• Previous National Science Foundation Support
  
• Shared Vision
  
• Goals and Objectives
  
• Problem
  
• Solution
  
  • The CPMP Curriculum
    
    • Multiple Connected Strands
      
    • Mathematical Modeling
      
    • Access
      
    • Mathematics, Not Mechanics
      
    • Cooperative Learning
      
    • Multi-Dimensional Assessment
      
  • Efforts Prior to RMTC
    
  • RMTCâs Contribution
    
    • Summer Sessions
      
    • Academic Year
      
      • RMTC Collaborative Conferences
        
      • RMTC Council
        
      • Monthly School Meetings
        
    • Electronic Networking
      
    • Business/Industry Connection
      
    • Outreach
      
    • Intern Teaching
      
    • Solution Summary
      
• Major RMTC Partners
  
  • Participants
    
  • Staff
    
  • Advisory Board
    
  • Collaborative Schools
    
  • Contacts
  • Local Communities
    
  • Western Michigan University
    
  • Intermediate School Districts
    
  • Math and Science Centers
    
  • Michigan Statewide Systemic Initiative
    
  • Business and Industry
    
• Evaluation
  
  • Key Evaluation Questions
    
• Dissemination
  
• Timeline for RMTC Activities
  
• Conclusion
  
• References
  

As a result of studying and reflecting on the Professional Teaching Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 1991), other readings, and their own practice, the Institute participants have achieved a deeper understanding of the significant changes classroom teachers must make in their approach to the teaching and learning of mathematics for successful reform to occur. MS³I continues to investigate what it takes for teachers to be able to make these changes. One factor that has become clear is the benefit of having others who are engaged in the reform process to talk to and work with. The Institute participants have had each other as a support group, but often lack colleagues in their home schools who are interested in working hard to improve their mathematics teaching. Taking a systemic approach to change ensures that this form of isolation will not occur.

Along with focusing on their own professional development, Institute participants are stepping into new leadership roles. These include becoming department chair, serving on curriculum committees, mentoring new teachers, and giving workshops for other teachers. The experiences of the Institute teachers as they enter into peer mentorships with their school colleagues will provide information for the peer mentoring component of RMTC.

RMTC uses the CPMP curricular materials as a conduit to realize this vision of professional development.

Teachers that have already been heavily involved in other recent professional development experiences will take on a leadership role in the RMTC project. In particular, teachers who have been involved with CPMP from its inception and have received additional professional development in facilitating workshops will become summer workshop instructors.

Meeting these objectives will lead to the creation of an enhanced professional community that encourages teachers to reflect on their teaching and learning and empowers them to be change agents.

In a questionnaire given to collaborative teachers during preparations for the preliminary proposal, the teachers overwhelmingly responded that training in implementing the CPMP curriculum was their greatest professional development need. Some cited fears and doubts about the reforms in general. Lack of time for planning and reflection was mentioned repeatedly as the biggest obstacle to improving their teaching. Many of the teachers expressed concerns that echo Tafel and Bartaniâs observation that "Maintaining the momentum of change takes enormous time and energy. Planning and launching a new initiative is often easier than sustaining the momentum for change" (1992, p. 45).

RMTC was designed to meet the challenge of providing the professional development and support necessary for implementing a reform curriculum system-wide.

In outlining the proposed contributions that RMTC will make to solving the problem identified in the previous section, it is important to discuss both the curriculum that has been adopted and the professional development efforts that are already underway. As a backdrop to these discussions, we first identify where the collaborative schools are, as a group, regarding systemic change.

Beverly Anderson (1993) outlined six stages of systemic change: (1) maintenance of old system, (2) awareness, (3) exploring, (4) transitioning, (5) emerging new infrastructure, and (6) predominance of new system. In this schema the RMTC collaborative schools are solidly in Stage 4 where "the scales tip toward the new system ö a critical number of opinion leaders and the members of various groups support the design of the new system; they make commitments to the new system and take more serious risks to make changes in key places within the system." As a result of Stage 3, where "people engage in study and visit places that are trying new approaches to teaching, learning and organizational functioning; serious discussions about the applicability of new approaches are underway," the schools in the collaborative have chosen to adopt CPMP either with all students or as a second college preparatory curriculum. It is important to note that the fact that a school is in a particular stage does not guarantee that all of its members are in agreement with the changes that have been occurring. In the case of the RMTC collaborative schools, as is true in most cases, there are small groups that are openly resistant to the changes that are taking place and individuals that are passive observers.

