Developing Exemplary Math Teacher Leaders

Activities

Collaborating with professionals at Education Development Center, the MTF program will provide activities that concentrate on helping the teachers develop mathematical expertise and tools to promote equitable pedagogy in schools, and become highly qualified instructional leaders and mentors. These include:

Focus on Content and Equity

Mathematical Practice Seminar – This seminar is the core of the professional learning community and includes MTF, math educators, mathematicians and math graduate students. It will occur monthly over the course of each school year for a total of seven meetings, each approximately 3 hours long (dinner included). The content of these practice seminars will center on high school mathematics topics that are traditionally challenging to learn and to teach, considered through the lens of the MA Curriculum Standards for Mathematics, including both the Standards for Mathematical Practice and the relevant content standards. There will also be time to consider connections to equitable classroom practices and the mentoring and leadership aspects of the program.

Summer Equity, Mentoring and Leadership Institute (EDC) – In each of the four summers of Years 2 to 5, each master teaching fellow will engage in a 4-day professional learning experience at the EDC Intensive Summer Institute. The primary components of the summer work are: rich experiences doing math in ways that reflect how mathematicians do their work, MathEquityTM discussions, and examining equity through the lens of opportunity gaps. The summer work will provide teachers practical tools, theoretical perspectives and inquiry practices that will inform their work throughout the school year.

Coursework and Colloquium Series

Mathematics Education Colloquium Series – This colloquium series, organized by Boston College, will offer four talks per year from national mathematicians and mathematics education leaders on topics of interest to teachers and other educators. Through this colloquium series, MTF will learn about the latest research in curriculum development and mathematics education. Each colloquium will be scheduled after school and will be followed by a Mathematical Practice seminar.

Graduate Coursework – Master teaching fellows will take one pre-approved 3 credit graduate course at Boston College in each year of the program (for a total of 15 credits) to strengthen their knowledge of mathematical content and pedagogy in a targeted fashion. The graduate courses in education and in math will directly support MTFs as they assume leadership roles in their schools and districts, equipping them with a bigger picture.

Pathway to Teacher Leadership

One-on-One Mentoring by Mathematicians and former Master Teacher Alumni – Mathematician mentors from Boston College and master teachers from our previous Noyce project will support MTFs with regular meetings, classroom visits and pre- and post-visit conversations.This provides MTF opportunities to engage with faculty and colleagues in discussions about math teaching to enhance and refine their content knowledge and pedagogy, as well as to prepare to become a mentor themselves.

Mentoring a beginning math teacher – In the summer of Year 1, MTFs will complete a credit-bearing online offering from Boston College’s Pathways to Professional Development which has a specific focus on mentoring and the induction of new teachers. This will help prepare MTFs for mentoring a beginning math teacher (a “mentee”) in their own districts in Years 2 and 3. In these years MTFs will visit their mentee’s classes, co-plan lessons tasks and have regular meetings, which will include developing high cognitive demand math tasks. They will also regularly meet with the project team to discuss the progress of their mentee and to continue to learn about the clinical component of mentoring.

Professional development and pre-service leadership opportunities – In Years 3 and 4, as MTFs become more confident in their leadership and mentoring skills, they will be asked to act as learning facilitators, designing and organizing professional activities to promote improved teaching and learning among their colleagues. This will begin with leading activities at the Mathematical Practice Seminars and will be supported by the summer institute organized by EDC. The culmination of the program will be each MTF’s individual Capstone project, a leadership initiative to be enacted in their school or district which addresses equity and high-quality mathematics instruction. MTFs may also contribute to the pre-service education program at Boston College by participating in our math or math education courses as guest instructors or as developers of course materials.