MSP

1
Optimism and Opportunities
Math and Science Partnership A Research and
Development Effort
James Hamos Division of Undergraduate
Education Directorate for Education and Human
Resources
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Todays Conversation

• A Quick Glance at the NSF-MSP Portfolio
• What are we learning?
• Funding Opportunities
• Persisting Challenges

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Disclaimer

• The instructional practices and assessments
  discussed or shown in these presentations are not
  intended as an endorsement by the U.S. Department
  of Education.

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Persisting Challenges?

• Jot down three challenges you see that persist in
  this important work of improving STEM education
  through partnership between Post-secondary
  education and K-12 education

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NSFs Math and Science Partnership

• A research development effort at NSF for
  building capacity and integrating the work of
  higher education with that of K-12 to strengthen
  and reform mathematics and science education
• Launched in FY 2002 as a result of legislative
  interest and was also a key facet of the NCLB
  vision for K-12 education
• Strongly reauthorized as part of the America
  COMPETES Act of 2007 and provided with additional
  appropriation in the American Recovery and
  Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the FY 2009 federal
  budget

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• What distinguishes NSFs MSP Program?
• Substantial intellectual engagement of
  mathematicians, scientists and engineers from
  higher education in improving K-12 student
  outcomes in mathematics and the sciences
• Depth and quality of creative, strategic actions
  that extend beyond commonplace approaches

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• What distinguishes NSFs MSP Program?
• Breadth and depth of Partnerships Partnerships
  between organizations, rather than among
  individuals only
• Organizational/institutional change driven by
  Partnerships
• Degree to which MSP work is integrated with
  evidence degree to which the work of the
  Partnerships is itself the work of scholars who
  seek evidence for what they do

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145 Funded MSP Projects
12 Comprehensive Partnerships (FY 2002, FY
2003) 36 Targeted Partnerships (FY 2002, FY
2003, FY 2004, FY 2008) 23 Institute
Partnerships (Prototype Award in FY 2003, FY
2004, FY 2006, FY 2008, FY 2009) 19 MSP-Start
Partnerships (FY 2008, FY2009) 6 Phase II
Partnerships (FY 2008, FY 2009) 49 RETA
projects (Design Awards in FY 2002, FY 2003, FY
2004, FY 2006, FY 2008, FY 2009)
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Math and Science Partnership (MSP)
Program National Distribution of Partnership
Activity
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Scope of Partnership Projects

• Over 900 K-12 school districts
• 5 million students
• 147,000 teachers of K-12 math and science
• Over 200 institutions of higher education
• Over 2600 faculty, administrators, graduate and
  undergraduate students 

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Key Features

• Partnership-driven, with significant engagement
  of faculty in mathematics, the sciences, and
  engineering
• Teacher quality, quantity, and diversity
• Challenging courses and curricula
• Evidence-based design and outcomes
• Institutional change and sustainability

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Impacts on Students

• Overall increase in math proficiency in MSP
  schools from the first year 2003-04 (672 schools
  in the sample) to the 2006-07 (1666 schools in
  sample) at all levels (analysis years to date
  future reports will document later trends)
• Sustained (1st year to end year) increase in math
  proficiency is statistically significant at all
  three levels

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Impacts on Students
Increased proficiency of students across the MSP
portfolio on state mathematics assessments
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Impacts continued

• Schools that focused specifically with math
  interventions had a particularly powerful and
  sustained impact on student achievement in math
  as compared to schools in other projects that did
  not have this focus
• Similar trends in improved student achievement in
  science also were found, particularly in schools
  that focused on science interventions

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Impacts continued

• A closing of the achievement gaps in MSP schools
• between both African American and Hispanic
  students and white student in elementary school
  math, middle school science and high school
  science
• between African American and white students in
  elementary school science
• between Hispanic and with students in high
  school mathematics

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Examining Student Achievement

• Year-by-Year Trend Analysis
• Matched comparisons
• Meta-analysis pre/post assessments

Closing the Achievement Gap
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• What Are We Learning?

