Contact information: 413/775-1491
Web link: http://k12.gcc.mass.edu

Contact: Erica Goleman
Phone: 413/775-1491
E-mail: goleman@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
Marketing & Publications
413/775-1420 | carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Release date: March 9, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GCC wins grant to "deepen elementary math instruction"

Three-year program will prepare math mentors to teach colleagues in area schools

Greenfield Community College has been awarded $213,000 from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education and the Improving Teacher Quality state grant program to work with local school districts to provide intensive mathematics professional development for teachers of grades K-7. The three-year program will offer six semester-long courses plus targeted math seminars at the Franklin County Summer Academy. Teachers who complete at least four of the six courses and participate in additional peer coaching training will be certified as "Math Coordinators” for their schools. The Greenfield public schools, a main partner in the grant, hope to have a "Math Coordinator” in each of their five elementary schools by the end of the three-year period.

The three-year time frame of the grant is significant because of the depth of instruction that it allows, and because it trains teachers themselves to carry on the work of the grant. "It's like that old saying,” says Linda Dodge, an independent mathematics consultant. "‘Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime.' That's our philosophy: We're training teachers to be math coordinators, who will then go on to train other teachers within their schools.”

That program was envisioned by Dodge and Linda Cavanaugh, Professor of Mathematics, and implemented with help from the Franklin County Professional Development Network, which puts on the Franklin County Summer Academy, at which some of the activities of this grant will be happening.

"The presence of MCAS testing has put more pressure on the school systems to create opportunities for their teachers to get the professional development they need in mathematics,” says Cavanaugh.

"It's not always in their budgets to have this kind of professional development,” says Dodge. "It's also important for teachers in these smaller schools to network with teachers in other school districts so that they get a broader vision of what mathematics education should be like.” Part of that networking will take place online, with an internet site where participating teachers can discuss coursework with one another.

The curriculum will review mathematics skills and new ways to teach them. "The Massachusetts frameworks are requiring teachers to teach math in a way that they didn't study it themselves in school,” explains Dodge. "There's also a tendency to shift curriculum lower and lower in the grade levels, so that a third-grade teacher is teaching ideas that used to be taught in fifth and sixth grades, and the middle school teacher is teaching what used to be high school math.”

The need for the program is borne out by the overwhelming response from elementary teachers to the first course, which started on March 5th. "We had 20 spots available and 43 people who wanted to register,” says Erica Goleman, K-12 Outreach Coordinator. "We've heard from teachers in Leverett, Greenfield, Orange, Amherst, the Mohawk district—it's a wide range from all around the Valley, so there's obviously a demand for this kind of professional development. People have been dismayed when I've had to turn them down. It shows me that there are a lot of really dedicated educators here in the Valley who want to become better teachers.”

Under development is a series of afternoon seminars that will look at mathematics across the elementary curriculum. This summer, teachers can sign up for Math and Children's Literature, to be followed by Mathematics and History, Mathematics and Social Studies, and Mathematics and Art.

"We're providing for students down the line, hopefully, an infectious enthusiasm for learning mathematics,” says Cavanaugh.

"We'll know that we did our job,” says Dodge, "when we hear more and more students saying that math is their favorite subject.”

For more information or to sign up for future courses, please contact Erica Goleman at (413) 775-1491 or goleman@gcc.mass.