D.
The Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project
The Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project
(GPSMP) is a “Local Systemic Change” program funded by the National Science
Foundation. It builds upon nearly five years of work in Philadelphia
implementing the Interactive Mathematics Program. Its five-year mission is to include more NSF reform curricula for
both middle and high schools, and extend its service to include schools and
school districts in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. From a total of possible 1,100 schools in
both states, this project will eventually work with approximately 20 school
districts that have demonstrated readiness to engage in standards-based
mathematics reform. The goal is to train 600
teachers over five years in this local area to who are able to sustain the
reform process after this grant ends.
GPSMP
Professional Services
The Greater Philadelphia Secondary
Mathematics Project provides the necessary professional development,
in-classroom follow-up mentoring, and administrative technical assistance to
schools that have made a commitment to align the curriculum and instructional
practices of their secondary mathematics classrooms with the new
mathematics standards. A school district’s professional development plan is
developed in joint consultations with the GPSMP project directors and the
district’s administrators and teachers. All plans have the following components:
1) a multi-year, intensive
in-service schedule,
2) student-centered instructional
methods,
3) inquiry-based, integrated
curriculum,
3) teacher leadership development,
4) provisions for classroom
mentoring, and
5) administrative technical
assistance.
There is no charge to participating school
districts for the following services:
1. In-service
Curriculum: The professional development
plan for each districts' math staff is designed to meet the needs of a range of
teachers who are at different stages in their careers, who have different
teaching assignments in their schools, and who have had different amounts of
previous professional development. The
professional in-service curriculum consists of two types of training. Each teacher will have a somewhat different
mix and schedule of training depending on the particular needs of the school
and the teaching assignments and experience of its teachers. The first type is centered on one of several
NSF-sponsored middle and/or high
school curricula, which have been selected.
This type of training ranges from 180 to 240 hours depending on whether
the curriculum spans 3 or 4 years.
2. In-service
Instructional Methods: The in-service
instructional methods for the above training model an inquiry-based,
student-centered classroom. For
example, in IMP in-service sessions, teachers are seated in groups of four,
like their students. The in-service
presenters guide teachers through the units as they would their own
students. Teachers work on selected
problems in each unit. In addition to
new math content, the training also focuses on student-centered instructional
strategies and various forms of assessment, including portfolios, long-term
problem-based essays, and group presentations.
An integral part of training is
for teachers to actually teach all levels of a full-replacement curriculum. The in-services focus on practical issues of
classroom implementation. Teacher
manuals, videotapes and electronic networking supplement the in-services.
3. Promoting
Teacher Leadership: Teacher leaders can be important agents of
systemic change are within schools (Day, Goertz, & Floden, 1995). Teacher leaders are important because they:
1) act as agents of change within their building, 2) persuade their colleagues
to take risks involved with change, 3) provide programmatic stability in the
face of administrative turnover, 4) persuade parents of the need for change,
and 5) become better classroom teachers.
We promote teacher leadership by providing teachers with the opportunity
to co-present in-service sessions with more experienced presenters, including
the co-directors. Teachers leading
in-services encourages the development of teacher-to-teacher networking and
collegial support. Therefore, one goal
of this project is to train more veteran teachers and mathematics department
heads to lead or co-present in-service sessions. For example, over two dozen veteran Philadelphia IMP teachers
have been involved in presenting or co-presenting IMP in-service sessions to
new teachers in Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Experienced teacher leaders are utilized as much as possible to
help schedule and conduct in-services for newer teachers.
4. Classroom
Teacher Mentoring: As a follow-up to the
in-service sessions, teachers are regularly visited in their classrooms to
receive one-to-one mentoring. Secondary
math teachers who were traditionally schooled must not only shift their
thinking about the way students learn, but must also adopt different approaches
to classroom management and student assessment. At the same time, many teachers must re-learn a large volume of
mathematics content that is not usually taught in high school, such as
probability, statistics, matrix algebra, and linear programming. Teachers also need to master the use of
graphing calculators and must work through many unfamiliar, non-routine
problems. New IMP teachers, for
example, are regularly visited in their classroom, by a veteran IMP
teacher-mentor or IMP director. During
these visits, a mentor may team-teach part of a lesson or help lead classroom
discussions. After each class, the
mentor provides feedback to the math teacher.
