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Descriptions and agendas of in-service implementations (F2)
In-service Implementation D-- Description

In-service Implementation D

This was the fourth implementation of our in-service program. Unlike the preceeding three in-service implementations of the framework, this program was offered within an NSF-funded Local Systemic Change project (award #: ESI-9553579) that developed as a continuation of the "Supporting middle school learning disabled students in the mainstream mathematics classroom" grant. This three year project involved the entire math and special education staff at four middle schools in school-wide efforts towards school mathematics reform. The scope of this program within the overall professional development design of the project was to introduce participants to school mathematics reform. Therefore, every project participant was expected to attend this program the first year they joined the project. Other professional development initiatives were organized to support participants at later stages of the process of instructional innovation and school reform.

Participants:

Participants in this implementation were mostly from the four school districts participating in the Local Systemic Change project (although a few participants from other schools and two pre-service teachers were also included in the Summer Institute). They included: eight math middle school teachers, six special education teacher, two high school teachers, three elementary teachers, a teaching assistant, an art teacher, two pre-service teachers that would later student teach in one of the participating schools, and a parent.

Incentive provided to participants:

Given their school's commitment to involve all the mathematics and special education teachers in the project, with a few exceptions participants in this implementation could not be considered volunteers -- although joining the project was not mandatory. All the participants received a $60 a day stipend for their participation in the Summer Institute from NSF funds; in most cases, this compensation was further complemented by their district so as to comply with the union-negotiated compensation for "mandated" professional development initiatives. Time for all other initiatives was volunteered by the participants, with the exception of a few follow-up meetings that were held during the school-day.

Summer Institute and follow-up meetings:

The Summer Institute was essentially the same as the one described in Section B.2. The few changes made had mostly to do with a reduced emphasis on learning disabilities and inclusive classrooms (although the program maintained its attention to student diversity) and the addition of a few activities that capitalized on recent statewide reform initiatives and on the NSF-funded middle school comprehensive math curricula that were beginning to be published at the time. The nature of the follow-up meetings over the school year, instead, was considerably rethought. The participants met only once as a large group, after the completion of their first field experience; after this, they were expected to attend at least one of six "mini-series" designed to help participants "rethink" a specific mathematical topic and become familiar with resources that provide instructional ideas and materials to teach that topic.

Field experiences expectations:

The field experiences expectations were also essentially the same as those for Implementation B and C participants -- that is, participants were expected to implement one of our illustrative units at the very beginning of the school year, plus another inquiry unit later in the year. However, there were no expectations in terms of documenting these experiences and reflecting on them in writing -- although we still believed these experiences beneficial to the participants, we felt we could not impose them on this group of teachers.

Support during the field experiences:

The nature of the support provided to the participants changed significantly from previous implementations, given the systemic nature of the project and the focus on only four schools. A school facilitator was assigned to each of the participating schools with the role of supporting individual teachers' efforts towards instructional innovation as well as school-wide reform initiatives (for half-day a week throughout the school year). The weekly "support team meetings" featured in the other implementations of the program were substituted with a more informal but on-going support provided by this school facilitator and two "lead teachers" within the same school.

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