The Cleveland Collaborative for Mathematics Education, a program of the Cleveland Education Fund, will develop and implement over a four-year period a curriculum and professional development model which will upgrade the Cleveland Public Schools' seventh and eighth grades mathematics curriculum to incorporate problem solving. The Problem Solving Infusion Project will establish an accurate working definition of problem solving and convey the integral relationship of problem solving and mathematics to the Cleveland Public Schools intermediate school teachers, 2) develop a format for the presentation of problem solving activities that will aid teachers in the development of problems and in the incorporation of problem solving into the classroom, 3) produce a set of teacher-developed problems correlated to the course objectives that will then be tested in an urban setting with a predominately minority school population, 4) develop and implement a staff development model that will assist teachers in using new curriculum materials and in expanding their teaching techniques, 5) develop a problem solving community computer network which will facilitate networking and aid in the formulation and dissemination of curriculum materials, and 6) establish a contest format that can be implemented in districts throughout the country. Cost sharing by the partners will total 80% of the NSF funding.
