Tennessee educators improve teaching skills through SEE-Math Institutes
Chris Pepple |
Murder mysteries, origami and stained glass are just a few of the tools used by the mathematics and education departments at Lipscomb University to teach 55 high school and middle school mathematics teachers from Davidson, Williamson, Sumner and Wilson counties to improve their teaching skills, their content knowledge in geometry, statistics and problem solving, and their ability to prep their students for the ACT college entrance exam.
With the state of Tennessee creating new a math program that will hold all students to higher standards than in the past, teachers appreciate the opportunity to arm themselves with new teaching techniques and explore the technology available in the field of mathematics. The state will be changing to a four-year math curriculum for all high school students. The new graduation requirement kicks in during the 2009-10 school year. Middle school students will have two years of preparation courses.
The two 10-day SEE-Math workshops (Student Engagement in Exploring Math) held in June, funded by a 3-year $240,000 Tennessee Mathematics and Science Partnership grant, provided teachers with a variety of hands-on approaches to improve their teaching methods. For the first time, one of the workshops also focused on helping teachers prepare their students for the ACT college entrance exam.
“The need to improve math and science education has been acknowledged by everyone from President Bush to the National Science Foundation,” said Ben Hutchinson, Dean of Lipscomb’s College of Natural and Applied Sciences. “Lipscomb has a long tradition of educating math teachers for Middle Tennessee, and we are excited to have been able to extend this tradition to Tennessee educators through the SEE-Math Institutes.”
The 55 participating teachers will go back to their classrooms this fall armed with several computer programs, a TI-81 graphing calculator, a three-inch thick folder of written resources and a box-full of supplies and references to teach students problem-solving, deductive reasoning, geometry and statistics. Teachers in the June 16-27 workshop also received ACT study materials and prep books to help them understand what is expected of their students on the exam.
Unlike the typical workshop for math teachers, Lipscomb math and education faculty worked hand-in hand to “present not only the most current research about how to teach math, but also to make this research practical through demonstrating math content in engaging ways,” said Dr. Candice McQueen, Chair of Lipscomb’s Education Department and a presenter at the workshop. “The participants were able to truly see and experience the integration of excellent teaching methods with math content knowledge. This year they also explored ways to prep their students for the ACT."
First-year teacher Billy Meneese, who teaches geometry at Maplewood High School, appreciated the opportunity to hone his teaching skills alongside other Tennessee educators. “This program was recommended by a colleague at Maplewood and by a district math specialist. At the SEE-Math workshop, I learned a lot of things that I can actually take back to my classroom. I will absolutely use the origami and the stained-glass making projects with my students. I will also use Geometer’s Sketchpad, one of the software programs we were given, in my class next year. This is a great program that I would definitely recommend to other teachers,” said Meneese.