In contrast to tracked programs that limit opportunities for students through work-prep, tech-prep, and college-prep sequences, the CPMP curriculum provides a single core sequence during the first three years followed by fourth-year options. Each of the courses in the three-year core is organized in a series of seven connected units and a thematic capstone experience (see the CPMP Web Pages for course outlines). The units are comprised of four or five multi-day lessons in which major ideas are developed through investigations of rich applied problems. As courses are designed, the CPMP developers ask themselves the question "If this were the last mathematics course students would study in school, has the most important mathematics been included?" Additionally, units are carefully reviewed for multicultural and gender equity before they are tested in schools.

The schools in the RMTC collaborative have been heavily involved in the M²A²-CPMP professional development opportunities. As a result of this, and initial funds provided by the school districts, the majority of the teachers in the collaborative will have already completed training for CPMP Course 1 by the beginning of the RMTC grant, allowing the grant to focus on Course 2 and beyond while the districts continue to fund Course 1 training for their teachers. A few of the teachers will have completed training for additional courses. These teachers form the leadership core of the collaborative as has been demonstrated by their initiative and continued involvement in the development of the RMTC proposal.

The continuation of the M²A²-CPMP efforts over the 96-97 academic year will prepare the collaborative schools for the move from Stage 4: Transitioning, towards Stage 5, where "selected elements of the system are widely operated in ways that are in keeping with the desired new system rather than the old system; these new ways are becoming generally accepted." RMTC builds on and extends the professional development that has taken place through this joint endeavor. The role of the RMTC project is to move the collaborative schoolsâ through Stage 5 and have the system in place for the schools to continue on their own to Stage 6: Predominance of New System. RMTC is in a unique position to build on the current momentum because it uses CPMP as a vehicle for the intense, long-term professional development and outreach necessary to achieve local systemic change. Without RMTC the schools would have difficulty moving beyond isolated successful classrooms to system-wide reform.

RMTC will involve teachers in an integrated, reflective cycle of professional development activities that includes one-week summer sessions, annual whole-collaborative conferences, regional meetings, and regular and frequent contact among teachers in school buildings that includes peer mentoring, class observations, common planning periods, and small-group and department meetings. Planning for the professional development activities will take place during monthly meetings of the RMTC Council which includes representation from each school. RMTC activities will focus on using the CPMP curriculum to increase the teachersâ knowledge of content, instruction, and student learning while providing flexibility to meet the needs of individual teachers and schools.

By the start of the RMTC project the majority of the teachers in the collaborative schools will have completed Course 1 training (with limited funds provided by M²A², CPMP, and the districts). This will allow RMTC to begin immediately with Course 2. Our intent is to offer multiple sessions of one workshop each summer. In the first summer, 1997, Course 2 would be offered, in 1998 Course 3, and in 1999 Course 4. If, due to new teachers entering the districts, additional special education teachers, middle school teachers, or others, there is a larger than expected group that has not completed Course 1 training prior to the start of the RMTC project, we will modify our original plan and instead run both Course 1 and Course 2 sessions the first summer, Course 2 and Course 3 the second, and Course 3 and Course 4 the third. Teachers whose needs for summer sessions can not be met by either of these structures will be funded by their districts, with stipends provided by RMTC, to attend CPMP regional site workshops. This ensures that every teacher has maximum opportunity to attend summer workshops. Despite this we realize that some teachers, for personal or family reasons, will not be able to attend the full compliment of summer workshops. The RMTC staff will pay special attention to this small group of teachers during the academic years to make sure that they remain active partners in the systemic change process.

Using the Core-Plus Mathematics Project materials to design professional development experiences for teachers that align with best practices is a natural extension. Workshop leaders model the role of the classroom teacher as the participants immerse themselves in constructing their own knowledge of mathematics. The fact that much of the content of the curriculum as well as the pedagogy is new to teachers allows them to experience being a student in a reform classroom and, through this experience, to better understand what is required of a teacher in a successful reform classroom.

