Virginia Mathematics Teacher Fall 2016

website includes hundreds of more products like the examples included in our papers. We encourage readers to examine and utilize these free resources.

address the major obstacle of online professional development courses, the lack of interaction and hands-on experiences. Finally, we suggest that all of the teacher-generated products created during the projects be available for use by teachers throughout the Commonwealth, as this is one of the most effective ways of distributing the knowledge generated in each program. Conclusions During the past six years of the MSP projects at Radford University, we were consistently able to show growth in the following areas: 1) Teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in Algebra, Geometry, and probability and statistics. 2) Students’ mathematical knowledge in the aforementioned areas. We also met the needs of the participating partners, and addressed the goals identified by the Commonwealth. The major challenges of the MSP projects relate to the following: 1) The availability of reliable and valid assessment measures of teachers’ professionally situated knowledge at the high-school level. 2) The rate of turnover of teachers in the partner divisions. 3) The length of the award periods that prevent longitudinal studies. We would also like to invite readers to explore the products and resources created as a result of these projects, which can be found on our website, ( http://www.radford.edu/rumath-smpdc/ Resources.html ). American Mathematical Society & Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (2012). The Mathematical Education of Teachers II . Providence, RI: AMS and CBMS. Corey, D., Jacobsen, L., Manizade, A., Dove, A., Galeshi, R. & Younes, R. (2016). Best Practices: Lessons Learned From an Online Statewide Collaborative Master's in Mathematics Education Program. In Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2016 (pp. 2497- 2498). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Hill, H., Rowan, B., & Ball, D. L. (2005). Effects of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal , 42 (2), 371- 406. References

Implications and Recommendations

Providing teachers with an online, ongoing professional development program that involves partnerships between multiple institutions of higher education, and which utilizes the strengths of these institutions, allows the creation of an effective, statewide program for the continuing improvement of mathematics education. An important element of this model is simple and easy credit transfers between partner institutions, allowing teachers flexibility in taking graduate-level classes. This also allows institutions and their faculty to focus on their strong subject areas, increasing the overall quality of the professional development. An important part of our professional development projects over the past six years has been our presence in participants’ classrooms following the courses. We observed and interviewed teachers and provided them with critical feedback related to the

Figure 6. Screenshot of an online video

quality of their mathematics instruction. This not only allows us to see if the theoretical knowledge learned during the course has been implemented in the participants’ classrooms, but also provides an opportunity for additional professional development in the field. We also encourage the continued development of online courses that feature hands- on, interactive instructional practices that allow teachers to engage with the ideas of the content area through exploration and discovery. We recommend the use of all available technological tools such as Adobe Connect, Geogebra, Cinderella, Mathematica, and others to aid in the creation of an interactive online environment. We also recommend providing participants with manipulatives and corresponding explorations to complete as part of their coursework. This helps

Junker, B., Weisberg, Y., Matsumura, L. C.,

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