1

Week 1 Topic:

Needs Analysis

v    Target Groups

v    Analyze Test Data

v    Buy-ins

NCTM standards  5, 7, 8, 15

Indicators:

5.2 Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas.

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.3 Uses multiple strategies, including listening to and understanding the ways students think about mathematics, to assess students’ mathematical knowledge.

8.4 Plans lessons, units and courses that address appropriate learning goals, including those that address local, state, and national mathematics standards and legislative mandates.

Activities

1. The professor will demonstrate how to develop obtainable and sustainable goals and objectives based on the test data.  Participants will review test data and organize the data in a usable format.

2. The professor will discuss how to organize a mentoring program for a school or school district utilizing community resources.  Participants will examine the sample mentoring programs and develop an outline for their program. 

3. Participants will browse through their state department of education’s website to locate test data.

4. The professor will lead a discussion of factors that influence the students’ mathematics achievement.  Participants will identify factors in their work settings that might be the cause of poor student performance in mathematics.

5. The professor will discuss the achievement gaps in standardized test performance for minority and poor students.  Participants will identify real world examples to validate some of the claims made by research.

2

Week 2 Topics:

School-based Mentoring – Goals and Objectives

v    Set Goals and Expectations

v    Prepare and design activities for students

NCTM standards 5, 6, 7, 8

Indicators:

5.1 Use representations to model and interpret physical, social, and mathematical phenomena.

5.2 Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas.

6.1 Use knowledge of mathematics to select and use appropriate s, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, technological tools, such as but not limited to, spreadsheets, dynamic graphing tools, computer algebra systems, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, data-collection devices, and presentation software.

7.2 Use of stimulating curricula

7.3 Effective Teaching

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.2 Selects and uses appropriate concrete materials for learning mathematics

8.3 Uses multiple strategies, including listening to and understanding the ways students think about mathematics, to assess students’ mathematical knowledge.

8.4 Plans lessons, units and courses that address appropriate learning goals, including those that address local, state, and national mathematics standards and legislative mandates.

Activities

A.    The professor will lead a discussion of the jobs and responsibilities of a mentor.  Participants will identify scenarios that can be classified as mentoring. 

B.    The professor will share Governor Bush’s mentoring initiative and participants will identify various types of mentoring.

C.    The professor will identify the many benefits mentoring offers and participants will brainstorm for additional benefits.

D.    Participants will gather research information that supports the positive benefits in mentoring relationship.

E.     The professor will share some significant studies that support mentoring as having great impact on children.

F.     The professor will share a letter from Jeb Bush regarding mentoring.

G.    Citing research, participants will answer: “What is school-based mentoring and who can be a mentor for the students?” They will also identify all the benefits of a school-based mentoring program.

H.    The professor will identify the “steps” and action plans for creating a mathematics assistance project at the school/district.

3

Week 3 Topic:

Volunteer Resources

v    Understand Your School Culture

v    Prepare Your School for Volunteer Involvement

v    Sell the Program to Colleagues, Administration, and Parents

 NCTM standards 7, 8

Indicators:

7.4 Commitment to learning with understanding

7.5 Use of various assessments.

8.6 Demonstrates knowledge of research results in the teaching and learning of mathematics.

8.9 Develop lessons that use technology’s potential for building understanding of mathematical concepts and developing important mathematical ideas.

Activities

A.    The professor will identify all the components that need to be in place prior to starting a mentoring program at the school/district site.  Participants will identify school culture and prepare their school/district for volunteer involvement.

B.    The professor will share strategies on how to “sell” the mentoring program to the participants’ schools/districts.

C.    The professor will share volunteer recruitment process with the participants.

D.    Participants will create self evaluation questions prior to recruiting volunteers e.g.:

4

Week 4 Topic:

Stakeholders

v     The Five W’s

v     Project Coordinator

v     Student Selection

v     Sample Parent Letter

v     Sample Recruitment Forms

NCTM standards 7, 8, 15

Indicators:

7.4 Commitment to learning with understanding

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.6 Demonstrates knowledge of research results in the teaching and learning of mathematics.

8.9 Develop lessons that use technology’s potential for building understanding of mathematical concepts and developing important mathematical ideas.

Activities

A.    The professor will use the Five W’s to help the participants identify candidates for the mentoring program.

B.     The professor will demonstrate how to establish concrete plans for the recruitment of mentors.   Participants will create a recruitment plan by using the prompt: Before you begin . . .

C.     The professor will share forms, survey, and questionnaires. Participants will design forms to use with the recruitment of mentors.