The RMTC summer sessions have been based upon the summer sessions developed and carried out by M²A² and CPMP. These sessions have been well received and will continue to be revised based on feedback from attendees. Currently, each workshop begins with a course overview. The seven units of the course are then addressed in a manner that allows for teacher reflection on instruction concurrent with content work. For example, a discussion of "What is Algebra?" precedes the Linear Models unit. Following one and a half days of work on this unit a list of important topics for algebra generated from the overview discussion are re-posted to allow opportunities for teachers to see the connection between their own thinking and the unit they have just experienced. Discussions on facilitating classroom discussion automatically flow out of the unit investigation work.

Assessment as an integral part of instruction begins to take on a concrete meaning for teachers who are interacting with leaders who model observation and questioning techniques. Ways of assessing studentsâ group work and thinking are interwoven throughout the two-week workshop. The CPMP curriculum incorporates student writing in investigation work, assignments, projects, and journals. During the workshop, teachers experience this type of assessment and reflect on the vision of the classroom promoted by the NCTM Standards.

The length of the summer workshop allows participants to build a support community with other educators. Much of the discussion is collaborative as participants bring a store of knowledge to share with each other. Collectively, instructors and participants struggle with new ways of thinking and doing mathematics and new paradigms of teaching.

A pre-and post-workshop evaluation demonstrated the growth in teachersâ mathematical abilities that can occur during professional development opportunities based on innovative curricula. The participants were not only learning new approaches to instruction and assessment; they were also expanding their mathematics content knowledge.

Discussions on community relations, building a network of support, and other issues and concerns are factored into the workshop agendas. Authentic implementation of an innovative curriculum which aligns with the NCTM Standards and promotes new ways of thinking about learning is not something that can be accomplished by a few innovative teachers in the confines of their own classrooms. It must be system-wide. Reform of this magnitude becomes politicized. Past professional development efforts with CPMP schools underestimated the political pressures and resistance to change that the schools would face. In response to their request, RMTC includes support for the schools as they expend energy and resources on community awareness and building consensus for reform within a district (the districts and other RMTC partners will also contribute to these efforts).

The RMTC summer workshop leaders will be teachers who have had a long-term involvement with the CPMP curriculum. These teachers understand both the philosophy and the practical implications of CPMP. Their experience with teaching CPMP makes them credible witnesses to the fact that it can be done. They also understand the challenges involved in implementing an innovative curriculum and can take on the role of encouragers. Rose Martin and Pete Jarrad, two teachers from the collaborative schools who meet these requirements and have been instrumental in the development of the RMTC proposal, have agreed to take primary responsibility for leading the summer workshops. Their leadership positions in the 1996 summer CPMP implementation workshops will provide them with additional experience to bring to the RMTC project.

The CPMP academic year professional development sessions were shaped by the expressed needs of teachers as the school year progressed and observations of classrooms by project staff.  Adaptive teaching that takes into account student thinking is critical to implementation of the CPMP curriculum. Similarly, we believe professional development must be adaptive to the work-embedded needs of teachers as they implement reform. The experiences we have had with CPMP pilot teachers over the last four years have been instrumental in developing the plans for the current RMTC proposal.

During the academic year, RMTC will provide three formal avenues of continued professional development: RMTC whole-collaborative conferences, RMTC planning council meetings, and monthly school meetings. Each of these aspects of the academic year program is briefly described below and will follow the same pedagogical principles as the summer workshops. Additionally, the administrations of the collaborative schools have made commitments to create environments that allow for frequent reflective interaction among colleagues. These commitments include making an effort to provide common planning periods for teachers teaching the same course, with priority given to pairing someone who is teaching a course for the first time with someone who has taught it before, providing release time for teachers to visit each otherâs classrooms, and providing encouragement and recognition for involvement with peer mentoring. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their practice through videotaped lessons, reflective journals, and analysis of their studentsâ thinking.

One particular way in which the university staff will be able to assist the schools is through providing current research to use as a basis for the discussions that take place in the monthly school meetings (see below). The knowledge of the directors and the resources available through the university will help ground the actions the teachers take in relevant theory. RMTC as a whole will provide a conceptual umbrella that unites the individual districts and provides the connections and coordination necessary to help them pool their resources and build on their strengths. The RMTC Council will be the organizing force for the collaborative. For example, if two schools are dealing with the same issue, the council will arrange for a joint monthly meeting to share ideas.

