The ZFSOE report
The Zucker Family School of Education had the first faculty and staff retreat under recently appointed Dean Len Annetta. Faculty began looking at their current and future program through an entrepreneurial lens with the intention to maximize efficiency of program offerings to best tailor instruction to current and future students.
Program Coordinator of Teacher Education and Associate Professor Christopher Dague was recognized with his promotion and tenure.
The Center for Mathematical Literacy is wrapping up a unique three-year project: virtual professional development focused on helping rural middle school teachers to concentrate on literacy as it occurs in mathematics.
Director of The STEM Center of Excellence and Associate Professor Jennifer Albert, Assistant Director of the STEM Center of Excellence Melanie Blanton, Director of the Center for Literacy Excellence and Associate Professor of Literacy Education Britnie Kane, and Richard Robinson, Ph.D., collaborated to create a program aimed at supporting middle school mathematics teachers to teach mathematics in ways that will deepen students’ mathematical thinking, support their literacy development and give more students access to algebraic thinking.
Supported by a $390,000 grant from the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, the project was a semi-finalist for the Dick and Tunky Riley WhatWorksSC Award, which honors educational projects that make an impact across South Carolina.
Through the Center for Mathematical Literacy, rural teachers participated in a weeklong, virtual professional development for three summers. They also participated in professional development sessions every other month, as well as bi-monthly check-ins, so that they might ask questions as they learned to use new instructional strategies in mathematical literacy. After the project, teachers reported increased self-efficacy in learning to teach mathematical writing and vocabulary. In addition, teachers emphasized how important it was to interact with other math teachers and be exposed to other perspectives on mathematics teaching.
