This Leadership Activities project will provide enhancement and professional development experiences for 25 exemplary secondary school mathematics teachers from Santa Clara County, California public and private schools. The overall goals of the two-year project involve the updating and deepening of the participants' knowledge of problem solving and integrated approaches to school mathematics topics and teaching methodologies, the networking of the participants and university mathematics faculty, the conduct of follow-up sessions and in-service workshops by the participants in their home schools, appropriate recognition for honors teacher participants, and the investigation of the modelistic approach within a carefully planned documentation, assessment and evaluation effort. Selections of participants will be based upon detailed applications requiring expressions of teacher and school commitments to implement project emphases. Working with university mathematicians, the participants will complete a 16-day summer workshop and eight monthly, day-long meetings designed to increase their conceptual understanding of, and commitments to, integrated treatments of mathematical topics, to develop strategies and teachng plans for problem-solving applications in their own curriculum, and to develop materials and techniques for use in their presentation of in-service workshops. They will earn graduate academic credits from the University of Santa Clara. During the preparation of the in-service workshops which the participants will design and conduct, the project staff will be available for consultation and support. Participants will be visited and observed in their classrooms and in their workshops with their peers. Careful documentation and analysis of these observations and of teacher reports will provide a significant basis for a detailed project evaluation.
