This RAPID project responds to the new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M), a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The CCSS-M brings both unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges for institutions of higher education. They prompt the need for secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs to address changes in the knowledge that teachers need - both in mathematical content and in instructional approaches. Content challenges include topics and approaches in the content standards in the CCSS-M that are not commonly addressed in mathematics content classes taken by prospective teachers; examples include transformational geometry and inferential statistics. The CCSS-M's Standards for Mathematical Practice imply the need for adjustments in how mathematics content courses are taught so that prospective teachers develop a strong grounding in these practices. Similarly, methods courses will need to include attention to instructional practices that ensure K-12 students achieve the CCSS-M content and practice standards. In addition, programs need to work with K-12 institutions to align field experiences around the CCSS-M. Ultimately, significant changes will be necessary in the experiences that preservice secondary mathematics teachers are provided in their teacher preparation programs to ensure that they are prepared to teach the CCSS-M.
The RAPID work involves development of a partnership of universities, K-12 education, and other stakeholders to begin collaboration on the curriculum research and development needed to ensure that secondary mathematics teacher education programs effectively prepare secondary mathematics teachers to teach the CCSS-M. Leading the effort is the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative (SMTI), a coalition of 125 public research institutions organized by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities to stimulate high quality STEM teacher preparation and enhance learning across specific programs and approaches. Universities will qualify as partners in this CCSS-M initiative based on their commitment to engage in "ground-up" redesign of their program. Criteria for partnership include: (a) administrative support from the provost, deans of relevant colleges/schools (e.g., Education; Arts and Sciences), and department heads (e.g., Mathematics, Curriculum and Instruction), (b) established collaborations with one or more K-12 school districts, and (c) the existence of a team of mathematicians, mathematics educators, and affiliated K-12 school personnel committed to work on the initiative. Partners agree to participate in the development and testing of courses, units, tools, instructional approaches, and assessments useful in the redesign of their secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs.
A major activity of the RAPID is a conference that will bring partners together to further define the full scope of work for institutional change, including defining characteristics of effective teacher preparation and identifying priorities for action in redefining secondary mathematics teacher preparation. A key product of the conference is a report that outlines findings of the attendees and forms the basis for a subsequent research and development path for redesign of teacher preparation programs to be developed by 7-9 core institution of higher education along with their K-12 partners. This report will be distributed to the larger community, including individuals within institutions of the SMTI as well as non-SMTI members, both for reaction and for consideration as a framework for their teacher preparation programs.
The U.S. needs more and better prepared mathematics teachers to keep our students learning on an internationally competitive level. This NSF project supported the initial development and launch of the Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership (MTE-Partnership), a broad national group with the potential to help university teacher preparation rise to this challenge. The goal of the MTE-Partnership is to establish an organization of university/K-12 teams to "transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation." The group’s success would ensure an adequate supply of teacher candidates who can promote mathematical excellence in their future students, leading to college and career readiness. We define 'mathematical excellence' in accordance with the rigor and concepts in such documents as the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), and the Mathematics Education of Teachers II (METII). There were several major outcomes to this initial grant to the MTE-Partnership: Recruited successfully an extensive range of 38 partnership teams in 30 states – each anchored by major public university, included at least one school district (or other K-12 entity), and at least one more college, university, school district, or other education organization; and each team also including university faculty of mathematics and mathematics education; high school mathematics teachers; and university and school administrators; in total, involving 68 universities, 9 community colleges, and 87 K-12 districts and schools Convened a first conference to establish mutual goals and priorities (March 2012), resulted in producing a draft report, Guiding Principles for Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation Programs addressing key challenges of secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs (July 2012) to be found at: www.MTE-Partnership.org Established 4 working groups involving 130 mathematicians, mathematics teacher educators, and K-12 personnel to develop consensus on background and definition of four major challenges – establishing a common vision for partnerships in mathematics teacher preparation; role and support for mentor teachers in the clinical preparation of teacher candidates; mathematical preparation of teacher candidates; and recruitment of teacher candidates. Subsequent work lead to the writing of white papers for each of these areas, which will result in a published monograph. Began the initial design of our work based on the "Networked Improvement Community" (NIC) model developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (cf. Bryk et al., 2010), which is serving as a "design partner". NICs are scientific learning communities distinguished by four essential characteristics: focused on a well specified common aim, guided by a deep understanding of the problem and the system that produces it, disciplined by the rigor of improvement science, and networked to accelerate the development, testing and refinement of interventions and their effective integration into varied educational contexts. The NIC model is particularly well suited to our partnership. It’s emphasis on rapidly prototyping, testing, and refining strategies for improvement is designed to create timely solutions to important problems, not just scholarly knowledge. Ultimately, these solutions will be disseminated as national models for effective secondary mathematics teacher preparation. The diversity of populations served by our partners (rural/suburban/urban, geographical regions, large and small districts, high-needs) implies our ability to address a wide range of contexts. Moreover, our adaptation of the NIC model may provide a useful perspective for other school-university partnerships addressing areas of need in mathematics education and beyond. formed a national Advisory Board to link our effort with key mathematics societies and education associations Began to attract additional external funding to develop an action agenda and organize the initiative such that teams both drive an important national reform agenda and reflect their own interests for significant program/process reform The Partnership is likely to have greater influence in that it is a part of the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative (SMTI) of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), which is a larger organization of major public research universities in every state.