D.    The professor will provide some tips for a successful mentor/tutor/volunteer program.  Participants will include the tips in their design of the mentor/tutor/volunteer program.

E.     The professor will identify key personnel for the mentoring program.  Participants will create a job description for the Volunteer/Project Coordinator.

F.      Participants will justify the selection of students for the Mathematics Assistance Project.

G.    The professor will share sample parent letter and participants will use the letter as a guide to draft a letter that will inform parents of the mentoring program.

H.    The professor will share Sample Parent Permission Form.  Participants will then prepare a similar form to use with their program.

Read pp. 135 – 158 and complete chapter 5 review questions and problem sets on p. 159.

5

Week 5 Topic:

Plans and Schedules

v     Teaching plans

v     Areas of Difficulties

v     Communication Techniques

v     Orientation and Training Plans

v     Celebrate Success

NCTM standards 5, 6, 7, 8

Indicators:

5.1 Use representations to model and interpret physical, social, and mathematical phenomena.

5.2 Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas.

6.1 Use knowledge of mathematics to select and use appropriate s, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, technological tools, such as but not limited to, spreadsheets, dynamic graphing tools, computer algebra systems, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, data-collection devices, and presentation software.

7.2 Use of stimulating curricula

7.3 Effective Teaching

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.2 Selects and uses appropriate concrete materials for learning mathematics

8.3 Uses multiple strategies, including listening to and understanding the ways students think about mathematics, to assess students’ mathematical knowledge.

8.4 Plans lessons, units and courses that address appropriate learning goals, including those that address local, state, and national mathematics standards and legislative mandates.

Activities

A.    The professor will share the planning process with the participants.  Participants will develop a teaching plan for the mentoring program.

B.     The professor will demonstrate the use of effective mathematics strategies to use with the mentoring/tutoring sessions.  Participants will adopt, develop, and create activities to use in their mentoring/tutoring program.

C.     The professor will identify some possible areas of difficulties and participants will brainstorm ways to overcome the difficulties.

D.    The professor will share best practices in communications between volunteer tutors and teachers.  Participants will identify some areas of possible personality conflicts and devise solutions for the conflicts.

E.     The professor will share sample orientation and training plans for the mentors/tutors.  Participants will design orientation and training plans for the mentor/tutors.

F.      Participants will develop a plan to help celebrate success of the mentoring program.

G.    The professor will share successful plan of objectives and participants will develop a set of plan of objectives for their mentoring program. 

H.    Participants will identify all stakeholders for their mentoring program and then assign roles for each stakeholder.

I.        Participants will present assignment #2 – School-Based Mentoring.

6

Week 6 Topic:

Data Collection

v     Why Collect Data?

v     Identify Need

v     Analyze Program

v     Provide Intervention

NCTM standards 4, 5, 7, 8

Indicators:

4.1 Recognize and

use connections among mathematical ideas.

5.2 Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas.

7.2 Use of stimulating curricula

7.3 Effective Teaching

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.1 Selects, uses, and determines suitability of the wide variety of available mathematics curricula and teaching materials for all students including those with special needs such as the gifted, challenged and speakers of other languages.

8.2 Selects and uses appropriate concrete materials for learning mathematics

8.3 Uses multiple strategies, including listening to and understanding the ways students think about mathematics, to assess students’ mathematical knowledge.

8.4 Plans lessons, units and courses that address appropriate learning goals, including those that address local, state, and national mathematics standards and legislative mandates.

8.6 Demonstrates knowledge of research results in the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Activities

A.    The professor will discuss how data collection can enhance the success of interventions in the schools to help improve student achievement. 

B.     Participants will use their expertise as an “educator” to create a program that will meet the needs of the students at their school or district.

C.     The professor will provide samples of process for data collection:

D.    The professor will assist participants in the construction of survey materials.

E.     The professor will identify alternative plans in case the administration does not like paper survey.  Participants will identify an option of data collection to be web-based data collection system.  This allows the respondent to correct errors as they are identified. 

F.      The professor will share successful follow-up activities

G.    Participants will identify steps in data processing.

H.    Participants will develop a system for data collection and then use this system to store all data for the current year as well as last years’ students’ test data.

I.       Participants Summarize the information and include it in the three-ring binder for the volunteer tutors as well as the classroom teachers and administration.

J.       Participants will use the data to group students, so that students of the same ability level are grouped together.