While the focus of daily and weekly interactions among teachers in a school will of necessity deal with the more practical aspects of teaching an innovative curriculum ö how to facilitate investigations, promote better collaboration within small groups, answer a specific question raised by a student ö the focus of the monthly meetings will be on broader issues of curricular reform. These sessions will examine student work and look deeply at the mathematical understanding of the students and actions that could be taken to increase their learning. Initially the student work may come from sources outside the school, but as the teachers become more comfortable with each other they will be encouraged to bring in copies of their own studentsâ work. Concentrating on student work shifts the focus from what the teachers are doing to what the students are doing in the same way that successful use of the curriculum is student-focused instead of teacher-focused.

Additionally, Western Michigan University has agreed to provide and support the accounts necessary to maintain electronic conferences. The electronic conferences will allow continuous and immediate interaction between teachers who have limited opportunities to interact in person. To facilitate awareness among all the key players in the systemic change process, administrators, curriculum directors, professional development directors, university and community college professors, and other interested parties will have access to the public electronic discussions. It is important to note that it is possible to have private discussions on the confer alongside of the public discussions, providing the teachers with the freedom to share concerns or difficulties with a select subset instead of the entire community.

Another electronic network that will be available to RMTC is the Distance InterActive Learning System (DIAL). The DIAL system can be used for administrative, teacher, parent and student meetings designed for teaching, learning, and professional development when it is not possible to bring participants to the same physical location. Calhoun Intermediate School District has agreed to provide training and technical support for any uses of the DIAL system by the RMTC collaborative.

In the Kalamazoo and Portage area, the Education for Employment program (EFE) has been instrumental in developing similar connections. EFE has agreed to develop a plan to coordinate their efforts with those of the RMTC project. This will include identifying members of the EFE network that work directly with mathematics topics that are a part of the Core-Plus Mathematics Project curriculum and establishing connections between them and the RMTC teachers. EFE has also committed to organizing visits of teachers to business and industry so that they can see first hand how the mathematics they teach is used, visits of business and industry leaders to classrooms to give informational talks to the students, and tours of business and industry for the students so that they can see the mathematics they are learning in action. We feel this is an extremely important part of the RMTC program as teachers and students who have had limited experiences may not recognize the real-world nature of the situations in the CPMP curriculum.

Another area of outreach will be to school personnel who do not teach mathematics themselves but have an impact on those who do. As needed, there will be sessions for counselors, principals, curriculum directors, public relations officers, school board members, and teachers from other disciplines. Depending on the target group, these sessions will be held in conjunction with the monthly school meetings, the biannual whole-collaborative meetings, professional development early release days, or some other scheduled time. Along with keeping these parties informed about progress of the collaborative, the sessions will focus on how these individuals can use their positions to support the RMTC teachers. The conversations across departments are a particularly salient feature of this outreach as systemic change can not be limited to the mathematics department. We need to encourage other departments to make compatible changes and ensure that mathematics reform has a positive impact on all instruction.

A third area of outreach is the college and university community. RMTC teachers will provide a series of colloquium talks at Western Michigan University that are open to area community colleges and university teachers and staff. The talks will focus on the knowledge and experiences college professors should expect students who have been through the CPMP curriculum to have. As part of the college-university outreach, the professors will be invited to visit high school teachers in their classrooms. RMTC will encourage the formation of partnerships between university professors and high school mathematics teachers that would allow the university professors to be exposed to the pedagogical techniques used with the reform curricula and provide the high school teachers with access to a content expert.

A final area is the larger political arena. Especially given the climate of "back-to-the-basics" that is gaining momentum in Michigan, it is essential that politicians hear about the changes that are taking place in mathematics education and the positive effects that they are having on student learning. The RMTC teachers will be encouraged to contact their legislators to share what is happening and to invite them to visit their classrooms. This will provide the politicians with a first-hand perspective from students and teachers on the successes of the program as well as the barriers to success. This knowledge will help the legislators make a positive contribution to changing the system.

