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VOYAGES PROJECT DELTA SUCCEEDS Community-Based Teams Provide Professional Development for Mathematics Teachers After a hectic two years of activity, Project DELTA has achieved its major objective. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the primary outcome of Project DELTA was to create teams of people in 10 Pacific communities that could provide effective, standards-based professional development for teachers of mathematics in elementary schools. Project DELTA is unique in that its 10 cadre teams are composed of a mix of classroom teachers, college instructors, and mathematics curriculum specialists. The teams are located in American Samoa; Hilo on the island of Hawaii; the Republic of the Marshall Islands; the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Yap; the Republic of Palau; Guam; and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Over the last two years, each of these DELTA teams has participated in five cadre training institutes designed to increase their ability to conduct professional development for others. They achieved their goal, delivering over 20 institutes for teachers of middle school mathematics. Most recently, the 10 teams have engaged in their final cadre institutes. During the second week of December 2001, teams from Yap and Palau participated in an institute that included 25 middle school mathematics teachers from Koror. The teachers provided feedback on the appropriateness of the mathematical tasks provided for the children in Palau’s schools, and this gave DELTA team members an opportunity to experience how their professional-development efforts were received by classroom teachers. At the same time, DELTA staff provided the team members with feedback on their methodology. Also at this institute, DELTA team members introduced teachers to engaging ways of teaching familiar mathematical topics from the middle grades curriculum, including fractions, decimals and percents, surface area, statistics, and the beginnings of algebra. Project DELTA’s approach has been to propose that educational leaders from a community’s school system and local college collaborate to provide professional development for teachers. The recent institute in Palau provides a superb example of what can be accomplished when a community’s educational institutions work together to improve teacher competence. Palau’s Ministry of Education provided financial support for the teachers, while Palau Community College provided the facilities and refreshments. This teamwork represents an impressive degree of cooperation between agencies, a model of what can happen when these two levels of a community’s education system work together. The DELTA teams from the Marshall Islands, Kosrae, Chuuk, and Pohnpei met in Pohnpei the first week of January 2002. The mathematical topics addressed in this institute were similar to those in Palau. In addition to engaging in mathematical tasks, both institutes modeled ways in which teachers can support and collaborate with one another. Team members worked in teacher-observer pairs, one leading the mathematical tasks while the other observed. At the end of each activity, the pair discussed and shared their views and observations. This kind of modeling is a precursor to what hopefully will be the next iteration of Project DELTA, when DELTA teams work with beginning teachers of mathematics. Teams from Hawaii and American Samoa participated in an institute held in Pago Pago the last week of November 2001. This institute differed from all previous DELTA institutes in that team members spent the week working directly with teachers in their classrooms. Team members taught 5th-8th grade students in four different schools, discussing mathematical topics like aspects of transformational geometry, surface area, and tangram challenges. The final cadre institute occurred when the Guam and CNMI teams met in Saipan the last week of February 2002. With the completion of these institutes, the 10 teams shifted their focus to offering their own local institutes in the summer of 2002, events that will bring Project DELTA to its conclusion. Evidence from the most recent institutes indicates that the Project has been successful. Team members developed and led sessions for middle school teachers and played key roles in improving the teaching and learning of mathematics in their home communities. Teachers and educational leaders across the region can be confident that they have available within their communities teams of mathematics educators prepared to provide professional development to middle school teachers. PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Careful Planning Can Increase Job Satisfaction Schools’ efforts to improve student achievement in mathematics and science have changed expectations for classroom instruction. With increased focus on meeting standards, teachers must provide a context in which all students are encouraged to be curious, creative, and open-minded, to collaborate with others, and to persist in the face of failure. Finding solutions to problems has become as important as finding the right answers. To meet these expectations, teachers must have extensive and current knowledge of the mathematics and science content for the grade levels they teach. They need to understand how learning takes place and which teaching strategies enable students to construct meaning. Although schools and districts support a number of professional development programs, it is important for individual teachers to consider their own needs and set their own expectations. The questions below can help educators to make wise professional development decisions:
As the need for professional development has increased, so have the options. There are a variety of different ways in which teachers can further their own objectives. Local Resources Colleges and universities in the local community offer courses in mathematics and science content as well as in education. These courses increase knowledge while providing credit toward degrees and/or recertification. Local institutes and seminars are often available after school and during the summer. PREL and other organizations support opportunities for professional development on an ongoing basis. DELTA teams conduct local workshops, some for course credit, for teachers of middle school mathematics. For more information, contact your mathematics specialist or other DELTA team member. Local agencies such as the EPA, marine resources, and conservation organizations can increase your understanding of the environment and of stewardship. If you are developing a unit plan on atmospheric studies, you may want to contact a representative of the EPA or weather station. If you are developing lessons on fish as a marine resource, you can contact marine scientists, conservationists, or fishermen. Be sure to identify a clear objective or goal. Record what you learn and then decide whether it is important to teach this content to your students, and if so, what instructional approach you will use. If you would like examples of how to incorporate knowledge obtained from local agencies in instructional units, email askmathsci@prel.org for a copy of the Pathfinder units, or visit the PREL website at prel.org/work/ms/rsc/lp.asp. Community leaders, elders, and others who hold traditional knowledge are an important source of information. Unfortunately, much of their knowledge is not covered in formal schooling. However, in some cases, two systems of knowledge can be taught side by side. For example, you may want to teach your students to classify plants by their uses, as well as by an internationally recognized system. To teach students to classify plants by usage, you could draw on the traditional knowledge of an elder, perhaps a healer. "Off-Island"
Workshops, Institutes, and Seminars Because of the diversity among providers, it can be difficult to obtain information about upcoming events in a timely manner. The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC) website (www.enc.org/weblinks/pd/opportunities) provides links to sites that list workshops, conferences, institutes, and long-term professional development events. Also visit www.prel.org/work/ms/news.asp. Online Resources Lesson plans and instructional units:
Research in best classroom practices:
Assessing student learning:
Content information:
Professional forums and discussion groups:
Integrating technology in the classroom:
Online courses (some require course fees):
Action Research
Through participation in professional development at a variety of levels, we can strengthen our ability to guide students through the process of understanding mathematicsand science. Personal professional development – PD we design and implement for ourselves – can be an effective way to increase job satisfaction and enhance student achievement. The many avenues available present opportunities that should not be ignored. ENC has recently released the CD-ROM By Your Own
Design: A Teacher’s Professional Learning Guide. Co-developed
with the National Staff Development Council, it is a collection of resources
designed to assist teachers in creating, implementing, and evaluating
professional learning plans. A limited number of copies are available
free from PREL. Email askmathsci@prel.org to request a copy. The contents
of the
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