs that provide teachers with solid content-based professional development, provide students with rigorous courses and curricula, and establish a mathematical community in which mathematicians and pre-college educators work together to improve mathematics education in grades 5 through 12. The project, a Targeted Math-Science Partnership, is a collaboration involving Boston University, Education Development Center Inc., and five school districts.
Fostering Geometric Thinking
In collaboration with EDC's Center for Learning and Leadership Communities, this project is producing a research-based professional development curriculum focused on geometric thinking in the middle grades. It is also creating a framework designed to help teachers better understand geometric thinking and how it develops in learners; a curriculum for professional development in geometry based on this framework; quantitative and qualitative studies of the curriculum's impact; and research reports disseminating the results of this work.
Instructional Coaching in Mathematics: Researchers and Practitioners Learning from Each Other
This three-day conference will bring together mathematics coaches, those researching instructional coaching, and staff developers who train and support coaches. Because instructional coaching is a fairly recent means of professional development, coaches often lack a collegial network that connects them to their coaching colleagues. Frequently coaches lack mechanisms to provide information on promising practices and research that could shape and support their work in the field. To be explored at the conference will be:
• Theories of instructional coaching in mathematics being developed and tested by researchers
• Research questions that are important to practitioners
• Varied tools and models of coaching that can be added to a coach’s repertoire
• Strategies, tactics, and tools to support those designing professional development for coaches
This conference will continue the work that MLT has already done in mathematics staff development with teachers and administrators, and build on recent instructional coaching projects with elementary mathematics coaches in Boston, mathematics coaches of English Language Learners in New York City, and coaches who are working with teams of secondary level mathematics teachers involved in Lesson Study
Investigations Revisions
Revisions to the K--5 mathematics curriculum produced by TERC, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space, will address (1) improved format and pace, (2) greater attention to ideas of K-5 algebra, (3) expanded support for assessment, and (4) further development in selected content areas. A subcontract was awarded to EDC to lead the team that will focus on the ideas of K-5 algebra.
K-12 Mathematics Curriculum Center
K-12MCC provides a variety of services and products to support school districts around the country as they select and implement standards-based mathematics curricula. Implementation issues considered include transitions across grades K-12, professional development, and building support for curriculum change. Resources include a series of seminars; print materials, including a curriculum selection guide; case materials; and a Web site.
Leadership Content Knowledge and Mathematics Instructional Quality in the MSPs: A Study of Elementary and Middle School Principals
This large-scale research and technical assistance project will investigate the nature of elementary and middle school principals' knowledge and beliefs about mathematics learning and teaching and the effect of these beliefs on the principals' practice of classroom observation and teacher supervision.
Lenses on Learning in Chicago
Lenses on Learning: Understanding Mathematics Instruction at the Secondary Level
This project investigates the Leadership Content Knowledge (knowledge of mathematics, how it is learned, how it is taught) of secondary school administrators. We will explore the nature of secondary administrators’ LCK, how a Lenses on Learning course affects this LCK, and how materials design principles developed for K-8 Lenses function at the secondary level.
Lesson Study Center
Building knowledge of mathematics teaching and learning through lesson study.
The aim of this Center is to share resources and knowledge about lesson study in mathematics with teachers, researchers, school districts, and other educators. The site features information about projects, events, and services sponsored by the EDC Lesson Study Center and information and resources about lesson study. The site also aims to support lesson study teams in building a regional network to share their research lessons, events, and learning. Through the network, teachers engaged in lesson study can learn from each other and from lesson study practitioners in the U.S., Japan, and around the world. Our primary focus is on improving the teaching and learning of K-12 mathematics, but we welcome participation and inquiry from educators in other content areas.
Lesson Study Communities in Secondary Mathematics
This project will provide two years of professional development and lesson study support to teams of middle and high school teachers in the Greater Boston area, as well as building a community of teachers around lesson study in mathematics. Our goals are: to enhance knowledge of mathematics and pedagogy, to introduce teachers to lesson study, to build a community of teachers interested in lesson study, and to learn how the Japanese lesson study model can be adapted to become a successful professional development model for U.S. secondary school mathematics teachers. Teacher teams will attend workshops at EDC and complete four or more full cycles of lesson study with the support of a team coach/advisor.
Massachusetts Department of Education Summer Professional Development Institutes
Math Workshop: A Comprehensive Elementary Curriculum for Skill, Mathematical Agility, and Real Thinking
EDC will develop a dual-purpose K--5 comprehensive mathematics curriculum designed to address two challenges. First, it will provide a learning-by-doing model of professional development, allowing teachers to gain a more profound understanding of fundamental mathematics through the natural course of their daily work. Second, it will provide high-quality mathematics content and pedagogy for both districts that want to change but need additional help and districts that have rejected the particular models of reform that have been recently developed. This five-year project will create, field-test, and evaluate the curriculum to meet these needs, based on two years of exploratory research and drawing on a developed and tested blueprint.
Mathematical Themes
Mathematical Themes is a rigorous, coherent four-year high school mathematics curriculum designed to help students develop mathematical proficiency. Mathematical Themes will fit into the familiar four-year high school course structure while maintaining mathematical relevance and rigor and integrating key concepts from the sciences and other fields.
Mathematics Education in the Boston Public Schools
EDC will assist with the work of supporting mathematics education in the Boston Public Schools. Our focus will be on cultivating and supporting teacher leaders in math leadership teams who will play key roles in providing professional development in mathematics education across the district. EDC will provide professional development for the elementary school mathematics coaches who support the implementation of the new curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space.
Mathematics for Teaching: A Problem Based Resource for Teachers
The Park City Mathematics Institute (PCMI) of the Institute for Advanced Study, Education Development
Center (EDC) and the PROMYS for Teachers program of the Mathematics Department of Boston
University (PROMYS) jointly seek funding to develop specialized mathematics curriculum materials for in-
service teachers of mathematics. For the past 5 years PCMI has been the testing ground for a unique
resource for teachers of mathematics: courses designed by EDC and PROMYS and delivered to the PCMI
participants by specially trained secondary teacher-leaders.
Professional Development for Coaching Institute
The Institute provides opportunities to explore the mathematics of elementary school and to experience this mathematics from the perspectives of the student, the classroom teacher, and the coach. Participants consider issues of adult learning and analyze the process of teacher change. Institute participants examine the process of their own learning, and engage in discussion with coach colleagues to develop a deeper understanding of, and potential for, the coaching role. In addition, participants strategize with their coach colleagues and their team members attending other MLP programs, and discuss features of their own systems that can be used to support mathematics professional development.
Resources for Supporting Lesson Study in Mathematics
Building on the Lesson Study Communities in Secondary Mathematics (LSCSM) project (ESI-0138814), Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) proposes a five-year project to create professional development materials that support secondary mathematics teachers in improving teaching and learning through lesson study. EDC will develop a range of in-depth resources:
• A lesson study course for teachers
• A leadership guide for lesson study leaders and coaches
• A facilitator institute designed to build the capacity for scaling up
• Models for coaching and for writing about research lessons
Teaching to the Big Ideas of Early Algebra
This project designs, produces, and tests two professional development modules on early algebra: one on generalization and one on functions. The modules are part of Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI), a series designed for elementary and middle-grades teachers. DMI seminars support teachers' learning about mathematics and about children's mathematical thinking. Five modules have already been produced, on themes of arithmetic, geometry, and data. The modules on early algebra complete this program, providing teachers with the background they need to prepare students for later study.
The DMI Leadership Project
This project works with four interrelated streams of work: The Project Leaders Meeting, Case Writing Project, Early Algebra Field-Test Institute and Individual Site Development.