The teachers will be provided with financial compensation from RMTC for the outreach efforts that require them to go beyond their usual teaching assignments. Compensating the teachers for these activities acknowledges them as professionals who should be paid for sharing their expertise and emphasizes the critical role that outreach plays in systemic reform.

RMTC will contribute to this seamless transition by providing opportunities for the intern teachers to participate in RMTC professional development activities. The interns will be invited to attend the summer workshops (at no cost but without a stipend), and to participate in all academic year activities. Along with increasing the internsâ content and pedagogical knowledge and reinforcing their mathematics teacher preparation coursework, this involvement will begin what we hope will be a pattern of life-long learning.

To capitalize on the benefits of the RMTC project, the Office of Field Studies in the College of Education at WMU has agreed to make a concerted effort to place all mathematics education interns in RMTC collaborative schools. As a part of this effort, the intern program will be expanded into four additional collaborative schools. This will benefit the RMTC teachers by providing them with interns who have been educated in the current reforms and are ready to work side-by-side with their mentor teachers to maximize student learning of significant mathematics.

Within the structure outlined above, we envision enough flexibility to meet the diverse needs of the individual schools and departments and to allow them to develop local solutions to the unique problems they face. We feel very strongly, and are supported by the research (e.g. Cobb, Wood, & Yackel, 1990), that each group of mathematics teachers needs to be met where they are on the continuum of traditional vs. reform teaching and moved further towards the goal of strong reform-based teaching that focuses on developing mathematical power for all students. Continuous assessment, regular project staff meetings, and a willingness to adapt to meet these needs will ensure that RMTC allows all teachers to improve their practice.

Five teachers in the collaborative high schools were not available to sign but are likely to participate. We anticipate an additional five new mathematics teacher positions in the collaborative schools due to an increase in students taking optional mathematics courses. That provides an overall minimum of one hundred and fifty-four teachers who will be full participants in RMTC professional development activities.

The average teacher in this group will participate in the following formal professional development opportunities: three summer workshops at forty hours each, three annual conferences at eight hours each, and eight monthly meetings per year at three hours each for an overall total of 432 hours. In addition to this will be many hours spent in other interactions such as common planning, classroom observations, and outreach sessions. It would not be uncommon for a teacher who has been involved in mentoring and community outreach to accumulate 750 hours of professional development over the course of the project.

RMTC will involve a teacher from each feeder middle school as well as middle school teachers who will be teaching CPMP courses. The numbers are large for Battle Creek Central because their junior highs include ninth grade and for Kalamazoo Public Schools because they are planning to teach CPMP Course 1 in the eighth grade. Battle Creek Math & Science Center draws from all the Battle Creek area middle schools.

Beth Ritsema is a grant/contract instructor of mathematics. Ms. Ritsema is currently serving as Associate Project Director for Making Mathematics Accessible to All, and Editor and Professional Development Coordinator for the Core-Plus Mathematics Project. As an editor and development team member, she has been heavily involved in the development of the CPMP curriculum as well as the teacher resource packages which accompany each unit. As Professional Development Coordinator for CPMP, she has delivered implementation workshops and academic year meetings for four years.

Pete Jarrad and Rose Martin will serve as lead summer workshop leaders and will be responsible for coordinating additional leaders. Both have been involved with CPMP since its inception and have attended training sessions each summer. This summer (1996) they have taken on leadership roles during the summer workshops. Pete Jarrad brings 29 years of experience teaching high school mathematics to the project and has been one of the most vocal proponents of CPMP in the area. He has been chair at Portage Northern High School since 1984 and was an instrumental player in his schoolâs decision to adopt the CPMP curriculum.

Rose Martin is currently a full-time mathematics teacher specialist and outreach coordinator at the Battle Creek Math and Science Center. She assists area districts in curriculum planning and conducts Making Mathematics Accessible to All, Michigan Mathematics In-Service Project, and CPMP professional development and support sessions. Ms. Martin has been a key player in organizing the Battle Creek area schools in the RMTC collaborative and will continue that role during the implementation phase of the project.

