The University of California at Santa Barbara will conduct a three-year program to develop K through 8 mathematics education leaders from among existing bilingual and minority teachers and from among committed teachers in high minority population schools in the Santa Barbara area. Eight Cycle I teachers will be enhanced in implementing a hands-on, problem-solving approach to mathematics instruction, in improving their ability to relate to a culturally diverse student population, in developing effective approaches to professional development and in developing into teacher leaders who will in turn conduct such teacher enhancement activities. The Cycle I teachers will then help enhance an additional forty Cycle II teacher-leaders who, together with the Cycle I group, will then conduct one- to three-day workshops for an additional 370 third cycle teachers and administrators. With informal staff development by the teacher-leaders at their home schools, a total of 800 to 1,000 teachers will be enhancement. The program will consist of twenty-one days (13 summer and 8 academic year) of leadership seminars each year, with Cycle I teachers participating in such seminars all three years and Cycle two teachers participating in them the second and third years. The one- to three-day inservice workshops will also be held. The mathematics content of the seminars and workshops will focus on geometry, spatial sense and patterns, statistics and probability, measurement and number. The percent of cost-sharing by the University of California at Santa Barbara and the school districts accounts for 31% of the NSF budget. This project will provide a model, transportable program to enhance the teaching of mathematics in a multicultural setting and will document the effectiveness of the model. Such a model is urgently needed.
