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In-service program documentation
Clarifying expectations for the field experience (D6.1)
Information about field experience requirements provided in the program announcements for different in-service programs

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Implementation A - volunteer teacher teams participating for 1 year w/ stipend

Implementation B/C - volunteer teachers participating for 1 semester

Implementation D - teachers participating in a school wide systemic change project

Note: For detailed information regarding the context of each implementation of the field experience see the "Logistics and scheduling information" for this activity.

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Implementation A

Note: This was the second group of teachers to work with us during an NSF-funded teacher enhancement project and were therefore referred to as "Phase 2" teachers - however, they were the first group to participate in the professional development program described in this package.

The following description was taken from the Program Announcement

Supported field experiences for Phase 2 teachers

During the school year 1993-94, the participating PHASE 2 teachers will start implementing the ideas and principles discussed in the Summer Institute into their own teaching. These efforts will be supported in a variety of ways by the NSF project. This support will mainly be provided on an on-going basis by a school-based team, along with a few additional day-long meetings organized for all the participants. Support from NSF staff will be quite consistent during the first semester of the year, while during the second semester the school-based teams will be expected to continue to function more independent (so as to become able to continue on their own in the on-going process of instructional innovation once the project ends).

Further details on the major components of these supported field experiences are described in what follows.

First Semester Activities: (September 93 -- February 94)

IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES FOR "MATH TEACHERS":

Participating teachers who are in charge of teaching mathematics (either in mainstream or self-contained classes) are expected to choose ONE of their classes (a regular class with LD mainstreamed students or a blended class, if at all possible) as the context where they will implement a series of activities mandated by the project (described below). These activities have been designed with the goal of providing some structure for the teachers' on-going effort to reflect on their teaching of mathematics in that classroom, better support all students (and especially LD students) in that classroom, and learn from the results of these experiences. More specifically, each teacher will be asked to conduct the following key activities:

(1) implement an adaptation of one of our illustrative units (i.e., Tessellation, Remodeling or Area) as their beginning unit, with the main goal of setting up some important expectations and "routines" for the rest of the year (ex: writing, group work, sharing, expectations about school math, etc.) (first three-four weeks of the year)

(2) adapt and implement (all or part of) another illustrative unit for their class, as a way to continue to develop their students' ability to use and benefit from the "routines" introduced with the first unit, as well as to provide concrete support for the teacher's attempt to incorporate these "routines" in their everyday teaching (later in the Fall, before Xmas vacation)

(3) create on their own a series of lessons reflecting what they have learned from the project, as a chance to try to incorporate new principles and "routines" in their own teaching while still benefiting of the support provided by the project staff and the school-based team (to be designed by February and implement by April-May)

For each of these key experiences, the teacher (in collaboration with the LD consultant and/or other members of the school-based team) has the main responsibility to keep the following documentation (essential both for the teacher to evaluate the result of his/her implementation and for the project staff to provide on-going support and feedback):

• written record of initial plan (see guidelines and model provided)
• written daily accounts of each lesson (see guidelines and model provided)
• a written reflection on each major "component" of the unit when concluded (see model documentation provided)
• a final written reflection on the experience
• a portfolio for each LD student as well as a few regular students in the class, containing all the student's written work as well as the record of specific observations throughout the year.

LD CONSULTANT TEACHER'S ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• The LD consultant on each school-based team will collaborate closely to the planning, implementation and documentation of the three "experimental units", though with a role somewhat different from the math teacher. This will involve first of all being present in each of the participating math teachers' chosen classroom at least when the three "key experiences" discussed above are taking place. In these classes, the LD consultant will be expected NOT to take on the actual teaching of the class so as to be able to devote his/her attention to assessing and supporting the needs of all students (and especially LD students) in the classroom as well as their reactions to the novel activities they may experience in these lessons. More specifically, this role will involve: (a) helping the math teacher understand the unique needs of individual students in the class (by observing their behavior and help the teacher recognize and interpret such a behavior and the needs it may suggest) and how the teaching may be further adjusted to better serve them, (b) supporting the LD students in the class (by listening as THEY work to make sense of the mathematics they are doing, asking questions about their process as well as offering some assistance as needed, etc.), (c) recording information about individual students' (and especially the LD students') progress on a daily basis.
• Review with the classroom teacher the LD students' CUME files in the chosen class at the beginning of the school year, making notes of pertinent information, in order to identify as early as possible some of the unique learning needs of these students.
• Write a reflection at the end of each day when the units are implemented, a reflection at the end of each major "component" of the unit and a final reflection at the end of each of the three experiences.
• With the collaboration of the class math teacher, prepare a case-study of at least 2-3 LD students in the class at the end of the semester (and/or school year) on the basis of the students' CUME file, portfolio and classroom observations. This case-study should provide a portrait of the student and his/her progress, so as to illustrate his/her specific needs, the teacher's attempts to meet them and the student's growth as a result of participating in the innovative experiences. A general outline to guide the creation of these case-studies will be provided as a possible support and reference. We recommend that the choice of subjects for these case-studies be delayed till at least the middle of the Fall semester, so as to make sure that the most "interesting" students are documented. Since it is important that the relevant information about each subject be collected from the very beginning of the school year, this implies that information about all LD students in the class, as well as a few "regular" students, be systematically collected and placed in their portfolio.
• Have two-three additional meetings during the semester (still to be scheduled) with Dana Packman, the project consultant in learning disability, to address in more depth issues about learning disabilities and to prepare for and monitor their special role in the project classes.