Laura Van Zoest will be responsible for the overall project management and will supervise support staff. She will have primary responsibility for the university faculty, intern, and computer conferencing components of the project. Beth Ritsema will have primary responsibility for the summer workshops, connections to CPMP, and collection of the evaluation data. Laura will oversee the production of the dissemination manual and Beth will coordinate speaking engagements for the RMTC teachers. Laura and Beth will share responsibility for the remainder of the aspects of the project, in many cases each taking primary responsibility for a geographical area.

Rose Martin and Pete Jarrad will serve as lead summer workshop leaders and will be responsible for coordinating leadership teams if it is necessary to have concurrent workshop sessions. Additionally, Rose Martin will serve as the contact person for the Battle Creek Area high schools. Linda Teare, Professional Development Coordinator for the Portage Area, will be the contact person for the Portage schools. Vern Davis, Mathematics Supervisor for Kalamazoo, will be the contact for the Kalamazoo schools. Don Treizenberg will serve as the contact person for the Holland-Muskegon Area schools. These contact people will be key links in the communication and flow of information from the project staff to the schools and, especially in the collection of evaluation data, from the schools to the project staff. Department chairs will be the contact people when mathematical issues are involved.

Laura Van Zoest and Beth Ritsema will be directly involved in the professional development activities for the teachers. Beth brings to the project her experience of working directly with the mathematicians who authored the CPMP units as an editor and co-author. As a result of her experiences, she has a strong understanding of the mathematics around and beyond what was finally included in the units. She also has direct access to the CPMP authors for additional information. Laura has an extensive background in mathematics and a strong working relationship with the five mathematics professors who taught courses in contemporary topics for the MS³I project. Rose Martin and Pete Jarrad also have strong mathematics backgrounds. In particular, Rose has been involved in professional development to design statistical replacement units for algebra and received a summer research grant to complete work with mathematical models. In 1995 Pete attended the NSF Summer Workshop on Discrete Mathematics at Grand Valley State University.

Dr. Michael Slack is a geometer/topologist who has been working at a local high school with students, teachers, and mentoring coordinators. He has become familiar with many of the current issues facing students and teachers on that level. He is currently involved in the creation of a project aimed toward having students work together outside of the classroom to support each others' academic endeavors. He has extensive research experience in geometry and topology, having recently had 5 years of postdoctoral training. Dr. Slack will provide instruction in geometry for RMTC.

Dr. Gerry Sievers is a statistician with 30 years of teaching and research experience. At the university level, he has developed a successful introductory statistics course focused on concepts, reasoning and applications in contemporary areas and another course on the design of experiments for quality improvement based on methods that are gaining importance in industry. He brings to RMTC extensive experience in the application of statistical methods to real-world problems through his consulting activities on research projects in a wide range of fields at WMU. Dr. Sievers will provide instruction in probability and statistics for RMTC.

Dr. Dennis Pence is a numerical analysist who has recently been writing calculus texts and calculator supplements. He is also a Teachers Teaching with Technology instructor and, in that capacity, receives continuous training in the most current graphing calculator technology. For many years, Dr. Pence has been working with high school teachers to help them to better use technology in their classroom. Dr. Pence will provide instruction in discrete mathematics and algebra for RMTC.

Both Dr. Sievers and Dr. Pence are instructors in the Mathematical Sciences Sequential Summer Institute and are looking forward to continuing their efforts to help high school teachers to improve their understanding of mathematics.

Dr. Phil Wagreich from the University of Illinois at Chicago has agreed to join the RMTC Advisory Board. He is a respected mathematician who has had considerable experience with mathematics reform.

The collaborative includes urban schools with up to 45% minority, suburban schools with a 90% Caucasian student body, and rural schools with a predominately agricultural base. Almost 700 students in one district speak a language other than, or in addition to, English. Forty-five languages, ranging from Abud to Zulu, have been identified as home languages of those students. In two of the districts, fifty percent of the students come from homes where income levels are low enough to qualify them for free and reduced lunch. The diversity of schools within the collaborative, as well as the diversity within many of the schools of the collaborative, ensures the usefulness of RMTC as a model for a wide variety of districts.

