Preparing Mathematicians to Educate Teachers (PMET)
Victor J. Katz and Alan Tucker
This article appeared in the March 2003 issue of FOCUS.
The MAA is expecting funding to initiate a multifaceted project entitled Preparing Mathematicians to Educate Teachers (PMET) in response to numerous national reports calling for better preparation of the nation's mathematics teachers. These reports are sparking growing interest among college and university mathematicians to do more to help improve school mathematics teaching. The PMET project, directed by Alan Tucker and Bernie Madison, will help nurture and support this interest by providing a broad array of educational, organizational and financial assistance to mathematicians.
The major report stimulating action for improving school mathematics teaching was Before It's Too Late: A Report to the Nation from the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, more commonly known as the Glenn report, after the chairman of the commission, former Senator John Glenn. This report was issued on September 27, 2000 by the Commission, which was itself appointed by then Secretary of Education Richard Riley on July 20, 1999. Among the representatives of the mathematics community on the commission were Deborah Ball, Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Michigan, Diane Briars, Mathematics Director of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and Javier Gonzalez, a mathematics teacher from Pioneer High School in California. The commission's Executive Director was Linda Rosen, formerly the Executive Director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
The Glenn Report made only a few straightforward points, but it made them urgently and insistently. In particular, the report concluded that "the most powerful instrument for change, and therefore the place to begin, lies at the very core of education - with teaching itself." It suggested three specific goals, each accompanied by several strategies to accomplish the goal.
Goal 1: Establish an ongoing system to improve the quality of mathematics and science teaching in grades K-12.
1. Each state must undertake a needs assessment.
2. Summer Institutes must be established for professional development.
3. Inquiry groups should be established, both building-wide and district-wide.
4. Leadership training must be made available for facilitators for Summer Institutes and Inquiry groups.
5. There should be a Dedicated Internet Portal for teachers.
6. A Nongovernmental Coordinating Council must be established to bring together the above.
7. Reward and incentive programs should be set up in each state and local district.
Goal 2: Increase significantly the number of mathematics and science teachers and improve the quality of their preparation.
Goal 3: Improve the working environment and make the teaching profession more attractive for K-12 mathematics and science teachers.
Certainly, the achievement of these goals requires political leadership from Congress and the President, not to mention the state governments and the local boards of education, but the MAA, through the PMET program, is attempting to play a significant role toward the achievement of goal 2. This goal is also the focus of the 2001 report from the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) on The Mathematical Education of Teachers (usually called the MET report). That report stresses two general themes: the intellectual substance in school mathematics and the special nature of the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching. Mathematicians often assume, the report points out, that because the topics covered in school mathematics are so basic, they must be easy to teach. But recent mathematics education research has shown that substantial mathematical understanding is necessary even to teach whole number arithmetic well. Liping Ma's widely read 1999 book, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics has numerous examples of the differences between a group of American teachers and a group of Chinese teachers in their understanding of certain "elementary" concepts and how those differences impact on the teaching of these concepts.
The authors of the MET report made nine basic recommendations, some of which form the basis for the PMET project. Among these recommendations are:
One major thrust of the recommendations in the Glenn Report and the MET report, at least insofar as the MAA is concerned, is that mathematics departments need to be more involved in K-12 education. Although, historically, the college and university mathematics community was always deeply involved in school mathematics and teacher preparation, in recent years this interest has been in decline. As the 1999 report Towards Excellence of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) notes, "If K-12 mathematics education in the U.S. deserves criticism (and it surely has received a lot of criticism in the wake of the TIMSS reports), then a share of the blame falls to those university mathematicians who should be playing an important role in the preparation of teachers but are not." The report further notes that in many institutions, a department's increased attention to this part of the university's mission will provide benefits for all aspects of departmental life.
Some universities, of course, already have a substantial involvement in K-12 mathematics education. Among these is the University of Chicago, where Paul Sally, the director of undergraduate studies, has for years insisted that the department commit itself to work with school mathematics teachers and even with their students. In his address at the Joint Mathematics meetings in January, Sally reiterated that mathematicians must work seriously with educators and teachers at every level by, for example, creating problems which could span the grades from kindergarten to graduate school. Similarly, at Oklahoma State University, the mathematics department faculty is significantly involved in instructional programs, centered in the College of Education, in the preparation of elementary and high school teachers. Interestingly, undergraduates majoring in mathematics education consider the Department of Mathematics their "home," not the College of Education, and look to mathematics faculty as mentors and advisors.
Although there are numerous other examples of university and college mathematics departments being heavily involved in the preparation of K-12 teachers, the majority of college and university mathematicians still need assistance in finding appropriate instructional strategies for helping future teachers connect their college mathematics to the mathematics they will teach and also need better information about the mathematical issues that arise in K-12 classroom lessons. It is the goal of the PMET project to provide that assistance and information.
The PMET project will have three major components:
Component 1 will begin this summer [2003] with three faculty workshops on teaching elementary school teachers and one workshop for teaching high school teachers. In 2004 and 2005, the number of workshops will increase; some of the workshops will extend over two summers with activities in the intervening academic year. Workshop activities will include (1) connecting content of college mathematics courses to school mathematics and discussing how those college courses should be taught; (2) demonstration college classes by master teachers, both live and video; (3) discussions of demonstration classes; (4) discussions of school standards, both state and those of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM); (5) individual course development projects by participants: (6) guest lectures by visiting experts, including learning theory researchers; (7) discussion of curricular materials; (8) discussion of reports such as the MET report; (9) use of technology; and (10) networking with others. Each workshop will be led by a team including a mathematician and a mathematics educator, with at least one member (or possibly a third person) having had several years of experience teaching school. There will also be introductory minicourses at national and sectional meetings, whose aim is to get more faculty interested in teaching prospective teachers.
As part of component 2, PMET will organize talks and panel discussions about the mathematical education of teachers at national and regional meetings of the MAA, the American Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges (AMATYC), the American Statistical Association (ASA), and the NCTM. Presentations will be made to national education organizations in order to coordinate PMET's agenda with their goals. Furthermore, PMET will encourage articles on ways to support school mathematics in such publications as Focus, the AMS Notices, and ASA's Amstat News. Finally, PMET intends to develop a website with information and resources about the mathematical education of teachers. This site will offer extensive guidance for getting started in various situations; for example, it will provide a discussion of differing ways to teach a geometry course for teachers using available technology such as Cabri or Geometer's Sketchpad.
As part of component 3, PMET will provide minigrants of approximately $3000 to help faculty at individual campuses rework mathematics courses for teachers, bring speakers into their department to raise faculty consciousness about teacher education, and seed proposals to funding agencies for more extensive course and materials development. PMET will also support networking of those receiving these minigrants.
Most of the workshops, minigrants, and networks will be concentrated in five states: California, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio. This focus will help the project develop a critical mass of activities in a given area for maximum impact. It will also help PMET secure local funding of further projects. The networks in each of the five selected states will connect the faculty involved in PMET with various state education initiatives and help them participate in local and state policy-making about teacher education and K-12 mathematics. For example, the PMET project directors have already been in touch with leaders of the State of California's Mathematics Professional Development Institutes who look to the PMET initiative to train more California mathematics faculty to teach in their institutes.
For the long-term health of K-12 mathematics education, it is essential that collegiate mathematics faculty reclaim a central role in the training and support of classroom teachers. Through PMET, the MAA's members have an opportunity to contribute to this process.
For more information on PMET and on how to participate, follow the links to the PMET project on MAA Online.