Twenty-four Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area K-12 school districts, acting in a comprehensive collaboration, are participating in this project. By the year 2002, five hundred teachers, representing all or nearly all grade 7-12 mathematics teachers in these districts, will be teaching a standards based curriculum to very diverse populations of students. This project creates a critical mass and an infrastructure for the development of a systemic implementation in all schools by all teachers in the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area and beyond. This project operationally defines "implementing a Standards Based Curriculum" as teaching one (or more) of the new NSF middle or high school curriculum projects or newer curricula packages which have direct and verifiable linkages to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum & Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, Assessment Standards for School Mathematics and other supporting documents.
The project provides for a variety of ongoing teacher support structures, and, for multiple time frames within which teacher teams can implement Standards Based Curricula. Those who will, from the beginning, fully implement such a curriculum, attend a two-week intensive summer workshop on both content and pedagogy related to the new curricula followed by academic year staff development and mentoring at Saturday or after school workshops. A reduced level of mentoring during the second year completes the set of sponsored professional development activities. A parallel set of workshops prepares other teachers to select and implement portions of a Standards Based Curricula and prepare to move to the full implementation stage in succeeding years of (MASP)2. Each teacher receives at least 130 hours of professional development activity. The project works with districts to assist in the identification and selection of curriculum materials and to train and support mentors through cognitive coaching and leadership workshops. These mentor/leaders are the core of the ongoing implementation of curricula in partner school districts.
A major goal of this project is to develop and implement a replicable model for large-scale selection and implementation of major curriculum reform. The model is based on long-term, purposeful and planned professional development for each 7-12 participating mathematics teacher, and on the development of long-range, skilled leadership teams in every school.