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What are we learning? A few reminders from past
presentations

• Through new long-term and coherent courses and
  programs, the involvement of STEM faculty and
  their departments in pre- and in-service
  education enhances content knowledge of teachers
• STEM Professional Learning Communities are new
  exemplars in professional development
• MSP projects are making new contributions to the
  STEM education literature related to teacher
  content knowledge and teacher leadershipKnowledge
  Management and Disseminationwww.mspkmd.net
• Research methods in ethnography and social
  network analysis help document change in
  institutions and partnerships
• New centers and institutes devoted to K-16 math
  and science education facilitate interactions
  between higher education and K-12, offer
  professional development for STEM faculty, and
  advance the scholarship of teaching and learning

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What are we learning? A few reminders from past
presentations

• Post-secondary STEM faculty, often with aid of
  teachers-in-residence on college campuses, are
  broadening their discussions of teaching and
  learning and supporting new efforts in teacher
  preparation
• Revised tenure promotion policies recognize
  faculty for scholarly contribution to the
  advancement of math and science education
• STEM faculty engagement with K-12 is resulting
  in
• Increased sophistication in pedagogy and praxis
  of STEM faculty
• An awareness of the importance of the STEM
  faculty role in pre-service preparation,
  including encouraging strong STEM students to
  consider teaching as an appropriate career path
• A paradigm shift of RespectProfessionalismMutual
  Benefit
• Teachers learn from STEM faculty
• STEM faculty learn from teachers
• There are no quick fixesthe substantive
  improvement of K-12 STEM education
  requires long-term attention from people who are
  committed to long-term solutions

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• New National Impact Report

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What are we learning?

• Learning progressions provide a new way to build
  conceptual knowledge in the science curriculum 
• The partnership project entitled Culturally
  relevant ecology, learning progressions and
  environmental literacy is driven by an
  environmental science literacy framework around
  learning progressions within core science and
  mathematics concepts. The project engages the
  research and education prowess within four
  research sites of the NSF-funded Long Term
  Ecological Research (LTER) Network with 22 K-12
  schools/districts, with direct impacts on over
  250 science and mathematics teachers and 70,000
  students of highly diverse backgrounds. The
  learning progressions are organized around three
  key science strands (carbon, water, and
  biodiversity) and a mathematical strand
  (quantitative reasoning and the mathematics of
  modeling) all of these are further connected by
  the theme of education for citizenship.

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What are we learning?
Multiple strategies enhance opportunities for
students to be prepared for, have access to, and
be encouraged to participate and succeed in
challenging mathematics and/or science
courses In collaboration with the College Board
and Harvard Medical School, the Boston Science
Partnership core higher education partners the
University of MassachusettsBoston and
Northeastern University have provided workshops
and institutes for teachers, university-based
laboratory programs for students and teachers,
summer bridge programs for entering AP
students, classroom volunteer support and a
full-length practice exam for students. To help
lead some of these activities, the BSP recruited
experienced AP teachers with the long-term goal
of developing them into endorsed College Board
consultants.
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Boston Science Partnership
The Boston Science Partnership provides
intensive, year-round support to Advanced
Placement (AP) science classrooms throughout the
Boston Public Schools to support the districts
growth of student enrollment in AP science
programs. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of
Boston Public Schools students taking AP science
exams has dramatically increased from 183 to 781.
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What are we learning?

• Peer-enhanced classrooms enable teachers to use
  assistants in their classes and student
  achievement improves as schools restructure
• Based on early successes in an intensive summer
  school setting, the MSPinNYC, involving the City
  University of New York (CUNY) in partnership with
  the NYC Department of Education, developed a
  model to change classroom instruction during the
  academic year called the Peer Enhanced
  Restructured Classroom (PERC). This model uses
  students who have previously passed the course as
  peer teachers. The teacher actually does little
  direct teaching to the class. Rather, the
  teacher learns to work through the student peer
  teachers, effectively teaching through the peers.
  Activities designed by the teacher are used by
  the peer teachers to engage and support learning
  in the classroom. The role of the teacher
  changes from one primarily defined by supporting
  learning through direct interaction with students
  to that of being an effective manager.

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MSPinNYC

Passing Rates of Students Sitting for the New
York State-Mandated Regents Exam in Integrated
Algebra or Living Environments

• Pre-Pilot
• Spring 2008
• Large school
• 3 teachers 2 IA, 2 LE
• N IA 80 NLE 30

• Pilot
• Academic Year 2008-2009
• Four schools, 2 large, 2 small
• 11 teachers 7 math, 4 science
• N IA 383 NLE 201

• Field Trial
• PERC Summer School 2009
• 2 Sites Hunter College,
• New World High School
• 3 IA classes 3 LE classes
• N IA 65 NLE 44

In the 2008-2009 Academic year, the MSPinNYC ran
a pilot field trial that involved four high
schools, eleven teachers, and nearly 600 students
in NYC. In control type "A", students are
randomly placed into the experimental versus
control class, but the two classes are taught by
different teachers. In control type "B", the
control classes are taught by the same teacher in
a traditional classroom. Lastly, in control type
"C" the student population is not the same in the
control and experimental classes.
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What are we learning?

