Office of Public Relations — Newsroom
News Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jacque Montgomery, 303.724.1528, cell phone 303.928-9093, Jacque.Montgomery@uchsc.edu
Math and Sciences Grant Aims to Transform Learning
DENVER (March 21, 2008) A transformation of eight middle school classrooms in the Englewood and Jefferson County School Districts will soon be underway. The change will be driven by University of Colorado Denver mathematical sciences professor Mike Jacobson and backed by a $2.82 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Professor Jacobson will lead a team that includes eight graduate fellows; four in mathematics and four in the sciences. Together, they will build learning communities within the chosen middle schools and in the classrooms alongside middle school math and science teachers. One of the goals is to strengthen and enhance math and science classes so that the middle school students become more engaged and ultimately perform better in these vital academic areas. Another goal is to train future science and mathematics teachers who are able to work within the K-12 setting.
“By looking at how we teach math and science, we can better gage how we connect with students so they stay interested in these core subjects through high school and beyond,” said Mike Jacobson, PhD, professor of mathematical sciences at University of Colorado Denver.
The grant, appropriately called Transforming Experiences Learning Communities (TELC), will involve the GK-12 Fellows in laboratory assistance, curriculum development, research activity and demonstration creation, one-on-one work with students, and after-school enrichment programs.
The transformational experience includes a visit to middle schools in China to see how students of similar age are being taught. The UC Denver fellows will be in the classrooms starting in the fall of 2008, but will spend the rest of this academic semester preparing for the experience and also attend a summer workshop sponsored by the Rocky Mountain - Middle School Math and Sciences Partnership.
The University of Colorado Denver, in collaboration with four other institutions of higher education, seven school districts, Front Range Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and the National Science Foundation initiated the Rocky Mountain-Middle School Math and Science Partnership (RMMS-MSP) in fall 2004. The purpose of the partnership is to increase student achievement in grades 6-8. Through the partnership teachers who participate in the professional learning aspect of the project will increase their impact on student learning through increasingly effective instruction in mathematics and science. In addition, the teacher participants in the RM MSMSP professional learning will help create a cadre of mathematics and science leaders across Colorado. Middle school students who participate in summer mathematics and science camps will increase their understandings of central concepts in mathematics and science.
The University of Colorado Denver is one of three universities in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver on the Downtown Campus and at Ninth & Colorado Blvd., and on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo., University of Colorado Denver is Colorado's premier research university offering more than 100 degrees and programs in 13 schools and colleges and serving more than 28,000 students in Metro Denver and online. For more information, visit the website at www.ucdhsc.edu or the UC Denver Newsroom at http://www.uchsc.edu/news.