New York City
Mathematics Project

Overview

Services

Services

School-Year Professional Development Program

On-Site Consulting

Graduate Education Seminars

Workshop Series/Study Groups

Leadership in Mathematics

Special Programs

School-Year Professional Development Program

The New York City Mathematics Project (NYCMP) collaborates with teachers, coaches, staff developers, administrators and superintendents to transform the ways in which mathematics is perceived, taught and assessed in urban classrooms. The project offers on site consulting, courses, workshops, seminars, study groups and conferences to support mathematics teaching and learning. NYCMP professional development services are interrelated and intended to provide a foundation from which educators can develop a comprehensive approach to mathematics education. Partnerships with schools and regions are intensive, multi-year, and site-based. Regions, networks, and schools are encouraged to select a cluster of services that can be tailored to specific needs.

The New York City Mathematics Project's professional development model has three mutually-reinforcing components:

the services of an on-site teacher consultant who works directly with teachers, staff developers, students, and administrators;

an after-school graduate seminar or study group in the teaching of mathematics, which is held on-site each semester for school faculty; and,

direct work with school administrators, focusing on their goals for mathematics education.

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On-Site Consulting

New York City Mathematics Project teacher-consultants meet on-site during or after the school day with teachers. On-site consulting supports our beliefs that teachers should play an active role in their own continued growth and that learning is most dynamic in collaboration with others. The on-going presence of a teacher-consultant at school sites helps participating teachers make immediate connections between theory and practice, and nurtures the acquisition of knowledge and practical applications in classrooms.

Teacher-consultants:

provide in class support for teachers in planning lessons and projects; coach and model in classrooms; team-teach; recommend and share resources; and examine samples of student work and assessment data to determine future instructional goals

organize and facilitate meetings to assist school planning teams to review and design strategies to support curricula, assessment, and pedagogy in classrooms and/or schools;

identify, train and support staff developers and coaches to enable them to serve as leaders for instructional change in their schools.

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Graduate Education Seminars

The NYCWP offers after-school, Saturday and summer seminars at schools or at Lehman College. The content includes a progression from inquiry-based teaching and assessment to applications including increasingly complex mathematics tasks. All seminars are aligned with NCTM Principles and Standards and the NY State Teaching Standards for Mathematics. Seminar content incorporates the key concepts and procedures of mathematics and highlights mathematics as a process of identifying, exploring and solving problems. Uses of technology are infused throughout all seminars. Participants also consider ways to build on the strengths of the individual student by describing and reflecting upon their observations of student work and using them to inform teaching. We encourage participants to use of a range of methods: reflective journals, portfolios, written descriptions of problem solving, student creation of problems, technological applications (such as interactive software and Internet sites, graphing calculators, and interactive video), and performance-based assessments.

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Workshop Series/Study Groups

The NYCMP designs special series either in the form of workshops or study groups for educators who wish to explore a particular topic more fully. Recent topics have included literacy strategies in mathematics, cooperative learning, use of manipulatives, and the ways in which technology can support teaching and learning in mathematics. Study groups and workshops are designed by Mathematics Project staff and school personnel.

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Leadership in Mathematics

The New York City Mathematics Project staff provides support for supervisors and administrators to supervise mathematics effectively in their buildings. Our work helps administrators think through the ideas that underlie standards-based mathematics by engaging them in mathematics content, reviewing current research on effective teaching and learning in mathematics, focusing on issues of policy and practice in mathematics education, and discussing the implications for their role in supervising mathematics. Through our work, which consists of supervisors' conferences, workshops and study groups, we provide school leaders with a broad array of strategies for providing leadership in mathematics that can contribute to higher levels of mathematics achievement by greater numbers of students.

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Special Programs

To augment the NYCWP's on-site services during the school year, teachers and administrators also have other opportunities to participate in professional development in a variety of unique forums:

Teacher Research. For teachers and administrators who are interested in documenting classroom practices for publication and dissemination, the NYCMP designs special programs to encourage close investigation of instructional practices and student work. These programs vary and are typically part of special initiatives sponsored by a range of funders.

Annual Conference. The New York City Mathematics Project hosts an annual conference at Lehman College during the spring of each year. Inaugurated in 1991, this conference brings an opportunity to bring together educators from elementary, middle and high schools who are working in partnership with the NYCMP across the city. This conference provides a unique forum for teachers to present some of the innovative work that they are doing with their students.

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