The University of Toledo will partner with Toledo Public Schools’ Woodward High School on a project to find new ways to teach math and science to urban students.
The project will be announced at a news conference at 9:45 a.m. Monday, April 19, at Woodward, 600 E. Streicher St. in Toledo.
The University was awarded a $192,000 Ohio Department of Education Math and Science Partnership grant to investigate new ways to teach science and math, which is important for students to ensure a place in today’s increasingly technological society.
Bill Thomas, associate professor in the Mathematics Department in UT’s College of Arts and Sciences, is the principal investigator. He is working with Dr. Bill Weber and Dr. Tod Shockey, both associate professors in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in UT’s Judith Herb College of Education.
The UT faculty members are working with a team from Toledo Public Schools (TPS) that includes Emilio Ramirez, Woodward principal; Susan MacMillian, TPS mathematics director; Robert Mendenhall, TPS science director; and Maurice Young, Woodward mathematics chair.
Together the group will examine students’ outcomes on the Ohio Graduation Test, the ACT and SAT, and other indictors. Using that information along with the Ohio Standards of Professional Development and current research, the group will determine what professional development teachers need to help students improve.
The professional development will begin this summer and continue next school year. The project will include classroom observations and student interviews, and will implement joint planning periods for Woodward faculty.
This is planned to be the first of a three-phase project with total funding of nearly $700,000.
Approval of an additional $250,000 in grant funding is pending for a second phase of the project that would begin in July and include a UT faculty residency at Woodward for the 30-month project. The residency would include teaching university-level courses for pre-service teachers as well as interested in-service teachers. The faculty member in residence would serve as a resource for Woodward faculty during their teaching day and as the liaison to the principal investigator.
For more information, contact Thomas at 419.530.2979.