The administrators of the collaborative schools are committed to working with RMTC and have made significant financial contributions to the project. These financial contributions include technology, new textbooks, parent awareness resources, substitutes, meeting space, coordinator time, supplies, and release time for a lead teacher. Additionally, they have agreed to support their teachersâ professional development by arranging common planning periods, providing release time to visit other teachers, and contributing to the creation of a supportive environment. In part this means being involved in RMTC themselves so that they understand the changes their teachers are making and the challenges they face. Science teachers who are interested in aligning their curriculum with CPMP should be funded by their school districts.

The mathematics teacher education programs at WMU are guided by the NCTM Standards (1989, 1991, 1995), both in the content of the courses and in the way the courses are taught. RMTC augments the universityâs efforts by providing classrooms for field experiences that reflect what the prospective teachers have learned in their courses. RMTC provides an opportunity for WMU to merge its preservice and inservice programs and provide a model for a seamless transition from preservice to inservice teacher education. Both the College of Education and the College of Arts and Science are supportive of RMTC.

At times appropriate to the participantsâ development, university mathematicians will be included in the professional development to provide instruction beyond the CPMP curriculum. The revised budget includes a consultant line that will support incorporating additional mathematical expertise into the professional development activities (see Staff for specifics on three of the mathematicians who will participate). The professors who serve as consultants to the project will be expected to familiarize themselves with the curriculum and participate in the professional development activities directly related to their contribution.

Additionally, the entire mathematics and statistics faculty at Western will be invited to become integrally involved with the project. Interested faculty will be assigned to a collaborative teacher who will invite the professor to fulfill a role in their classroom such as guest speaker, tutor, or mathematics consultant. In all cases, the professor will be expected to also visit the classroom while the collaborative teacher is running the class. This involvement is an opportunity for a large number of university professors to become familiar with the mathematics curriculum that their future students will have studied while sharing their expertise with the collaborative teachers.

Student performance in Michigan is measured by the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) series of tests. We will have access to that data as a way to compare students involved in the RMTC schools with other schools in Michigan.

An additional instrument that CPMP has used in the past to collect student data is the Ability to do Quantitative Thinking test. We would like to continue that practice with a sample of students and will work with the school districts to find a cost-effective way to do this.

We also feel that it is important to collect teacher input on student achievement. Teachers who have taught both with a traditional and reform curriculum in the same school are in a unique position to offer insight about differences in student performance.

Additionally we will look at other issues related to student performance such as changes in student enrollment in advanced mathematics courses and changes in the number of times a student takes the same course.

Data collection will be coordinated with the national LSI evaluator to reduce duplication of effort. All data will be collected in compliance with NSF's Protection of Human Subjects Regulations. Both qualitative and quantitative data will be assembled through use of LSI evaluation data supplemented with special focus data driven by the evaluation questions. The focus of qualitative data collection and analysis will be on documenting and understanding processes, plans, and activities, as well as their impact on teachers, students, and other stakeholders. Emphasis will be given to changes in teaching practices and district support systems. Quantitative data collection and analysis includes rates of participation, program characteristics, student achievement, teacher accomplishments, and takeholder involvement. Observations, individual and group interviews, electronic dialogue, paper/pencil journals, surveys, and document gathering will be used to collect data.

Information from data collection efforts will be compiled and analyzed as it becomes available. Annual reports will be prepared based on data collected over time from various sources. Summaries and specialized reports will be prepared for RMTC planning council meetings as appropriate. Project and school district staffs will be responsible for distribution and collection of surveys and observational instruments to make optimal use of evaluation resources. The external evaluators, Science and Mathematics Program Improvement (SAMPI) at Western Michigan University, will take primary responsibility for analysis and reporting of data. SAMPI conducts the evaluation of the Michigan and Vermont Statewide Systemic Initiatives, the Michigan Mathematics and Science Centers Network, and other mathematics and science education programs. SAMPI co-directors are Dr. Zoe Barley and Dr. Mark Jenness.

Zoe Barley and Mark Jenness are co-evaluators of several mathematics and science initiatives funded through NSF, the U.S. Department of Education, and local agencies. Each has worked in evaluating classroom implementation of mathematics and science standards-based curricula, the evaluation of professional development programming using Practice Profiling and more recently the Principles for Effective Professional development for Mathematics and Science Education, and the evaluation of school-based systemic reform as well as state wide systemic initiatives in Michigan and Vermont. As evaluators for the Michigan frameworks project mathematics and science components, they have developed interview protocols, mailed surveys, and document reviews to insure use of documents produced. In other projects a variety of evaluation tools have been developed and reviewed and modified through work with national colleagues.