SCHOOL-BASED TEAM MEETINGS:

• location: at each of the designated schools
• frequency: weekly for 1 to 1 1/2 hour (each school should have determined the schedule of this meeting by now)
• goals: share plans, provide feed-back and support to these plans, share results of implementations and one's impressions of them, organize occasional visits to each other classrooms, raise and discuss more general questions and issues related to trying to put in practice the NCTM Standards and to deal with students learning differences.
• responsibilities in preparation to the meetings: to make the meetings more efficient, participants will be expected to share and read before hand written material providing information about plans and/or results of the implementation to be discussed (i.e., the relevant piece of the "documentation" they are expected to keep on their experience, as described in more detail earlier); weekly journals will also be written by all teachers and shared at the meeting.

SUPPORT BY NSF TEAM FACILITATOR:

• initial 2-3 visits to each Phase 2 teacher class to get to know it
• 2-3 visits in consecutive days for each of the three key experiences
• participation to the weekly school-based team meeting
• available as a consultant on an ad-hoc basis

SUPPORT BY LD SPECIALIST (Dana Packman):

Dana Packman will be available as a consultant on an ad-hoc basis, in addition to organizing and leading two-three meetings for the LD consultants.

DAY-LONG PROJECT MEETINGS:

These meetings will involve all project participants across schools, and their agenda will be planned so as to support the on-going field experiences and to respond to specific issues (about planning, LD, documentation, implementing innovation, etc.) raised by more than one group. There are four such meetings already scheduled for the first semester that will deal (at least in part) with the following issues:

(1) Respond to questions about setting up a learning environment (i.e., group work, writing, class discussions, etc.) and learning disabilities raised as the teachers start to implement their beginning unit; make "adjustments" in these units as appropriate (Saturday, September 18)

(2) Share experiences of implementing the beginning units and insights about LD as well as teaching and learning mathematics gained from it -- Brainstorming/ Feed-back on initial plans for second unit (Saturday, October 2)

(3) Sharing first results of implementations of second unit AND/OR refining plans for second unit (Thursday, November 11 -- Veterans' Day)

(4) Sharing implementations of second units AND brainstorming/ feed-back on initial plans for third unit (Thursday, December 9 -- Regular school day)

VISITS TO "DEMONSTRATION CLASSROOM":

In Fall 1993, Judi Fonzi will be teaching a "demonstration class" at the local day school for severely learning disabled "above average" students as part of this project (probably scheduled 8:15--9:00 daily). Participating teachers are expected to be released for half-day at least once in September so as to visit this classroom and see some of the principles discussed in the Summer Institute played out in practice. Additional visits are also encouraged.

Second semester (February 94 -- June 94):

• SCHOOL-BASED TEAM MEETINGS: School-based teams continue to meet weekly to continue to support each other in the attempt to reflect on their teaching of mathematics and their efforts to meet the need of LD mainstreamed students (the NSF team facilitator, however, will not participate to these meetings)
• IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES: Teachers are expected to implement at least their third key experience and keep a documentation of the same (to be shared with the school-based team and their NSF team facilitator) as well as to continue in their efforts to incorporate "routines" such as group work, discussions, reflective writing, etc., and attention to students' special needs in their lessons. Additional innovative experiences are expected and encouraged.
• SUPPORT BY NSF TEAM FACILITATOR: The NSF team facilitator will not participate regularly to the weekly meetings, but will continue to be available as a consultant on an ad-hoc basis, and will visit for 2-3 consecutive days when the third key experience is taking place.
• PROJECT MEETINGS: All the project participants will meet twice during this semester (a school-day in February and a school-day in May, still to be scheduled) to report on the experience and share questions and issues for discussion. Most of the May meeting will be organized as a "fair" where teachers will present their third "units" and share the results of their implementation.
• FINAL EVALUATION: Questionnaires and/or individual/group interviews by NSF project staff, as well as reflections on the experience written by each participant, will be gathered at the various points during the year to collect information about what was done and learned as a result of participating in this project.

