Photo by Paul Martens A $6.2 million NSF grant to IU will advance mathematics instruction in Hoosier schools. Major players in the grant procurement, photographed recently at the Lilly Library in Bloomington, are (left to right) Geraldo Gonzalez, university dean of education; Frank Lester, professor of education; Bill Frascella, director of the IU Center for Mathematics Education; Daniel Maki, chair of the Department of Mathematics at IUB; and Kumble Subbaswamy, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Hoosier math education to be augmented with $6.2 million award from NSF

IU center, urban school district consortium jointly improving teaching, learning in state schools

By Jane Jankowski

Indiana University has been awarded a $6.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help Indiana’s elementary and high schoolteachersdevelop more effective ways to teach math.

The grant facilitates a partnership between the IU Center for Mathematics and the Indiana Mathematics Initiative (IMI), a consortium of nine urban school districts. The grassroots partnership, formed about five years ago, is nearing the end of a grant that has funded a math program for middle school teachers; the new funding will target elementary and secondary math education. “Higher education must be involved in improving teaching and learning in our state’s schools, and this initiative is making that happen,” said IU President Myles Brand. “We’re extremely proud of the work of the Center for Mathematics Education and the way this project connects elementary, middle and high schools with the university.”

William Frascella, director of IU’s Center for Mathematics Education which will administer the 50-month grant, said the professional development and leadership training provided to teachers is one that could become a statewide model.

“Our goal is to assist IMI teachers to provide the very best instruction which will lead to effective math learning for all students. There’s been a realization in recent years that we must really reform how we teach math,” said Frascella, who added that one of the unique aspects of the project will be interaction among math educators, mathematicians and experienced resource teachers to provide the professional development.

“One of the strong points of this grant is the involvement of mathematicians,” said Daniel Maki, professor of mathematics and chair of the Department of Mathematics at IU Bloomington. “A critical focus of our department is for math teachers to have a soli d background in mathematics skills. If teachers are comfortable with the content, they do a better job of conveying the material to their students.”

Frascella said the strategies for working with the elementary and high school teachers in this project are different. Selected second- and fifth-grade teachers for the elementary school portion of the project participated in a workshop earlier this week i n Indianapolis and others will participate next week in Fort Wayne. They’ll also attend two additional workshops offered during this academic year. Other elementary grades will be brought into the project in subsequent years.

“We’ll reach 15 to 20 percent of all elementary school teachers in the participating IMI districts and provide them with professional development,” said Frascella. “They’ll receive intensive training using the best teaching materials. Our goal is to make them exemplary in teaching elementary math. They’ll receive leadership training to better enable them to convey what they’ve learned to other teachers and serve as mentors.

“An important goal of the project is to produce teachers from elementary to high school levels who can address state and national academic mathematics standards in a pedagogically rich style,” he added.

The project also will use distance technology in innovative ways to deliver professional development to the participating teachers.

The high school action plan will focus on mathematical modeling as an underlying and unifying concept for teaching high school mathematics. The approach will be presented to all of the participating teachers in workshops by IU mathematicians and mathemati cs educators.

“Math modeling ideas underlie a lot of what happens in the high school math curriculum. And it does so in a way that makes math exciting, revealing connections to the real world and appealing to a much wider range of students and learning styles than in the past,” Frascella said.

Frascella is the principal investigator and will direct the IU-IMI project. Frank Lester, Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Chair in teacher education, and professor of mathematics education and cognitive science, and Maki will serve as co-principal investiga tors for the partnership project. The IU-IMI partnership project was created and continues to receive support from George Walker, IU vice president for research and dean of the University Graduate School. Gerardo Gonzalez, university dean of the IU Schoo l of Education and Kumble Subbaswamy, dean of the IU College of Arts and Sciences, have strongly supported the partnership.

The NSF grant was awarded within the Math and Science Partnership program, jointly launched this year by NSF and the U.S. Department of Education. The grant will be administered through the IU Center for Mathematics Education with the support of mathematics faculty in the Department of Mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences, and mathematics education faculty in the IU School of Education.