The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics will conduct National Workshops for Introduction to College Mathematics for 44 high school teachers from 11 districts nationwide. Eight of these districts are members of the Urban Mathematics Collaboratives program sponsored by the Ford Foundation, which will assist in support of the participants in their schools. Building on materials for fourth-year high school mathematics developed by the staff under Carnegie Corporation of New York funding, the participants in this program will have an intensive 12 day summer training in mathematics and leadership skills and then, based on their academic year experience and schoolroom use of the materials, help to develop new materials for in-service workshops which they will conduct in their districts for over 200 mathematics teachers of grades 7-12 in the second summer. The primary goal of this project is that middle and high school teachers experience a professional opportunity which will result in growth and a greater involvement in mathematics education along with a change in the perception of themselves with regard to mathematics education. The new Carnegie funded syllabus used for the workshops exposes participants to six modes of mathematical thought: geometry, analysis of data, probability and statistics, mathematical models of the real world, computers and finance. With a focus on application, reflecting advances in technology, this new course, which includes mathematics of contemporary importance, will provide better preparation for students who will encounter the changing role of mathematics in a wide range of college majors and careers. The PI, Dr. Steve Davis is Head of Mathematics and Computer Science at NCSSM and has received grants in previous years from NSF-NIE, Apple Foundation, Carnegie and IBM to develop tool packages of use in mathematics and science, educational applications of clustering and a syllabus for Fourth Year High School Mathemtics. Other staff members are Daniel J.Teague, Mathematics Instructor who has also been an Instructor in the Woodrow Wilson Institutes on High School Mathematics; Helen Compton and Julia Graves are Mathematics Instructors at NCSSM. NCSSM is eminently qualified in terms of staff, faculty, facilities, and institutional commitment, to act as a national leader in the development of new ideas in instruction. The NCSSM syllabus responds to the challenges posed by NCTM'S Agenda For Action and other reports. The PI has conducted numerous successful workshops in the past five years and has developed materials which are suitable for them in scope and philosophy. Each teacher will receive training in four areas: 1) Units in unfamiliar mathematics; 2) Motivating applications; 3) Effective use of a single computer in front of a classroom to deliver instruction; 4) The philosophy behind the syllabus. The training materials will provide better problem solving skills and increase the breadth of mathematical experience.