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Implementation B/C

Note: This was the third group of teachers to work with us during a NSF-funded teacher enhancement project and were therefore referred to as "Phase 3" teachers - however, they were the second group to participate in the professional development program described in this package. This implementation differs from Implementation A in both the length of the "official" field experience commitments (1 semester instead of a full year) and in the documentation requirements imposed by the project (significantly reduced since there were no stipends to cover this additional work).

The following description was taken from the Program Announcement

Supported field experiences for Phase 3 Participants

During the Fall of 1994 the participating teachers will start implementing the ideas and principles discussed in the Summer Institute into their own teaching. These efforts will be supported in a variety of ways by the NSF project. This support will mainly be provided on an on-going basis by a support team, along with a few additional day-long meetings organized for all the participants.

Support from NSF staff will be quite consistent during the first semester of the year, while during the second semester it is hoped that the teams will continue to function on their own in the on-going process of instructional innovation once the project ends.

Support teams will be comprised of:

• One NSF project staff member and / Or Phase 1 and Phase 2 teachers
• at least one Phase 3 math teacher with mainstreamed LD students
• at least one special education teacher
• other Phase 3 participants

Further details on the responsibilities of participants and the major components of the supported field experience are described in what follows.

First Semester (September 94 -- January 95)

IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES FOR "MATH TEACHERS":

Participating teachers who are in charge of teaching mathematics are expected to choose ONE of their classes (a regular class with LD mainstreamed students or a blended class, if at all possible) as the context where they will implement a series of activities mandated by the project (described below). These activities have been designed with the goal of providing some structure for the teachers' on-going effort to reflect on their teaching of mathematics in that classroom, better support all students (and especially LD students) in that classroom, and learn from the results of these experiences. More specifically, each teacher will be asked to conduct the following key activities:

(1) implement an adaptation of one of our illustrative units (i.e., Tessellation, Remodelling or Area) as their beginning unit, with the main goal of setting up some important expectations and "routines" for the rest of the year (ex: writing, group work, sharing, expectations about school math, etc.) (first three-four weeks of the school year)

(2) EITHER

• (a) adapt and implement (all or part of) another illustrative unit for their class (later in the Fall, before Xmas vacation)

OR:

• (b) create on their own a series of lessons reflecting what they have learned from the project (later in the Fall, before Xmas vacation) .

For each of these key experiences, the teacher has the main responsibility to keep the following documentation (essential both for the teacher to evaluate the result of his/her implementation and for the project staff to provide on-going support and feedback):

• written record of initial plan (guidelines and a model will be provided during the Summer Institute)
• an "updated plan" of the unit reflecting what was actually implemented including all hand-outs, assignments, tests, etc.
• a final written reflection on the experience
• a portfolio for a few LD and regular students in the class, containing all the student's written work as well as a record of the teacher's observations and a brief assessment of each student.

IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES for LD CONSULTANT TEACHERS

• Many districts are currently using an LD consultant teacher program in their mainstreaming process. In this program special education teachers collaborate with regular education teachers who have LD students mainstreamed in their classes. When the LD consultant teacher and the regular education math teacher are both participating in the teacher enhancement program the LD consultant teacher will collaborate closely in the planning, implementation and documentation of the illustrative units, though with a role somewhat different from the math teacher. This will involve first of all being present in each of the participating math teachers' implementation classroom when the "key experiences" discussed above are taking place. In these classes, the LD consultant will be expected NOT to take on the actual teaching of the class so as to be able to devote his/her attention to assessing and supporting the needs of all students (and especially LD students) in the classroom as well as noting their reactions to the novel activities they may experience in these lessons. More specifically, this role will involve: (a) helping the math teacher understand the unique needs of individual students in the class by observing their behavior; helping the teacher recognize and interpret behaviors; suggesting implicit needs; and offering possible instructional adjustments to better serve them, (b) supporting the LD students in the class by listening as THEY work to make sense of the mathematics they are doing, asking questions about their process and offering some assistance as needed, (c) recording information about individual students' (and especially the LD students') progress on a daily basis.
• Review with the classroom teacher pertinent information from the LD students' CUME files in the implementation classroom at the beginning of the school year in order to identify as early as possible unique learning needs of these students.
• Help the math teacher coordinate the documentation, especially the student portfolios.
• Write a final reflection at the end of each of the illustrative units.
• Responsible in team meetings for emphasizing and illustrating (through participating students) LD issues
• Create a case study of an LD student as a combined project with the classroom teacher

IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES FOR OTHER PARTICIPANTS:

• pair with one of the "math teachers" participating in the project (a teacher from one's own school when possible)
• provide support and feedback to the teacher in the adaptation / design of the units
• visit the classroom (as possible) when the illustrative units are taught
• provide support and feedback to the teacher's documentation
• write a final reflection on each of the units, based on the material read, classroom observations, and conversations with the teacher

SUPPORT TEAM MEETINGS:

• location: at geographically central meeting sites (to be determined)
• frequency: weekly for 1 to 1 1/2 hour after school
• goals: share plans, provide feed-back and support to these plans, share results of implementations and one's impressions of them, organize occasional visits to each other classrooms, raise and discuss more general questions and issues related to trying to put in practice the NCTM Standards and to deal with students learning differences.

SUPPORT BY NSF TEAM FACILITATOR:

• participation to the weekly support team meeting
• occasional classroom visits
• available as a consultant on an ad-hoc basis

SUPPORT BY LD SPECIALIST :

Dana Packman will be available as a consultant to teams on an ad-hoc basis.

DAY-LONG PROJECT MEETINGS:

These meetings will involve all project participants across schools, and their agenda will be planned so as to support the on-going field experiences and to respond to specific issues (about planning, LD, documentation, implementing innovation, etc.) raised by more than one group. There are three such meetings planned (dates to be determined) for the first semester that will deal (at least in part) with the following issues:

First Meeting: Share experiences of implementing the beginning units and insights about LD as well as teaching and learning mathematics gained from it .

Second Meeting: Sharing first results of implementations of second unit (or refining plans for second unit), and further discussions of LD issues.

Third Meeting: Sharing implementations of second units AND future plans.

Second semester (February 95 -- June 95):

• SUPPORT TEAM MEETINGS: support teams are encouraged to continue to meet weekly on their own so as to continue to support each other in the attempt to reflect on their teaching of mathematics and their efforts to meet the need of LD mainstreamed students (the NSF team facilitator, however, will not participate to these meetings)
• IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES: Teachers are encouraged to continue in their efforts to incorporate "routines" such as group work, discussions, reflective writing, etc., and to pay attention to students' special needs in their lessons. Additional innovative experiences are expected and encouraged.
• EVALUATION: Questionnaires and/or individual/group interviews by NSF project staff, as well as reflections on the experience written by each participant, will be gathered at the various points during the year to collect information about what was done and learned as a result of participating in this project.

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Implementation D

Note: The teachers participating in this implementation of the field experiences were members of the teaching staffs from the four schools involved in the NSF-funded "Local systemic change project". However, these teachers were among the few remaining teachers in each of the schools who had not previously chosen to participate in one of our professional development programs. Therefore, in addition to introducing them to an inquiry approach to teaching mathematics we realized that this would be our first opportunity to begin developing positive working relationships to support our efforts towards systemic reform. With this in mind, though we believed a requirement to implement inquiry units as soon as possible in the school year was critical, we decided not to require that these teachers do so as their very first unit of the school year. However, throughout the summer institute we took every opportunity to explain why we felt that implementing an inquiry unit at the beginning of the year could be very important. In addition, we chose to eliminate the project imposed documentation requirements and to limit the number of project wide meetings during the school year in favor of developing experiences at the individual schools designed to support the individuals' and the school's efforts towards change.

The following description was taken from the Program Announcement

All participates who teach mathematics at the middle school level will then be expected to conduct "supported field experiences" during the school year. This means that, with the support of the school facilitator, the math teachers will:

• Adapt and implement in at least one of their classes one of the "illustrative inquiry units" which they experienced as learners in the Summer Institute. These units and their supporting instructional materials have been designed and field-tested by our team of mathematics educators and middle school teachers (from each of the four schools participating in the NSF-funded "Local Systemic Change Project") in the context of our previous project on teaching math in inclusive classrooms. As each of these units involves the intensive use of mathematical reasoning, communication, problem solving, and manipulatives, we believe that this experience can serve as a "scaffold" for teachers who are using an inquiry approach for the first time.
• Develop and implement in at least one of their classes another of our "illustrative inquiry units" OR an inquiry unit of their own. This experience is intended to provide teachers with an opportunity to put into practice what they have learned from the previous experience.
• Participate in a series of follow-up initiatives over the school years designed to support the classroom experiences described above; this will include individual meetings with the school facilitator on the unit plans and implementations, visits to the classroom of the lead teacher in the same school, as well as a few school- and project-wide meetings where participating teachers can share and discuss their experiences.

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