This two-and-one-half year project involving teachers, university faculty, parents, students, retired teachers, and school district personnel will significantly enhance the mathematics background and pedagogical skills of thirty-two underprepared eighth-grade mathematics teachers in a predominantly minority urban school district. Throughout the duration of the project, City University of New York (CUNY) faculty and master teachers will provide the participants with mathematics instruction in areas relevant to the curriculum. During the academic year, participants will also practice and improve their teaching techniques in a Saturday Mathematics Academy attended by eighty underachieving students and their parents. On a rotating basis, they will teach the students, observe their colleagues' teaching, and advise parents on ways in which they can support learning at home. Retired teachers will serve as mentors for the participants and will assist them in translating their experiences from the Saturday Mathematics Academy into their regular classrooms. The evaluation will involve participants, their students, and their students' parents, and, at the end of the project, a dissemination meeting will be held for administrators from other interested school districts. The project is a collaboration between City College and New York City School District 10, which are contributing $286,478 in cost-sharing. Its combination of extensive instruction in content with regular opportunities to practice newly learned teaching techniques provides a model for significantly improving the qualifications of underprepared teachers that could be replicated by other urban school districts.
