In an ever-evolving profession such as education, beginning teachers and change in career to teaching teachers can become over-whelmed with varying definitions of “math experts” or “master teacher” which require more than just longevity. The purpose of this project is to develop a rigorous curriculum which will introduce mathematics teachers to the language used by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards® (NBPTS) to define the “reflective mathematics teacher”. The focus of the curriculum will be to address the five core beliefs of NBPTS and the specific standards for reflective teaching. As teachers participate in the activities, they will be immersed in the NBPTS’ standards and habits of mind. While some teachers may take this knowledge to pursue becoming an NBPTS candidate, we will not use that action as our primary definition of success. Instead, we will develop, administer, and analyze the results of a pre- and post-test assessment tool of the teachers’ knowledge in the content area of mathematics using the released items and content description from NBPTS as our determination of project success.

   The Math Integration through Inquiry (MI2) Partnership brings together the School District of Osceola County (SDOC), the University of Central Florida and Valencia Community College to offer professional development to 125 middle and high school mathematics teachers. Teachers will participate in a two week summer institute in summer of 2007. A series of three follow up workshops will be held in the home district during the fall of 2007. The program will show teacher how to learn through the use of inquiry based instruction, and increase their own confidence in teaching by improving their content knowledge.

   An “objectives-oriented” evaluation will be used in the grant to determine whether or not the main objectives of the program have been achieved. Embedded within this proposal is an examination of the project outcomes. At the end of the funding year an evaluation of the goals for this project will be completed. A comprehensive evaluation report will be provided at the end of the project. We will also develop, administer and analyze the results of an attitudinal survey of the teachers to determine the impact of the project on classroom teachers’ attitudes and habits of mind. The survey questions will be developed using the language of the NBTPS standards for AYA (Adolescent and Young Adult) mathematics teachers.

   Additionally, we will develop a Math Professional development DVD series to be used in future professional development activities with incoming new teachers and/or teachers who are interested in pursuing National Board Certification. These videotapes and curricular materials could also be used state-wide in other pre-service and/or in-service activities.