posted by:
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Laura R. Van Zoest
on May 15, 1998
at 3:14PM
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subject:
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RMTC Intro/teacher involvement
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I am Laura Van Zoest, co-director of the Renewing Mathematics Teaching through Curriculum project. RMTC is a 9-12 collaborative which includes 17 schools (many rural/small town) and approximately 150 teachers (all the math teachers in each high school and representative middle school teachers) in the West Mighigan area.
The title of the project comes from the fact that all the collaborative schools have adopted the Core-Plus Mathematics Project curriculum and our belief that that curriculum is a useful vehicle for professional development. I think a main part of the success we have had so far in involving teachers is due to their ability to see a direct connection between what goes on in the workshops and meetings and what's happening in their classrooms.
During the summer we have week-long workshops tied to a specific year of the CPMP curriculum. This summer we will have workshops for Course 1, Course 2 and Course 3. We have a teams of 2 teachers serve as workshop leaders. The criteria we use in selecting these leaders are: 1) currently teaching the curriculum; 2) from collaborative schools (two different geographical locations if possible); 3) previous experience leading CPMP workshops (at least one member of the team); 4) experience teaching other years of the curriculum.
So far we have been able to satisfy all of the criteria, but it is becomming more difficult as the need for workshops expands. Starting last summer, we have taken a long-range view to staffing workshops and have tried to choose current workshop leaders to prepare for future needs. That means involving as many new people as the second members of the team as possible to make sure that we don't run into future problems with #2 and #3 and encouraging teachers to teach a variety of courses to deal with #4. So far that has been the most difficult - many teachers feel comfortable teaching Course 1 or Course 2 and don't want (and it isn't required by their school's staffing needs) to move on to teach Course 3 or 4. Can't blame them - new preps are a lot of work! On the other hand, having the perspective of the whole curriculum allows the facilitator to make cross-course connections during the workshops.
I would second Margaret's statement about involving teachers in designing and decision making as a way to maintain their commitment level. We have a Coordinating Council made up of one representative from each collaborative school that meets on a bi-monthly (4 times a year) basis that has been instrumental in serving as a liason between RMTC staff and the teachers.
The Council is the programmatic decision-making body for the project and is charged with both bringing input from their school colleagues and sharing information with them. From my perspective, it has been exciting to see the Council members start to take ownership and initiative for project activities. It has taken a year of reminding them that this is _their_ project and that whether it is successful/useful/etc. depends primarily on them. In the process, some things haven't been attended to as quickly as I would like, but I think had we stepped in it would have stunted the growth of the group.
For example, we had a whole-collaborative conference last March that Council members were supposed to get teachers to submit proposals for. Six weeks before the conference we had 4 proposals. It took all my reserve not to panic and put together the program. Instead, we took the issue to the next Council meeting (less than a month before the conference!) and amazing things happened. People stepped up, volunteered names of others, did some definitive brainstorming about what would make a good program, and by the end of the meeting we had an excellent and extensive program outlined. Two days later we had all the final confirmations and, from all accounts, the conference was a success. The Council had created the conference and received appropriate accolades from their colleagues. Moral of the story: If someone else will do it, teachers won't. As organizers, we need to convince them that we won't/can't do it alone, and that they _will_ need to step up.
Another thing that we've learned is that teachers (at least in our area) have not always been treated like professionals. In some ways, this means that they need to be treated like professionals, repeatedly, before they are willing to act that way. This requires patience, persistence, and an optimistic view on our part, but it seems to pay off.
Well, it took me ten days to find time to participate in the list - now you see why! I'll stop now although there is much more to say. I'm looking forward to hearing others' insights.
Laura
************************************** Laura R. Van Zoest Department of Mathematics & Statistics Western Michigan University
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