Building the Foundation for Noyce Master Teaching Fellowships in Mathematics

The project aims to serve the national need of developing master teachers in mathematics by building capacity for the creation of an online master’s degree in educational leadership and mathematics. This project will serve national interest and the Noyce program’s intent by developing and evaluating teaching and leadership skills in elementary, middle school, and high school teachers of mathematics.

This is important because this program has the potential to provide teachers with the knowledge and skill to increase student achievement in mathematics from kindergarten to high school graduation. Significant to this project is the identification of how to best recruit teachers from high-need school districts and the revision of a current 25-month master's degree, Bank Street’s current Leadership in Mathematics Education program (LME), to a modified “14-month online master’s degree in Leadership in Mathematics Education.” As a capacity building project, the information garnered is proposed to be used in developing a Track 3 Master Teaching Fellowships Noyce proposal.

This project at Bank Street College of Education, a private, master’s degree granting institution, in collaboration with Gonzaga University, a private comprehensive university, includes partnerships with the New York City Department of Education and the Chicago Public Schools. Five goals guide the execution of this Capacity Building project. First is to conduct a needs assessment to inform the design of a Master’s degree in Leadership in Mathematics Education for a Master Teaching Fellowships program.

Second is to solidify program design, curriculum, and course offerings for the master’s degree. Third is to pilot-test recruitment strategies for a master’s teacher program. Fourth is to build partnerships with high-need school districts and professional learning organizations and fifth is to secure matching funds in support of a future Noyce Track 3 submission.

Central to the project’s intellectual merit is the understanding that can be gained by conducting a needs assessment of mathematics teaching and teachers from a wide array of high-need school districts including rural and urban. The project’s broader impacts lie in the foundation that is being laid for the revision of an online master’s degree program that would eventually prepare master teachers in theoretically and empirically based pedagogical practices grounded in the constructivist’s approach, coupled with leadership skills that will enable the mathematics master teachers to have an impact on student learning in their classrooms and across their campuses.

Bank Street has partnered with a team of evaluators who will be able to gather and analyze qualitative data through focus groups and interviews, as well as obtain data on market research and curricular effectiveness of a current, similar master's program at Bank Street. The findings of this project are intended to support the creation of a Noyce Track 3 proposal and will be disseminated through national channels, including organizations that focus on the teaching of mathematics.

This Capacity Building project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.