Dr. Jenness has been working closely with Horizon Research to improve the data collection methods used in the LSC initiative for local use. Dr. Barley has served on the national committee convened by NSF to formulate data collection for the SSIâs. Evaluation of an advanced technology grant has led to the development of electronic surveys for teachers and administrators. Evaluations exclusively focused in mathematics began in 1993 with collaborations with Drs. Robert Laing and Ruth Meyer, mathematics education faculty at Western Michigan University. Barley and Jenness currently are part of the management team for an Eisenhower funded state wide program preparing regional teams of mathematics curriculum reform specialists.

In addition to Barley and Jenness, the evaluation team will include at least one individual who has credentials in mathematics content and teaching. We hope to continue our past practice of involving retired high school mathematics teachers who have a strong understanding of the reform curricula. This person(s) will work with Barley and Jenness to provide reliable observations that reflect the complexity of the mathematics and pedagogy involved in teaching reform curricula.

There are two key components to this plan: maintaining a World Wide Web site for ongoing immediate dissemination and compiling the information into a CD at the end of the project. We anticipate that the CD will be completed and sent out in August of 2000.

In order to maintain a high quality WWW site, we will contract with a multimedia firm to update the site on a monthly basis. At the completion of the project, focused time will be spent reflecting back on the project and the aspects that would be most helpful to others. Also, decisions will be made about additional features, such as video and voice-overs, that should be included in the CD. Beth Ritsema and Laura Van Zoest will devote one weekâs time during May/June 2000 to this effort.

As a part of this process, we will invite four people to serve as reviewers for the material. Their role will be to make suggestions for what could be done to make the information more useful. This group will include at least one classroom teacher, at least one school-level mathematics coordinator, and at least one district-level mathematics coordinator. After the content has been determined, Laura will spend an additional two weeks interfacing with the multimedia firm and supervising the creation of the CD master. The multimedia firm will devote an additional 60 hours to preparing the material for CD format.

The advantages of multimedia dissemination include the immediacy of the information on the World Wide Web site and the minimal cost of the actual production and mailing of a CD when compared to the duplicating and postage costs of a paper manual. Additionally, both the WWW site and the CD offer the benefits of a non-linear medium more appropriate to capturing the multidimensional nature of systemic reform.

Our plan for disseminating 500 copies of CD version of the implementation manual focuses on three approaches: 1) visitors to our web page will be informed of the CD and will be able to request it through the web site, 2) we will place announcements of the CDâs availability in venues such as the NCTM newsletter, and 3) we will work with Everyday Learning Corp. to provide the CDs to schools that order CPMP materials. We also will make available a paper manual to districts that do not have the technology required to use the CD. The first five hundred requests will be filled free of charge; additional copies will be available for the cost of reproduction and postage.

Cobb, P., Wood, T., and Yackel, E. (1990). Classrooms as learning environments for teachers and researchers. In R. B. Davis, C. A. Maher, and N. Noddings (Eds.), Constructivist views of mathematics. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education Monograph No. 4. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

CPMP. (1995). Overview of the CPMP Curriculum: Contemporary Mathematics in Context. Western Michigan University: CPMP.

Darling-Hammond, L., and McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 597-604.

Decker, R. H., and Dedrick, C. V. L. (1989). Peer-mentoring-exchange program: Opportunities for professional development. [ERIC Document #317347].

Lieberman, A. (1995). Practices that support teacher development. Phi Delta Kappan, 591-596.

Little, J. W. (1993). Teachersâ professional development in a climate of educational reform. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 15(2), 129-51.

Lord, B. (1991). Subject-area collaboratives, teacher professionalism, and staff development. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1989). Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional standards for teaching mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1995). Assessment standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. (1993). Changing teaching: The next frontier. Washington, DC: NFIE.

National Research Council. (1989). Everybody counts: A report to the nation on the future of mathematics education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Tafel, L., and Bertani, A. (1992). Reconceptualizing staff development for systemic change. Journal of Staff Development, 13, 42-45.