• K-12 Engineering Education is ready for prime
  time  
• The University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell
  School of Engineering is partnering with the
  successful UTeach Natural Sciences program and
  the Austin Independent School District to develop
  and deliver UTeachEngineering, an innovative,
  design- and challenge-based curriculum for
  preparing secondary teachers of engineering. To
  meet the growing need for engineering teachers in
  Texas, and to serve as a model in engineering
  education across the nation, UTeachEngineering
  has the following four professional development
  pathways to teacher preparedness, two for
  in-service teachers and two for pre-service
  teachers 1. UTeach Master of Arts in
  Science and Engineering Education (MASEE)
  2. Engineering Summer Institutes for Teachers
  (ESIT) 3. Engineering Certification Track
  for Physics Majors and 4. Teacher
  Preparation Track for Engineering Majors.

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What are we learning?
New tools and instruments, with documented
reliability validity, help professional
developers accurately assess the content that
teachers need to know for the teaching of math
and science   The Misconception Oriented
Standards-based Assessment Resource for Teachers
in Life Science (MOSART-LS) project develops
rigorous Distractor Driven Multiple Choice
assessment tools that aid in generating
evidence-based measures of professional
developments impact on K-8 teachers' life
science subject-matter knowledge and relevant
pedagogical content knowledge. This work
utilizes peer-reviewed research studies of
student conceptions in order to generate
specialized assessments. These assessments
measure the degree to which teachers hold the
accepted scientific view represented by each of
the 31 K-8 Content Standards in life science.
The project is developing 250 valid new items and
gathering data from a nationally representative
sample of 8000 students and their teachers.
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What are we learning?

• Cyber-enabled tools promote professional learning
  communities, and enhance teaching and learning
• The Institute for Chemistry Literacy through
  Computational Science (ICLCS) is preparing rural
  Illinois chemistry teachers for the 21st Century
  through content, computational tools, and
  teaching methodology by building a virtual
  professional learning community among
  researchers, faculty and students. ICLCS
  Fellows enroll in a three-credit hour
  graduate-level chemistry course during the
  academic year delivered through Moodle, an open
  source course development tool that supports the
  virtual learning community. Fellows post
  reflections on their teaching, share materials,
  interact with faculty mentors, and attend online
  presentations to enhance their chemistry content
  knowledge. Exercises are designed to foster
  expertise in software use through building
  molecules, performing geometry optimizations,
  measuring bond distances and angles, determining
  energies, and viewing surfaces.

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• Funding Opportunities

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FY 2010 MSP SolicitationNSF 10-XXX

• In this solicitation, NSF will likely support six
  types of awards
• Partnerships
• Targeted
• Institute
• MSP-Start
• Phase II
• Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance
  (RETA)
• Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3)

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Innovative partnerships to improve K-12 student
achievement in math and science

• Targeted focus on studying and solving teaching
  and learning issues within a specific grade range
  or at a critical juncture in education, and/or
  within a specific disciplinary focus in math or
  the sciences
• Institute focus on meeting national needs for
  teacher leaders/master teachers who have deep
  disciplinary content knowledge and are prepared
  to become intellectual leaders in math and
  science in their schools and districts
• MSP-Start for those new to the MSP program, to
  support the necessary data analysis, project
  design, evaluation and team building activities
  needed to develop a full MSP Targeted or
  Institute Partnership

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FY 2010 MSP Solicitation continued

• Phase II for prior NSF MSP awardees, focus on
  specific innovative areas of their work that, if
  supported through additional research, will
  advance knowledge and understanding in specific
  area(s)
• Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance
  (RETA) projects that develop tools to assess
  the partnerships progress, build evaluation
  capacity and conduct focused research.
  (Not partnerships)

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What Makes a Proposal Competitive?

