Content-Focused Coaching and Leadership:
Developing School Teams as Professional Learning Communities for Mathematics
Goal: The goal of this course is to create a mathematics learning community at the school level that will be sustained through the skills and knowledge developed by the coaches and their mentees by deepening mathematical content knowledge, and developing content-focused coaching and leadership skills. The mentees of this project will receive job-embedded support in implementing a mathematics program aligned to state standards and district learning targets.
The project will help develop skilled math coaches who will help improve mathematics teaching and learning, as well as help with teacher to teacher interactions in regards to math. Since MPS has such a low retention rate with teachers this project will also help teach new and incoming teachers the skills they will need to effectively teach mathematics.
Description: Content-Focused and Leadership is a one-year professional development program for elementary school teachers. This course aims to develop a core team of Math Coaches at a school site who can provide mathematics leadership and coaching in focusing and addressing needs of individual teachers, school staffs, and students.
The project will cultivate teachers in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) as Math Coaches by deepening their mathematics content knowledge and developing content-focused coaching and leadership skills. The math coaches involved will earn five graduate or undergraduate credits.
The project will address problems such as student mathematics achievement, teacher retention, support of new teachers, and school based leadership and professional development in mathematics. This project is centered in standards-based instructional materials, specifically, the Investigations in Number, data, and Space mathematics program.
The design of this project consists of four components: 1) Summer Institute 2004, 2) School Year 2004-2005 Project Sessions, 3) Mentoring Activities, and 4) Online Discussions.
As A Result of this Project, Participants:
- Will Learn effective ways to provide mathematics leadership and coaching to both students and staff.
- Will be able to teach new, and incoming teachers how to be more effective in teaching mathematics.
- Will engage in experiences which will deepen their mathematical knowledge to make it easier to teach mathematics.
