Closing the Gap
Improved Instructional Practices Informed
by COVID School Closures
What it's about.
Goal
Our goal is to reach 1,000 high school math teachers by the end of the 2020/21 school year, which in turn would positively impact the educations of approximately 12,500 students. Participating teachers will learn a formalized and fundamentally unique approach to improved education practices informed by the experiences of teachers during in-person school closures in response to COVID – 19 outbreaks.
Purpose
The need to innovate and create updated pedagogical practices is commonly recognized. It is during times of crisis that we can find pathways to solutions that are inaccessible during comfortable times. COVID – 19 provides us with such an opportunity. We will capture the hard-earned lessons of these difficult situations and use them to create improved and modern approaches to teaching mathematics.
The end product can be used to help teachers design optimal instruction in a virtual classroom, but is really designed to bring about improved instruction upon returning to in-person teaching.
End Product
We will provide teachers with a self-paced, online course that will improve their efficacy in a virtual classroom as well as translate to improved practices when schools re-open. The course will challenge their best practices and techniques to help provide insight into why success or failure was realized during in-person school closures. In response to these discoveries teachers will, with guidance, develop a modern, updated personalized pedagogical approach to teaching mathematics.
Time Line
The target date for rolling out the final product, an online course offered to teachers is 12/07/2020. We hope to reach 1,000 teachers by May 2021.
Finances
The funding we raise for this program will help to financially compensate our cooperating teachers (who help develop the program), as well as to create, publish and advertise the program.
We are registered with the IRS as a 501 (C) 3, so your donations are tax deductible. As always, we will release full financial disclosure of where your dollars went with this program.
How to Get Involved
To help fund this project you can use the checkout system below, or you can donate directly through PayPal.
Closing the Gap
Math Connected is registered with the IRS as a 501(c) 3 organization. Our EIN is 85-1570026. All contributions to our organization are tax-deductible. Our overhead is extremely low and we finance all of our finances so you can see exactly where your dollars are spent towards helping improving mathematics education.
Suggested price: $5.00
Description
Math Connected is an educational support organization whose goal is to change the nature of secondary mathematics instruction and support so that students can find greater academic success. We approach this in two ways. First, we are researching and developing a list of key attributes and practices that are held in common between all highly effective teachers. In response, we are developing programs that all teachers can use to improve their own practices. Second, we are developing a new style of curriculum materials and assessment tools to promote student learning through development of conceptual understanding, mathematical literacy and problem solving skills. Combined, a teacher is equipped with the resources needed, and armed with the training to execute at a high level.
This project, Closing the Gap in Distance Learning, is in immediate response to many of the hurdles presented to students, teachers, parents and administrators by school closures and distance learning expectations. Our goal is to compile the hard earned lessons by teachers and students and then to share that information in an easily consumed fashion.
Those cutting edge teachers that figure out how to teach effectively to a general population of students in a virtual classroom are, figuratively speaking, inventing the wheel. There’s no need for everybody to invent the wheel. Instead, let’s refine its uses.
We will seek teachers that have shown great innovation that has led to student success. We will compile their experiences, good and bad, and find commonalities between teachers, as well as exemplary insights from individuals. We will put all of this information into an online professional development course that can be take, free of charge, by any interested teacher.
While many of the specifics of teaching online will not transfer to traditional teaching, we will discover many things that were considered best practices in traditional education that are either non-effective or counter-productive. These situations and practices will be highlighted with great focus. As a result, we believe the course offered to teachers will be relevant even when they return to the classroom.
Our goal is to have 1,000 teachers participate in the class by the end of the 2020/21 school year. That would, in turn, reach approximately 12,500 high school students!
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