WVU School of Education expands reach of Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers program with launch of third cohort

Monday, August 22, 2022

The West Virginia University School of Education and Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers project have selected 12 middle and high school math teachers from across West Virginia to serve as the third cohort of M3T fellows. The group will join the project’s statewide mathematics teacher leadership program for the next five years.

Moving into its third year, the M3T project works to support and retain skilled and experienced secondary math teachers by empowering these teachers as leaders in their school districts and across the state. The program also aims to create a model of networked and teacher-led improvement and teacher leadership development statewide and share that emerging strategy across the country.

“As we face the urgent need to recruit and, more importantly, to retain teachers, this project shows the power in lifting up teachers’ voices, valuing their expertise and insights and opening possibilities for them to grow as professionals while continuing to work with students in classrooms,” said Matthew Campbell, associate professor of mathematics education in the School of Education.

M3T now supports 44 fellows representing 29 county school districts across the state. It is funded by a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program along with additional grants from the West Virginia Department of Education.

“In the midst of a tumultuous few years, the M3T project and network has continued to thrive and grow, now with representation from more than half of the county school districts across West Virginia,” Campbell pointed out.

M3T fellows serve as central participants in a networked improvement community, working collectively on statewide problems affecting math teaching and learning. Participants develop novel ways to measure and track students’ opportunities to meaningfully engage with mathematics.

In June, all three cohorts of M3T fellows convened for four days in Morgantown in June to set plans for the coming year, learn together and build community.

Last year, fellows in the first cohort worked to recruit and lead local improvement teams in their schools or districts, engaging more than 40 additional teachers across the state. This coming year, existing local teams will expand and new teams led by the second cohort will form. Cohort 3 fellows will spend their first year becoming familiar with the project and analyzing and improving their classroom practice.

“It is exciting to bear witness to the innovation that is bubbling up from districts who are taking this work to the next level through investing in local improvement teams,” said Joanna Burt-Kinderman, co-investigator on the M3T project and mathematics instructional coach in Pocahontas County Schools.

“The dedication district leaders demonstrate by inviting M3T fellows to lead and learn with fellow teachers is truly inspiring and is key to realizing the potential of being connected and improving together.”

M3T fellows receive an annual stipend for each year of participation, tied to a commitment to continued work as math teachers in West Virginia and participation in the project’s activities.

In addition to assuming teacher leadership roles and their collaborative work together, fellows engage in other development activities organized by project staff, including faculty from WVU’s School of Education and School of Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science.

“As we think about WVU’s land-grant mission, M3T serves as an example of a project that has faculty and researchers engaging with educational stakeholders across the state,” Campbell said. “Furthermore, the project offers a model of what it can look like to work alongside these partners, breaking down the traditional barriers between research, practice and policy to solve big problems together.”