Pioneer Valley PreK-16 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics PV STEMNET Pipeline Mathematics Partnership Academic year follow-up activitiesFollowing the primary MMSP course of study, participating teachers will be involved in 20 hours of additional training to support the implementation of the course's content in the classroom. The primary purpose of follow-up activities will be: 1. To allow participants from a particular MMSP course of study to meet and discuss their experiences in implementing what they have learned. It will provide participating teachers with new ideas on teaching mathematics. 2. To learn what content is important. By meeting with teachers, we will learn where the proposed MMSP courses best provided an enhanced level of content knowledge that complemented and informed the ability of the teacher to teach the frameworks. It will help us refine the courses and teach them better in the future. Information gained will be disseminated through PV-STEMNET, the regional Pipeline Network 3. To help create interpersonal connections between and among K-12 faculty and faculty from institutes of higher education that will enhance other initiatives within the existing Regional Pipeline Network. Structure of follow-up sessions.Follow-up meetings will be held at the institute of higher education, which originally hosted the class. Follow up meetings will take advantage the fact that each MMSP course of study being proposed will be offered twice; one section will be offered in the Summer and another in the Fall. Follow-up meetings will use this scheduling to create opportunities for interaction between the Fall and Summer groups. There will also be opportunities for interactions between participants in different courses of study (e.g. Algebra and Trigonometry). To create these opportunities, follow-up meetings will be of four types: 1. An initial meeting at the beginning of the semester following the completion of the course of study. Participants will use this opportunity to discuss how they plan to use what they have learned in the upcoming semester. 2. A mid-semester meeting in which participants discuss their ongoing experiences. 3. An end of the year meeting that will include participants from both the Summer and Fall sections of a particular course of study (Algebra for example). Participants will work in groups to discuss their implementation experiences and arrive at conclusions concerning best practices for math instruction. Because of their more intensive nature, these meetings will be held on a Saturday and will last 8 hours. 4. A meeting where participants from one course of study will attend a session of a subsequent course of study (For example: A follow-up session of the Algebra group might attend a class of the Trigonometry group). The goal will be to discuss experiences and help make connections between the course of study and its implementation in the classroom. In addition to the face-to-face meetings, participants will have the opportunity to post comments on a Blackboard based website. The Blackboard site will allow both an ongoing discussion of the impact of the MMSP course of study on the classroom experience, and a route for dissemination of experiences throughout the PV-STEMNET Pipeline Network.
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