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WT Middle School Math Partnership
The West Texas Middle School Math Partnership's primary goal is to improve the mathematics performance and mathematics appreciation of middle grades students in West Texas by developing teacher leaders who have a deep understanding of the elementary mathematics taught in the middle grades, of special pedagogy knowledge required to teach mathematics to diverse student populations, and of the ability to employ proven strategies for enhancing the mathematics self-efficacy of diverse student populations. The partnership team uses four components to support these principles:
  • Summer courses are taught with graduate credit awarded to in-service teachers.
  • A virtual community of middle school mathematics teachers and mentors is used to maintain a supportive environment for the participants throughout the academic year.
  • Regional conferences are held at each university campus for participants and their administrators.
  • Case portfolios and training modules are created and used for professional development of both in-service and pre-service teachers.

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Project Contributions

Assessing Students' Perceptions of Teachers' Successful Implementation of Project Goals: The Development of the SPoTS
"The WTMSMP's focus is deepening West Texas teachers' knowledge of fundamental mathematics. Because the region includes 84,000 square miles, evaluating participants' classroom integration of WTMSMP content is challenging. Classroom observations…
Students' Ratings of Teacher Practices
"In this paper, we explore a novel approach for assessing the impact of a professional development programme on classroom practice of in-service middle school mathematics teachers. The particular focus of…
Middle Level Mathematics Teachers' Self-Efficacy Growth through Professional Development: Differences Based on Mathematical Background
"Profile analyses were used to investigate differences in the self-efficacy growth of teachers with more and less mathematics background as the teachers participated in professional development across two summers. Professional…
Rigorous Math Courses for Middle-School Math Teachers
We describe our five-year professional development project targeting middle-school math teachers. A primary focus of the project is providing the teachers with a deep conceptual understanding of the mathematics taught…
West Texas Middle School Math Partnership: A partnership of four institutions of higher education serving 15,168 teachers with 199,584 students spread over 84,000 square miles of West Texas
Posted by: Tara Stevens . The WTMSMP fosters middle level mathematics teachers deeper conceptual understanding of mathematics and also targets self-efficacy building for teachers as well as self-efficacy building and culturally sensitive teaching strategies to…
Developing Teachers' Mathematics Knowledge for Teaching: Challenges in the Implementation and Sustainability of a New MSP
This paper addresses the following claim(s): "The WTMSMP activities will significantly increase teachers' deep conceptual knowledge of elementary mathematics. (This hypothesis was partially supported by initial findings) The WTMSMP activities…