A $3.8 million grant awarded to Rice University by the National Science Foundation will fund a Mathematics Leadership Institute (MLI) to improve math instruction in Aldine ISD schools. The MLI is a collaboration among the Rice University School Mathematics Projects, Rice’s departments of Computational and Applied Mathematics and Statistics and Aldine ISD.
Teachers from Aldine ISD’s high school mathematics departments will be selected to become a part of the program where they will receive training in math instruction and development of leadership skills at Rice. The teachers will be charged with improving math instruction at their respective schools for a five-year period and will serve as mentors to fellow teachers. A second cohort of teachers from each high school will be selected in 2007 to join the program to enhance the collaborative partnership in each school.
“We are excited about this wonderful opportunity for the teachers selected to participate,” said Sara Ptomey, Aldine ISD’s program director of secondary mathematics. “They will work with leading mathematicians from Rice University as well as other high school math teachers from around the city. Bringing back new ideas and ways of teaching mathematics will benefit Aldineís math teachers and, most importantly, our students.”
“We want to provide resources for teachers to better motivate and inspire their students to want to study mathematics and to be successful at doing so,” said Anne Papakonstantinou, co-principal investigator and project director for the grant.
“We want to see kids enjoying mathematics, seeing the value of mathematics and taking more advanced mathematics courses.”
The lead teachers will attend a four-week MLI Summer Leadership Institute at Rice for two summers to improve their math knowledge, teaching and understanding of current research in math education and to develop their leadership and adult-education.
