Building Capacity to Examine Collaboration and Support Systems for Secondary Mathematics Teachers in General and Special Education

The project aims to serve the national need of building capacity for a potential Noyce Track 4 research project focusing on how middle and high school general and special education teachers collaborate to identify components of effective secondary mathematics education to support teaching and learning. Middle and high schools often have difficulty hiring and retaining special education teachers and mathematics teachers. When teachers experience a lack of support, they are more likely to leave their positions. This negatively impacts students. Students with special needs, who are often in general or regular education environments for mathematics instruction, are especially impacted because they may have a lower likelihood of meeting graduation requirements or later accessing college courses in STEM fields. This project aims to understand how school districts in Utah conceptualize effective mathematics instruction. The project also aims to refine the process through which pairs of general and special education teachers of mathematics at the same school collaborate and participate in the project related research activities. This project at Utah State University includes partnerships with specialists in and teachers of secondary mathematics instruction in both general and special education at the Utah State Board of Education and Cache County School District. Project goals include (a) strengthening collaboration between faculty in the Mathematics and Statistics Department and those in the Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling Department; (b) developing a broad understanding of mathematics effectiveness across school districts in Utah to establish a measure of teacher effectiveness; and (c) piloting recruitment strategies to include a general and a special education mathematics teacher from the same school in research. The project will achieve these goals by implementing two research projects. The first project consists of a state-wide survey to get an overview of types of mathematics instruction, views on effective mathematics teaching, and the use of collaborative teaching models between secondary general and special education mathematics teachers. The second project includes a mixed-methods social network analysis focused on personal and professional support systems, collaboration, and intent-to-stay of pairs of secondary mathematics teachers in general and special education settings within the same school. By studying the effectiveness and retention of secondary general and special education mathematics teachers, this project has the potential to improve the quality of life of students. Through being taught by effective and experienced teachers, these students may increase their completion of STEM graduation requirements and college preparation courses. As a result, more students may have the opportunity to pursue STEM careers and enter the STEM workforce. This Capacity Building project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the effectiveness and retention of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. 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.