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P.K. Yonge, COE professor team up to align math curriculum with Common Core standards

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UF mathematics education associate professor Tim Jacobbe (second from left) joins P.K. Yonge teachers to discuss the new math curriculum implementation process.

As Florida schools prepare for the official implementation of the Common Core standards next school year, UF mathematics education associate professor Tim Jacobbe and P.K. Yonge, UF’s K-12 developmental research school, have been teaming up since 2009 to ensure the school is ready to meet the more rigid math standards. With Jacobbe’s help, P.K. Yonge implemented a new math curriculum for the elementary grades for the 2013-2014 school year. 

Jacobbe has facilitated faculty discussions and needs assessments to determine how to align teaching practices at P.K. Yonge with the rigor demanded by the Common Core standards for math. He also led a weeklong professional learning workshop for K-8 math teachers, focusing on deepening their content knowledge and grasp of the math practice standards. 

“Tim had such background in what P. K. Yonge was doing. He led discussions about curriculum adoption and supported P. K. Yonge’s next steps. All of this laid incredible groundwork for moving through the adoption process” said Marisa Stukey, P.K. Yonge’s program development and outreach specialist. 

The new adopted math curriculum at P.K. Yonge strengthens students’ perseverance, strategies and reasoning skills specifically related to problem solving. These teaching practice standards had not been explicitly addressed before in P.K. Yonge’s curriculum or in the teaching of math, Stukey said. 

“Math is about thinking,” Jacobbe said. “Math is about problem solving, not just knowing math facts. Just knowing facts won’t help students succeed in life.” 

In the past, P.K. Yonge’s overall math achievement has been high on standardized tests like the FCAT. These tests, however, assess understanding of basic math concepts, rather than measuring conceptual understanding of more complex math, which is demanded by the Common Core. 

Jacobbe will continue making weekly visits to P.K. Yonge to study student work before and during the new curriculum in order to understand how to further help teachers and students gain a deeper conceptual understanding of math. He is working with school math teachers faculty to develop a new middle school math curriculum for the 2014-2015 school year. 

“It’s important to make sure we have a cohesive plan between our elementary and middle schools,” Jacobbe said. “The P.K. Yonge teachers are tremendous professionals. The foundation of our work has been laid by good early curriculum decisions and is only possible because the teachers are willing to take on the challenge of helping the learners of today be successful in math in a new way.”

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UF awarded $2 million grant to boost science, math teaching in Florida schools

Answering a call to ensure Florida has the best-educated workforce for the global knowledge economy, the University of Florida is launching a statewide effort to bolster teaching and learning in science and mathematics in the middle school and high school grades.

Officials with UF and the Florida Department of Education jointly announced today that UF’s College of Education has been awarded a two-year grant worth $2 million to create a research-based, professional development support system for new science and math teachers.

The project’s most noteworthy feature is the creation of prototype “teacher induction” programs to support teachers in their first two years on the job. Induction will involve online and face-to-face mentoring, professional development and networking opportunities with their peers.  Center faculty and staff also will assist partnering school districts in creating coaching programs for novice science and math teachers.

To coordinate the project, UF has established a program called Florida STEM-Teacher Induction and Professional Support, also known as Florida STEM-TIPS Center. STEM is a common acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics — key technical subject areas that Gov. Rick Scott has declared as a high priority in Florida’s public schools to support the growth of high-wage jobs in the private sector.

Griffith Jones, a UF science education professor and principal investigator of the project, will oversee development of statewide teacher induction activities. Jones said they will start in Dade, Duval and Palm Beach counties, where UF has existing partnerships with the local school districts, and then  expand to other interested districts throughout the state.

“The induction support activities will ensure that the training and collegial support of teachers-in-training won’t end at graduation, but will continue into their first two years of teaching,” Jones said. “We aim to work with districts to reverse the lack of teacher induction support that historically drives nearly one-third of new teachers from the classroom by their third year of teaching.”

Jones said induction activities for new math and science teachers will include professional-development training in new curriculum standards and high-engagement instructional practices, on-the-job training programs and grade-specific mentoring.

UF professors with the center also will lead webinars and create a web-based gateway for collaborating and sharing information so science and math educators can network with peers across the state.

The need for reform in STEM teacher education is well documented. In Florida, fewer than half of all eighth-graders have teachers who majored or minored in mathematics, according to Jones. Nationwide projections cite a need for 280,000 new math and science teachers by 2015.

Supported by the DOE grant, UF professors also will visit state universities to share information on a highly touted STEM teacher preparation program called UTeach, which is the model for the University of Florida’s own “UFTeach” program. The UTeach model, created by University of Texas-Austin professors in 1997, recruits top science and math majors into teaching by offering a creative curriculum with progressively complex field experiences teaching those subjects in area schools.

“We are poised to make an important leap in STEM education in Florida,” said Tom Dana, UF professor of science education and co-director of UFTeach. “The STEM-TIPS program will allow us to assist other Florida universities who share a goal of reformed science and math teacher preparation.”

As part of the state grant, UF is providing technical assistance to Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne in developing a UTeach “replicate” program on their campus, according to Dana.

For more information, visit the Florida STEM-TIPS website at https://education.ufl.edu/stem-tips.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Florida Department of Education Press Office, 850-245-041
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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