The
Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program’s Institute
Partnerships: Teacher Institutes for the 21st century
prepare school- and district-based intellectual leaders in
mathematics or the sciences. With foci on subject-matter
expertise and leadership development, the institutes deepen
the content knowledge of experienced teachers, so that they
can change their instructional practice, improve their students’
achievement, and, over time, provide intellectual leadership in
their own schools and with their own colleagues.
At
Virginia Commonwealth
University (VCU), the MSP Teacher
Institute is preparing the first elementary
mathematics specialists for a newly approved licensure in the
Commonwealth of Virginia. Graduates of the Institute
will receive a master’s degree in a program to be
institutionalized at VCU, Norfolk State University, the
University of Virginia and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Data
from the two mathematics courses in VCU’s 2005 Summer Institute
document substantial and positive impacts on participants’
knowledge of mathematics content, with differences in means that
constitute very large effect sizes (as high as 1.27 on Geometry
content knowledge, with scores greater than 0.8 considered to be
a large effect), as well as on their perceived preparedness as
classroom practitioners.
In
the Rice University
Mathematics Leadership Institute, teachers
participating in the 2006 Summer
Leadership Institute completed content courses
in geometry and algebra. Changes in teachers’ knowledge of
geometry were analyzed in a paired samples t-test using the
scores of the 35 participants. The highest score possible on
the geometry measure was 50. At the beginning of the
institute,
the teachers’ mean score on the Geometry pretest was 23.2,
but after completion of the institute,
their mean score on the same measure was 33.9. The change in
score was statistically significant at the .0001 level. A
similar approach was used to measure the change in teachers’
knowledge of solutions for linear functions in algebra during the
institute. The
highest score possible on this measure was 40. At the
beginning of the institute,
the teachers’ mean on the algebra pretest was 13.6, but after
summer participation, the teachers’ mean score on the same
measure was 33.4. The change also was statistically
significant at the .0001 level.
Student
outcomes are beginning to parallel growth in teacher
knowledge. The Houston Independent School District Research
and Accountability Department, for example, analyzed the impact
of the teachers' participation in the Rice
University Mathematics Leadership Institute. Teachers
who participated in the 2005-2006 institute were compared to a
group of non-institute Houston teachers who taught the same
grade(s) at similar schools. The findings indicated that
students of institute participants outperformed comparison
students by 2.4 scale score points on the Texas Assessment of
Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) and 0.82 National Curve Equivalents
on the 2006 administration of the Stanford 10 mathematics
assessment. In addition, institute teachers helped their
lower performing students increase their minimum means scale
score on the TAKS by 378 points.