• Original ideas that go beyond the commonplace
  innovation
• Succinct, focused project plan
• Rationale and evidence of potential effectiveness
  
• Sufficient detail provided
• Realistic amount of work
• Strength of the Partnership team
• Potential contribution to knowledge
• Strong evaluation plan

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Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3)

• I3 challenges institutions to think strategically
  about the creative integration of NSF-funded
  awards, with particular emphasis on awards
  managed through programs in the Directorate for
  Education and Human Resources (EHR), but not
  limited to those awards
• In FY 2010, proposals are solicited in multiple
  EHR programs that advance I3 goals CREST, GSE,
  HBCU-UP, ITEST, LSAMP, MSP, Noyce, RDE, and TCUP
• All I3 proposals are reviewed in competition with
  one another
• An institution may submit only one I3 proposal in
  only one program Provost is PI Does not affect
  submission to other programs
• April 7, 2010 due date for submission

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Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program

• Initiated by Act of Congress in 2002
• Reauthorized in 2007 (America COMPETES Act)
• To encourage talented mathematics, science, and
  engineering undergraduates to pursue teaching
  careers
• To encourage STEM professionals to become
  teachers
• To prepare Master Teachers

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Noyce Scholarship ProgramFY 2010 Solicitation
(NSF 10-514)

• Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Track
• Scholarships (at least 10,000 per year) for
  undergraduate STEM majors preparing to become
  K-12 Teachers
• Summer internships for freshmen and sophomores
• Stipends (at least 10,000 for 1 year) for STEM
  professionals seeking to become K-12 teachers
• Recipients commit to teaching in a high need
  school district for 2 years for each year of
  scholarship/stipend support
• NSF Teaching Fellowships Master Teaching
  Fellowships (TF/MTF) Track
• Fellowships for STEM professionals receiving
  teacher certification through a masters degree
  program
• Fellowships for science and math teachers
  preparing to become Master Teachers

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Noyce Scholarship Program NSF 10-514 Important
Dates

• Letters of Intent (optional)
• February 9, 2010
• Full Proposal Deadline
• March 10, 2010
• Questions jprival_at_nsf.gov

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Other Opportunities for Funding

• Advanced Technological Education (ATE)
• Focuses on the education of technicians for the
  high-technology fields that drive our nation's
  economy in part through programs that are
  designed to improve existing as well as
  prospective K-12 teachers' technological
  understanding to provide them with experiences
  to use in engaging students in real world
  technological problems and to strengthen their
  preparation in science and mathematics overall
• Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement
  (CCLI)
• Supports efforts to create, adapt, and
  disseminate new learning materials and teaching
  strategies, develop faculty expertise, implement
  educational innovations, assess learning and
  evaluate innovations, and conduct research on
  STEM teaching and learning

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Other Opportunities for Funding

• NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology,
  Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM)
• Makes grants to institutions of higher education
  to support scholarships for academically
  talented, financially needy students, enabling
  them to enter the workforce following completion
  of an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate level
  degree in science and engineering disciplines.

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Tools and Instruments? A few reminders from past
presentations

• Evidence An Essential Tool Planning for and
  Gathering Evidence Using the Design-Implementation
  -Outcomes (DIO) Cycle of Evidence
• Learning Mathematics for Teaching / Mathematical
  Knowledge for Teaching web-based Teacher
  Knowledge Assessment system (Harvard U., PI
  Heather Hill U. of Michigan, PI Geoffrey Phelps)
• Assessing Teacher Learning About Science Teaching
  (ATLAST) (Horizon Research, Inc., PI Sean Smith)
• Misconception Oriented Standards-based Assessment
  Resource for Teachers (MOSART) physical, earth,
  and life sciences (Harvard U., PI Philip
  Sadler)
• MSPnet.org Toolbox (TERC, PI Joni Falk)
• Online Evaluation Resource Library (oerl.sri.com,
  SRI.com)
• Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (Wisconsin Center
  for Educational Research and CCSSO)
• Distributed Leadership for Middle School Math
  Education (Northwestern U., PI Jim Spillane)
• Thinking About Mathematics Instruction (EDC, PI
  Barbara Scott Nelson)

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Back to those Persisting Challenges?

• Capturing the Challenges and continuing the
  conversation into the breakout session Which
  will be MUCH MORE INTERACTIVE!

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Website for MSP at NSF http//www.nsf.gov Click
on Program Area Education Click on Division of
Undergraduate Education (DUE) Click on Math and
Science Partnership Program
Website for MSPnethttp//mspnet.org
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Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) Programs

• U.S. Department of Education
• San Diego Regional Meeting
• February 2010