Project Profile: "Deepening Math Content Knowledge"

In this MSP project, the University of Rochester partners with the Penfield and Rush-Henrietta School Districts as well as a consortium of twenty-three rural districts through the Genesee Valley Board of Cooperative Educational Services (GVBOCES) in an effort to develop effective ways to foster the mathematical content knowledge necessary for a successful implementation of reform mathematics curricula. The two suburban Rochester districts are in various stages of the adoption and implementation of curricula while the rural districts are in the early stages of a curricular reform process. Together, the districts in this partnership serve roughly 28,000 students. Other partners in this work are the Education Development Center, Horizon Research and WestEd.

For curricular reform to succeed, the partners believe that multiple constituencies need to be engaged in practices that enhance mathematical knowledge including K-12 teachers and other school support personnel, parents and other influential community members, and mathematicians and mathematics educators who prepare future teachers. To this end, they will:

• Offer a series of reform mathematics courses, each focusing on different sets of mathematical concepts addressed by the adopted curricula and targeted to the various constituencies in such a manner that they will experience learning mathematics similar to ways in which students learn the discipline;
• Train teacher leaders to facilitate mathematics case discussions involving in-depth analysis of student thinking; and
• Engage various groups in evening chats about school mathematics reform, with a special emphasis on understanding goals and expectations for student learning of mathematics; chats will involve different combinations of mathematicians, mathematics educators, K-12 teachers, parents and community members.