K.    Participants will prepare a pre and post assessment from the data collected.

L.      Participants will present assignment #3 – Role of a School-Based or District-Based Leader

7

Week 7 Topic:

Marketing

v     Challenges

v     Marketing Plan

v     Marketing Strategies

NCTM standards 5, 6, 7, 8

Indicators:

5.1 Use representations to model and interpret physical, social, and mathematical phenomena.

5.2 Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas.

6.1 Use knowledge of mathematics to select and use appropriate s, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, technological tools, such as but not limited to, spreadsheets, dynamic graphing tools, computer algebra systems, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, data-collection devices, and presentation software.

7.2 Use of stimulating curricula

7.3 Effective Teaching

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.2 Selects and uses appropriate concrete materials for learning mathematics

8.3 Uses multiple strategies, including listening to and understanding the ways students think about mathematics, to assess students’ mathematical knowledge.

8.4 Plans lessons, units and courses that address appropriate learning goals, including those that address local, state, and national mathematics standards and legislative mandates.

Activities

1. The professor will lead a discussion of why we need to Market the Mathematics Assistance Project.
2. The professor will identify the many challenges that a school faces when it comes to new programs such as the Mathematics Assistance Project.  Participants will identify possible challenges based on experiences.
3. The Mathematics Assistance Project should be marketed as if the project is designed to meet the specific needs of the school/district, the stakeholders, and the community. The marketing campaign should focus on log-term solution for the needs of the students.  Effective marketing of the project requires the use of a range of strategies that are coherently and systemically planned, implemented, and evaluated. Our Marketing plan must be designed to bridge that gap.
4. The professor will provide a sample format of a marketing plan that participants may wish to adopt for their school/school district.
5. The participants will brainstorm ways to defining the marketing concept for teachers, staff members, administrators, and stakeholders.
6. The professor will discuss what to include in a marketing package.
7. Participants will identify the key challenges that they and their school face and then brainstorm ways their schools/district can implement some of the effective strategies to improve student achievement.
8. Participants will work in teams to help clarify their school/district’s vision and mission.  
9. The professor will help participants identify the key focus of their plan. 
10. Participants will complete some self examining questions that may be helpful to their marking plans. 
11. The professor will assist participants in developing skills in marketing planning. Participants will apply marketing strategies including external and internal marketing and marketing evaluation. 
12. The professor will discuss projected problems with school marketing.  Participants will identify anticipated problems based on personal experiences with the Mathematics Assistance Project marketing plan for the schools.
13. The professor will lead a discussion of cultural conflict between school management and teachers. Participants will identify the advantages and disadvantages of marketing.
14. The professor will demonstrate how to establish and meet the needs of various stakeholders.  Participants will conclude that marketing must be an accurate portrayal of what occurs in the school.
15. The professor will point out that schools can lose sight of important stakeholders. Most importantly, marketing should reflect how it can meet the needs of its students. When these key stakeholders are happy and satisfied, they can become the marketing vehicle for the school/district.

8

Assignment #4 due

Week 8 Topic:

Outcome

v     Evaluation of Project

v     Short and Long Term Outcome Measurements

v     Qualitative Evaluations

v     Quantitative Evaluations

v     Final Examination,

NCTM standards 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15

Indicators:

5.1 Use representations to model and interpret physical, social, and mathematical phenomena.

5.2 Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas.

6.1 Use knowledge of mathematics to select and use appropriate s, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, technological tools, such as but not limited to, spreadsheets, dynamic graphing tools, computer algebra systems, dynamic statistical packages, graphing calculators, data-collection devices, and presentation software.

7.2 Use of stimulating curricula

7.3 Effective Teaching

7.5 Use of various assessments

8.2 Selects and uses appropriate concrete materials for learning mathematics

8.3 Uses multiple strategies, including listening to and understanding the ways students think about mathematics, to assess students’ mathematical knowledge.

8.4 Plans lessons, units and courses that address appropriate learning goals, including those that address local, state, and national mathematics standards and legislative mandates.

8.7 Uses knowledge of different types of instructional strategies in planning mathematics lessons.

14.4 Use statistical inference to draw conclusions from data.

Activities

1. The professor will discuss the different outcome measurements.  Participants will identify short and long term outcome measurements and provide examples of each.
2. Participants will evaluate the Mathematics Assistance Project at their implementation sites (Process and Success).
3. The professor will introduce two types of evaluations to measure the success of the program goals and objectives.  Participants will practice using quantitative and qualitative evaluation of objective and subjective measures.
4. Participants will present assignment #4 - Mathematics Assistance Project Notebook.
5. Participants will complete a final examination.  The final exam is open book and open-notes.