The first year of the middle school mathematics grant is completed – and teachers in the three schools are thrilled at the progress they have made. Teachers in Lawrence Township, Egg Harbor City and Deptford Township were each awarded $25,000 by the Center to create collaborative professional learning communities (PLC) of middle school mathematics educators. The goal of the program is for the collaborative professional learning communities to address student achievement gaps in mathematics and to incorporate Algebra I in the middle school curriculum so that all students in the three schools demonstrate proficiency in Algebra I by eighth-grade graduation. The renewable grant will last three years.
Each PLC meets regularly in their school to review curriculum, develop lessons, and discuss strategies for improving student achievement in algebra. The three schools meet together four times a year (once in the summer and three times during the school year) to discuss their progress, share new ideas, and learn new strategies from Heather henderson, the Center’s math fellow and Lois Easton, our PLC coach.
Dr. Bill Firestone of Rutgers University led the research and evaluation team that is monitoring the progress of the PLC’s. Dr. Firestone provided feedback to the three schools this summer on the results of year 1. Activities in the first year centered on learning on how to set up a PLC, analyzing the mathematics curriculum and benchmarking skills for particular grades, and discovering the hidden talents of each other as teachers.
Students in the three schools are required to take the Accuplacer algebra test – an online adaptive test used by the community colleges in NJ to determine algebra achievement levels. Student performance on the Accuplacer test and state mandated tests in mathematics are being used to monitor student progress during the three years of the grant. The results of the first year showed small, but incremental increases in student achievement in the three schools.