GotMATH, is a five-year, NSF track 1 Noyce program to recruit and support integrated mathematics credential students to become teachers in high needs schools. Hough et al. conducted a mixed methods evaluation study to track participants through their sophomore and junior years in the program and into their teaching placements in high needs schools. Utilizing custom questionnaires and individual interviews we explored the ways in which program practices supported scholars to persist as mathematics majors. The summative component used state-approved beginning teacher assessment data and follow up interviews to assess the types of pedagogical content knowledge that participants develop as they transition into teaching in local high needs schools.
Evaluation results show that GotMATH support activities (mentoring, teaching seminars, attendance at conferences and early field experiences in classrooms) are effective at retaining integrated mathematics students in this rigorous major with a 96% retention rate compared with a rate of 50% of their peers who do not receive such support. Qualitative results indicated that program activities serve to significantly enhance the early pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of prospective teachers by first modeling non-traditional mathematics discourse while they are still learners of mathematics both in major coursework and in the selection of placements in early field experiences. When scholars embark on the latter part of their program–the teaching and learning seminars in which near-peer teachers in local high needs schools (HNS) share strategies that they implement in their own mathematics classrooms serve to reinforce and extend the credential coursework participants take allowing them to apply concepts in a disciple specific way. These supports have now been institutionalized through a cohort program.
Approximately 50% of GotMATH scholars have already graduated with a single subject teaching credential in mathematics and assessed at a high level of readiness to teach. All of them obtained positions in local high needs schools upon graduation and all but one have been retained in their schools. Moreover, beginning teachers continue to develop PCK relevant to supporting their students in HNS, in particular anticipatory thinking, that aspect of teacher reasoning that connects mathematical discourse and knowledge of content and students allowing them to consider instruction that is based on their student needs and thinking. Strong student-teacher relationships, deep knowledge of students, their culture and their struggles mediated this development of Knowledge of Students & Mathematics. . Conversely, as beginning teachers continued their commitment to non-traditional mathematical discourse in their classrooms, it gave them more opportunities to learn about what their students know, what engaged them and how they felt about their learning.
Deliverables to date:
- Five yearly reports have been prepared and submitted to project leaders and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
- In collaboration with project leaders, two presentations using evaluation results have been delivered at peer reviewed conferences and one article is in review in the Journal of Mathematics Education (JME).
- Lu, Y., . & Hough S., Bojorquez, J., Jeong, M., Reyes, R., Flores P. A., , Williams, H. (2024) Supporting Diverse Mathematics Teachers to Teach Mathematics to Students in High Needs Schools. Submitted to the Journal of Mathematics Education
- Lu, Y., . & Hough S. (2024). Developing Underrepresented PSTs’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching in High-Needs Schools, 28th Annual Conference of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, Contributed Session.
- Lu, Y., Amarasinghe, R., Hough, S.; Teaching Diverse Students in High Needs Schools. (2023). Poster Presented at the Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME) February 23-25, Omaha, Nebraska.