(2000 – 2003)

Photos, workshop materials, and participants' names appear at the Enriching School Mathematics Website.

A number of projects aimed at high school teachers were funded by an Eisenhower grant called Enriching School Mathematics. The projects are described below.

---

AIMS Teacher Preparation (2000 - 2001)

Chris Goff, Bryce Hanlon, Cinnamon Hillyard, Brigitte Lahme, Carl Lienert, Kate McGivney, Diann Porter, Joe Watkins

The Mathematics Department at the University of Arizona, in collaboration with Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), Marana School District, Catalina Foothills District, and Flowing Wells School District, held a workshop involving twenty five math teachers in grades 8-12 during the 2000-2001 academic year. The goals of this program were two-fold: to deepen the teachers' mathematical understanding of algebra and geometry and to expose them to the areas of discrete mathematics and data measurement. These topics are key components of the AIMS exam. Conversations with teachers and data collected through surveys suggest that teachers feel inadequately prepared to teach much of this material.

The program included an intensive two-week summer institute followed by two in-service workshops during the academic year. The institute covered four topics titled Concepts in Algebra, Key Ideas in Geometry, Topics in Discrete Mathematics, and Data Management: The Essentials of Statistical Thinking. The sessions included presentations by project personnel (involving an active learning component), facilitation of curriculum development, and sharing of ideas. The topics were reinforced during the in-service workshops.

---

AIMS Teacher Preparation (2001 - 2002)

Chris Goff, Brigitte Lahme, Carl Lienert, Bin Lu, Jerry Morris, Diann Porter, Maria Robinson, Stan Yoshinobu, Joe Watkins

This project is a continuation of a similar project that was done in 2000-2001. The Mathematics Department at the University of Arizona, in collaboration with Tucson-area school districts, received an extension of its Eisenhower grant to conduct a workshop for an additional group of 25 high school math teachers.

The goals of the program have been two-fold: to deepen the teachers' mathematical understanding of algebra and geometry and to expose them to the areas of discrete mathematics and data measurement. These topics have been and still are key components of AIMS, although the emphasis has shifted to algebra and geometry. From our experience last year we found that even when teachers feel confident with the material, they experience difficulty translating that into seeing that their students do well on the AIMS.

We plan a second intensive two-week summer institute, followed up with two in-service workshops throughout the year. This year, we will cover the same four areas as last year, but shift the emphasis to algebra and geometry in view of their increased importance on AIMS. The sessions will include presentations by project faculty, curriculum development, and sharing pedagogical ideas. During the year, we will reinforce these topics via in-service workshops.

This year, we will also seek ways to build a community of support among the project faculty and the teachers, both from this year and last. We hope to see everyone involved and continue to give each other encouragement during the difficult transition to AIMS.

---

AIMS Teacher Preparation (2002 - 2003)

Maria Robinson, Chris Goff, Brigitte Lahme, Pallavi Jayawant, Bin Lu, Jerry Morris, Russel Calson, David Hervas, Valerie Watts, Joe Watkins, Stan Yoshinobu, Peter Wiles

This project is motivated, in part, by low 8th grade mathematics results on the AIMS test. We propose to help middle school math teachers prepare their students for high school mathematics. We plan to achieve this goal by inviting 20 middle school teachers and 5 high school teachers to an intensive summer workshop led by University of Arizona faculty. The workshop will deepen teachers' existing content knowledge through innovative instructional techniques, provide teachers with exposure to technology, and give them sufficient time to generate worksheets and activities that are ready for classroom use and aligned with Arizona and NCTM standards. By selecting high school teachers who have participated in previous workshops, we hope to begin a productive dialogue among all workshop participants about the transition from middle to high school mathematics. Moreover, each middle school teacher will be invited to spend a day in a high school teacher's mathematics classroom, and vice versa. Participating teachers will reconvene at two in-services held throughout the academic year to renew and build upon connections made during the summer workshop. We hope that this group of teachers and others from previous workshops will eventually grow into an active Tucson-wide community of support.