This four year project takes advantage of a collaborative association between the University of New Hampshire and four schools from quite different communities, and is designed to enhance middle school math and science teachers' conceptual base in mathematics and science, pedagogical skills, laboratory/ activity learning and scientific thinking. Twenty-four lead teachers from these four schools will participate in three 3-week summer institutes and academic year activities including 10 days/ year of inservice. Additional activities, focusing more on strengthening and practicing leadership skills, are planned for the fourth and final year of the project. As the project progresses, participants will begin to provide inservice to colleagues within their own and neighboring schools, and will serve as Master Teachers to preservice teachers in middle school mathematics and science education. A unique feature of this project is a one-week course designed to acquaint university mathematics and science faculty instructors with interactive teaching methods, adolescent development, and discovery-oriented laboratory sessions, and to involve them in classroom observations and exchanges with two middle school Master Teachers who, along with teacher education faculty, will serve as instructors for this course. Subsequently, these mathematics and science faculty instructors will be extensively involved in the summer institutes and follow-up support of participants during the academic year. This proposal is appropriate for teacher enhancement because it is an innovative project which will provide leadership training and extensive inservice to middle school teachers of mathematics and science. The cost-sharing amount is approximately 29% of the amount requested from NSF.
