Building Sustainable Networked Instructional Leadership in Elementary Mathematics through a University Partnership with a Large Urban District

数学是一门重要的学科，为学生提供了接触其他STEM学科的途径。早期的数学能力已被证明是跨社会经济背景的学生日后在学校取得成就的重要预测指标（参见，National mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008）。学校和学区很难持续关注改善小学数学教学，特别是在低收入和表现不佳的环境中，这些目标往往被更紧迫的需求和问题所掩盖。教学领导发展有望提高学校领导理解和支持循证实践的能力，提高教学质量，并最终提高学生的成绩（Ingersoll, Sirinides, & Doherty, 2017）。这个项目的目标是在资源有限的表现不佳的小学网络中建立教师和校级领导的教学领导能力。通过基于设计的改进研究，该项目旨在提高小学教师领导和校长的知识、技能和能力，以形成共同的愿景，并为高质量的数学教学提供持续的支持。在该项目的前三年，每年将增加2-4所学校的队列，以指导数学领导教师（mlt）的指导发展和战略性的学校领导支持。每个队列将开始为期一年的教学领导指导，其中一名具有数学教学专业知识的大学顾问与MLT并肩工作，共同参与指导活动。参与的第二年将包括启动阶段，mlt将有机会每月与导师进行检查，同时与一组新的重点教师一起更加独立地工作，并继续参与整个网络的专业发展。到参与的第三年，学校将有望承担教学领导和战略规划工作的所有权，同时继续参与网络范围内的专业社区。同时，项目团队将为所有13所学校的mlt和校级领导提供专业发展，建立一个具有不同专业水平的持续网络社区。该项目的多年设计允许研究一组教师的发展，随着时间的推移，他们从有指导的新手转变为更有经验和独立的教学领导者。该项目由探索研究PreK-12计划资助，该计划为STEM创新和方法的研究和开发提供资金。在之前两年的工作和关系建立的基础上，该项目旨在建立从地区到学校到课堂层面的一致性，利用大学的资源，帮助将改善教学的地区愿景转化为课堂实践。特别是，该项目侧重于在网络层面建立对高质量数学教学的共同理解，在学校层面建立数学教学领导的战略规划，以及在课堂层面为领导教师提供有效的教学指导。发展目标包括：在网络内建立数学领导能力，开发和完善一套工具和程序，以支持课堂、学校、网络和地区各级的教学改进，并建立一个由学校、教师和领导者组成的网络社区。本项目旨在解决的首要问题是：如何在大型城市学区内新任命的数学领导教师中培养教学领导专业知识？该项目将收集数据，包括指导工件，如观察和汇报表格；导师日志;对教师、mlt、校长和大学导师的访谈；还有训练周期的录像。数据分析的重点将是确定系统不同层面的一致性和增长证据，通过各种定性数据分析技术不断改进干预措施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Mathematics is an important discipline that provides access to students to the other STEM disciplines. Early competence with mathematics has proven to be an important predictor of later achievement in school across socioeconomic backgrounds (cf., National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). It is difficult for schools and districts to maintain a sustained focus on improving math instruction in the elementary years, particularly in low-income and underperforming contexts where these goals are often overshadowed by more pressing needs and issues. Instructional leadership development holds promise for increasing the ability of school-based leaders to understand and support evidence-base practices, improve the quality of instruction, and ultimately improve student achievement (Ingersoll, Sirinides, & Doherty, 2017). The goal of this project is to build instructional leadership capacity in teachers and school-based leaders in a network of underperforming elementary schools with limited resources. Through design-based improvement research, the project is designed to enhance the knowledge, skills, and competencies of elementary teacher leaders and principals to develop a shared vision and provide ongoing support of high-quality math instruction. During the first 3 years of this project, cohorts of 2-4 schools will be added each year for mentored mathematics lead teachers (MLTs) coaching development and strategic school-based leadership support. Each cohort will begin with a year of instructional leadership mentorship, where a university-based consultant with expertise in mathematics instruction works side-by-side with the MLT as they co-participate in coaching activities. The second year of participation will involve a launch phase where MLTs will have the opportunity for monthly check-ins with the mentor while working with more independence with a new set of focal teachers and continuing to participate in the network-wide professional development. By the third year of participation, schools will be expected to assume ownership of the instructional leadership and strategic planning efforts while continuing to participate in network-wide professional community. Concurrently, the project team will offer professional development to MLTs and school-based leaders across all 13 schools, building up an ongoing networked community with different levels of expertise. The multi-year design of the project allows for studying the development of a group of teachers as they transition from mentored novices to more experienced and independent instructional leaders over time. This project is funded by the Discovery Research PreK-12 Program, which funds research and development on STEM innovations and approaches. Building on two years of prior work and relationship building, the project aims to build coherence from the district to school to classroom level, leveraging the resources of the university to help translate the district vision for instructional improvement into classroom practice. In particular, the project focuses on developing shared understanding of high quality math instruction at the network level, strategic planning for math instructional leadership at the school level, and mentorship for lead teachers to provide effective instructional coaching at the classroom level. Development goals include: building math leadership capacity within the network, developing and refining a set of tools and routines to support instructional improvement at the classroom, school, network, and district levels, and building a networked community of schools, teachers, and leaders. The overarching problem that this project seeks to address is: How can instructional leadership expertise be developed in newly appointed math lead teachers within a large urban school district? The project will collect data including coaching artifacts such as observation and debriefing forms; mentor logs; interviews with teachers, MLTs, principals, and university-based mentors; and video recordings of coaching cycles. The focus of the data analysis will be to determine coherence and evidence of growth at different levels of the system to continually improve the intervention through a variety of qualitative data analysis techniques.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.