5. Administrative Technical Assistance: The project directors provide technical
assistance to principals, mathematics department heads, roster persons and
other administrative personnel concerning:
1) Budgeting support for program
implementation in their school;
2) Classroom materials, book, and
calculator requisitions;
3) Teacher and student recruitment
and classroom rostering issues;
5) Intra and inter-school and grade
articulation issues;
6) Student test performance and
program evaluation;
7) School-based implementation
issues, such as ESL, special education inclusion, college
admissions, NCAA, and AP
Calculus and AP Statistic courses.
Program Logistics
1. Schedule: One half of the training takes place during the months of
June, July and August, and occurs in 5-day blocks, 6 hours a day. (Lunch is an
additional 45 minutes). Approximately
10 weeks is available for summer training.
The academic-year training typically occurs on Saturdays or on other
in-service days for 6 hours each day.
Approximately twenty-two (22) Saturdays per academic year are available
for training. (In-service sessions may
run concurrently during the same summer week and on Saturdays.) All training
dates are scheduled at the most convenient times for teachers. Teachers are
also permitted to attend in-service training scheduled at other times with
other participating school districts.
2. Location: Depending on the number of teachers per course, the
training occurs either at La Salle University, or on-site in a school district,
or another nearby school district. We strive for a class size of about 20
participants. A calendar of the dates,
times and locations of summer and academic year training is distributed to all
teachers by the end of the month of March preceding the in-services.
3. Classroom Mentoring: Teachers who have undergone training during the summer are
provided with classroom mentoring during the following academic year. Teachers are visited an average of 8 times
during the first year of their training; 4 times during the second year and 2
times during the third year. Each
mentor has a set of teachers and schools as his/her responsibility. It is expected that each mentor will visit three
different teachers per day, usually within the same school. Each visit entails a pre- and post-conference
with the teacher. Each mentor submits a
brief report of every visit.
Periodically the mentors meet to discuss the progress of their teachers.
4. Administrative
Technical Assistance: The co-directors and other project
specialists will provide the technical assistance to schools. The average number of project days per year
devoted to providing technical assistance for schools is approximately 8
director-days per school district, which includes meetings and telephone
conferences. The number of consulting
days diminishes each year until there is sufficient implementation expertise at
each school site.
Criterion for GPSMP Participation
All
participating GPSMP schools are selected based on three criteria:
1.
Administrative Support: The administrative staff of a school
district--superintendent, curriculum supervisors, school principals, roster
chairs and mathematics department heads--have to be willing and prepared to
commit school-based and district resources to support sustained multi-year teacher
enhancement. In particular, they have
to commit to a local cost share in the form of books, classroom materials,
audiovisual equipment, graphics calculators and adequate classroom space,
including desks for students to work in groups.
Principals
must be visible supporters of change in their schools. This means teachers must
have stable teaching assignments as they undergo extensive staff development
over time. Teachers-in-training must
also be provided the time during the school day to plan the use of new
curriculum materials and discuss their classroom experiences with other
teachers. For example, in Philadelphia
high schools, IMP teachers-in-training have typically received a reduced course
load or compensation for an extra preparation period while in training.
2) School District Policy: Perhaps the greatest single challenge to
institutionalizing local systemic reform is maintaining the continuity of the
reform process in the context of administrative personnel changes. For this reason, it is important that school
districts adopt policies and practices, which will continue the change process
with different administrators. The following policy indicators are used to
select schools:
a) Adoption of standards-based curriculum and
assessment frameworks;
b) Previous professional development on the
NCTM Standards;
c) Willingness to
align other professional development resources with this project (such as Title
1, Eisenhower, and Goals 2000 fund);
d) Adoption of administrative policies to support classroom reform,
such as ensuring teachers have stable classroom and building assignments from
one year to the next;
e) Provision for all students from diverse racial and economic
backgrounds to have equal access to an inquiry-based, student-centered
classroom;
f)
Development of parent and community relations outreach and information program;
g)
Alignment of new math teacher hiring criteria with the NCTM Teaching Standards.
3)
Teacher Readiness: Many math teachers are
simply not ready to undertake change.
As of 1993, according to the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators
report (1996), 44% of high school math teachers and 72% of middle school math
teachers were not "well
aware" of the NCTM Curriculum and Evaluation Standards. An even greater percentage were not "well aware" of NCTM's Professional Teaching Standards. And, 44% of high school math
teachers surveyed had 6 or less hours of in-service per year.
