About Our Program |
The purpose of our program is to provide implementation support to the Northshore School District during its first year of implementation of the exemplary Everyday Math K-6 curriculum. We will provide the Northshore Elementary Math Resource Teachers (MRTs) with graduate student math specialist classroom help. Furthermore, any Northshore K-6 teacher, student, or parent can receive question and answer support through our email or WEB service. These support mechanisms are described below:
Graduate Student Math Specialists:
At the moment, we have 15 or so graduate students that can support 45 Northshore Elementary Math Resource Teachers (MRTs). Each graduate student will help up to four teachers at the same grade level. A graduate student would visit each MRT for at least 1/2 day every two weeks.
The model we have in mind is a one-on-one relationship between a graduate student and a resource teacher. This pair would determine the best way of working together to increase the effectiveness of the Northshore program and to in turn benefit the graduate student's education through his or her interaction with an experienced teacher. We expect that many different working models will evolve with each tailored for the needs of the particular teacher-graduate student-classroom. We have some ideas about how this might work, but the real success lies in the working relationship and creativity that will evolve between the graduate student and the resource teacher. As a result of this effort, we are hoping to learn effective ways of supporting a district's math program while providing an enhanced education for our graduate students.
The graduate students (Ph.D. candidates in Applied Mathematics or Mathematics) are knowledgeable in the math content -- the Everyday K-6 spiral and the math that this leads to in junior high, high school, and the University. They are seeking careers that use mathematics and typically end up in research jobs in industry (Boeing for example), government labs (National Center for Atmospheric Research or Lawrence Livermore Lab for example), or become University professors in math or applied math or in math-related fields such as fluid dynamics, atmospheric science, numerical analysis and scientific computing, and mathematical biology either in this country or abroad. Working with MRTs would enhance their education tremendously.
Training for the graduate students in classroom management skills and techniques for assessing the level of a child's thinking will be provided by the University Child Development School (UCDS), which is located close to the University. This school is well-equipped to serve as a resource for our graduate students and will provide extra training to them early in the school year. This training will then be enhanced by working with Northshore MRTs in actual classroom settings. The graduate students will receive more training through an AMATH class and interaction with personnel in the Creating a Community of Mathematics Learners ( CCML ) project.
E-mail and WEB Bulletin Board Support:
In addition to going out in the Northshore District to work with resource teachers and children directly, the graduate students will also provide email and WEB-based message board support to all Northshore K-6 teachers and K-6 children.
We have set up 7 email addresses and 7 message boards, one for each grade level K-6. The idea is that any teacher, child, or parent may ask a math-content question related to any unit in Everyday Math. The seven email addresses are everyk@amath.washington.edu, every1@amath.washington.edu, every2@amath.washington.edu, etc. up to every6@amath.washington.edu. For example, sending mail to every2@amath.washington.edu will send a message to a graduate student dealing with 2nd grade questions. The student would then answer the question via email, and then post the question and answer (strip off the sender's name) to the message board for that grade level.
The message boards are accessed on the WEB by going to the help home page at http://www.amath.washington.edu/~nshore and selecting the appropriate grade level followed by Bulletin Board. Each bulletin board can be searched for keywords by selecting Search All Pages or Search List. The idea is that any teacher in Northshore can look by grade level at all the questions and answers. This gives indications of the topics that are causing problems or concerns in the curriculum.
Email can also be sent to the graduate students directly from the WEB by clicking on Questions and Comments or Send Message from any of the grade levels. In order to use this convenient feature you may need to set your Netscape Preferences. To do this in Netscape, you will need to go to Options-General Preferences-Mail and News Preferences and fill in your name and email address under the Identity heading. Mary O'Brien in Aaron Feik's office can help you.