ASSESSMENT OF A COORDINATED EFFORT TO INCREASE STUDENT LEARNING IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE THROUGH ENGINEERING EXAMPLES

摘要

A public research institution, the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), has formed a partnership with the Delta School District and Cedaredge Middle School to improve student learning. The partnership program has included inservice teacher recertification courses and school/student projects. This partnership is one part of an ongoing effort by the middle school to become the leading school for mathematics and science in the region. The area is predominately rural with about half of the students receiving free or reduced-cost lunches. Generally, schools with this profile do not rank highly on standardized tests. However, Cedaredge Middle School has shown great progress and has been named a 2005 Gain-Maker School by the state for being the most improved middle school in the area of mathematics. The average scale score gains on the state assessment in mathematics were 35.7 over the time period from 2002 - 2004. Teachers from the middle school have participated in two workshops (including academic year followup) of the university that emphasized engineering applications for the mathematics and science classrooms. Also, two engineering senior design teams from CSM have worked on projects in curriculum and classroom material development for the middle school. These programs have been coupled with a focused effort on the part of the teachers to improve specific mathematics and science skills throughout each class. The methods used by this middle school can serve as a model for improvement for other schools in the state and nation.