SMTC launches math ed leadership partnership

EDITOR'S NOTE: To hear SMTC Director Robert Mayes discuss the importance of collaborations like this program, click here.

The University of Wyoming Science & Mathematics Teaching Center (SMTC), UW Department of Mathematics, and the University of Northern Colorado have launched a partnership designed to offer distance-delivered professional development opportunities for mathematics educators.
    A five-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Math-Science Partnership Program (MSP) will fund a jointly-sponsored Mathematics Teacher Leadership Center. The center has two major goals: to create a virtual master's degree program targeting teachers already in the classroom, and to establish a program to train and support mathematics educators who wish to become professional development providers.
   "It targets specifically leaders in mathematics education," SMTC Director and project co-investigator Robert Mayes says of the latter program. "It will look at how you create good professional development: what is sustainable, how do you become a leader in mathematics education, and how do you conduct workshops. It will focus more on how to actually become a provider of professional development in mathematics education."
   The master's degree program will be offered via synchronous and asynchronous online technologies. Each institution will deliver approximately 15 hours of coursework.
   "Students can take courses from either institution and have them accepted at in-state tuition, from the university that offers it, accepted by either university," according to Mayes.
   The first cohort will begin the program in the summer of 2009. Courses taught on-site at UW and UNC and video-streamed to the other site will be part of the inaugural semester. Web-based courses will be offered by both universities during the academic year..
   Initially, the program will be open only to Wyoming and Colorado residents. However, as the program matures, Mayes says that expanding to regional and even national delivery will become options.
   The SMTC already offers a graduate-level mathematics program for teachers. However, it focuses on middle-level math instruction and requires participants to travel to Laramie to take summer school classes. The new master's program will expand graduate-level options to high school teachers; the online format will extend its reach to individuals who cannot leave their communities and jobs to take classes.
   "More and more, people are expecting to not have to leave their homes to take courses," Mayes says. "It's becoming more of an on-demand world. There is a demand to have these courses in place."
   The UW/UNC collaboration makes the most of each institution's resources and provides a model for distance-delivered programming in other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content areas.
   "Could Wyoming do this by itself in multiple areas? It's doubtful," Mayes says. "But if we are partnering with other institutions, like the University of Northern Colorado, then that doubles our capacity."
   For more information about the Mathematics Teacher Leadership Center and the new programs under its umbrella, contact the UW Science & Mathematics Teaching Center: http://smtc.uwyo.edu, smtc@uwyo.edu, 307-766-6381.
 

Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008