One major
outcome of NSF's support for urban and statewide systemic change efforts has
been to increase teachers' familiarity with the NCTM Standards and their implications for changes in their own
classroom practice regarding curriculum, instruction and assessment. Nevertheless, teachers vary in respect to
their own readiness to change. We look
for schools with a sufficient critical mass of the school's teaching staff
willing to participate in intensive, sustained professional development
necessary to implement standards-based change.
Partnership Development Process
The
process of forming a partnership between the GPSMP and a participating school
district usually involves the following steps:
1) An initial invitation to participate or a
request from the school district for an initial discussion,
2) Meetings between the project co-directors
and key administrative personnel
3) Meetings with the mathematics supervisor or
department head and teacher leaders,
4) A 2 to 3 hour presentation before the
mathematics teaching staff,
5) Teacher visits to other schools,
6) Four days (24 hours) of in-service featuring
two replacement units teachers can use,
7) A series of meetings to plan the types of
professional development in-services and to work out logistical and funding
details,
8) Presentation and/or approval from the school
board,
9) A letter-of-commitment from the school
superintendent,
10) Further meeting to plan in-services and
classroom implementation.
School District
Obligations: Each school district is responsible for:
1)
Providing incentives for teachers to attend the in-services,
2)
Providing extra time for lesson planning during the academic year,
3) Purchasing books, graphics calculators,
overhead projectors, overhead graphics calculator, computer software, and
classroom durable and consumable materials.
Costs: The typical first
year per teacher costs of these items is:
1) Teacher
in-service stipends (or graduate credit) $1,000
2)
Graphics calculators (1 classroom set = 35) 2,870
3) Books
(2 classrooms sets)
2,520
4)
Classroom materials 300
5) Audio
Visual Equipment 700___________
$7,390
Project
Management
1. Project Directors: Mr. Joseph
Merlino, Dr. Edward Wolff, and Dr.
Alice Jordan are the directors and co-principal investigators of the
project.
F.
Joseph Merlino, M.A., Education, is the PI/PD for the Greater Philadelphia
Secondary Mathematics Project and provides technical assistance to schools,
supervisors all the mentors and presenters.
Edward
Wolff, Ph.D., Mathematics, is a co-pi for the Greater Philadelphia
Secondary Mathematics Project and has been a co-director of Philadelphia
Regional IMP Center. He is also Chair of Mathematics and Computer Science
Department at Arcadia University. Dr.
Wolff provides training in IMP Level 4 training, Harvard Reform and Statistics
in-services, mentors teachers and conducts statistical analyses of student
outcomes.
Alice Jordan, Ed.D., Mathematics
Education, has been a co-director of Philadelphia Regional IMP Center at La
Salle University for 6 years while also being a Department Head at Strawberry
Mansion High School where she taught IMP for three years. Now retired from high school teaching, Dr.
Jordan constructs the in-service calendar and mentors teachers.
2. Additional Key Staff: Assisting the project directors are an experienced cadre
of other in-service presenters and in-classroom teacher mentors familiar with
IMP and Core-Plus and various NSF middle school curricula. Approximately 95 other teachers and
university faculty are involved with providing in-services and mentoring to
schoolteachers. A sample of these personnel are listed.
Barbara
Stankus, an IMP 4 teacher on special assignment from Strath Haven High
School in Wallingford/Swarthmore School District.
Anthony Campione is a recently retired
IMP teacher from Furness High School. He has taught two levels of IMP and has
co-presented numerous IMP workshops and has mentored dozens of new IMP
teachers.
Richard
Clancy is a recently retired IMP 3 teacher
from Girls High school in Philadelphia.
He has taught three levels of IMP, has co-presented numerous IMP
workshops and has mentored dozens of new IMP teachers
3. Institutional Involvement: La Salle University
is the fiscal agent for this project.
Project partners include the Pennsylvania
Department of Education Mathematics Office and the New Standards Project in Education-University of Pennsylvania. Fifteen schools from Delaware county,
Montgomery county and Bucks county and the Center for a Greater Philadelphia
have joined together to form the Southeastern
Pennsylvania Standards Consortium.
This consortium is based on the work of the New Standards Project at the University of Pittsburgh.