Pennsylvania Regional Center

Spring 2005

We are in the second year of our five-year National Science Foundation grant, the Math Science Partnership of GreaterPhiladelphia (MSPGP). The 13 universities and 46 regional schoodistricts that are partners in the grant work together to improvemath and science education at the secondary and collegiate preservice levels. Included in this family are several of our long-time IMP districts, and others that are moving along “the road to reform.”

Having supported IMP in our region since 1993, we have learned quite a bit about how to work with districts to help themhave the best possible implementation of this challenging curriculum. Most importantly, our experiences have shown us howimportant it is for teachers to buy into IMP’s philosophy and pedagogy. For that reason, when we work with a new district, wegenerally spend at least a year with a school’s entire mathematics department, engaging the teachers in a variety of professionaldevelopment activities designed to help them form a professional learning community of reflective practitioners.

Spring 2004

A program like IMP needs continual support from the central administration. The first cohort of IMP teachers implemented the curriculum during the 1993–94 academic year in six Philadelphia schools, including three special-admission schools. Although IMP proved successful, the large urban district had problems with teacher attrition. Since IMP began in 1993, there have been a total of six different Philadelphia superintendents or interims with accompanying administrative turnover. The latest Philadelphia school administration recently decided to adopt a uniform, more traditional secondary mathematics curriculum that is now being used in all its high schools. Thus, IMP’s presence in Philadelphia currently consists of only a handful of charter schools, which are still empowered to make their own curricular decisions. Fortunately IMP continues to thrive in a wide range of suburban, rural, and small urban districts that surround IMP’s original “mother district.” To help provide continuing support to these “second generation districts” and new “third generation districts,” the regional IMP directors teamed with colleagues at thirteen regional universities and 46 school districts, to apply for a National Science Foundation grant. Happily, our efforts were successful and our new five-year grant, the Math Science Partnership of Greater Philadelphia (MSPGP), was officially announced October 1, 2003. The MSPGP will be involved with secondary math and science programs, including IMP, as well as pre-service program enhancements. We believe that this large-scale, exciting, complex, and challenging project will have a positive impact throughout the region. We look forward to reporting on MSPGP activities in future issues of IMPressions.

Spring 2003

At Carver High School of Engineering and Science, a predominantly minority high school in North Philadelphia, mean scores shot up an astounding 100 points on the 2002 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), reaching 1470 compared to 1370 last year. Prior to 2002, Carver’s mean PSSA math scores ranged from 1340 to 1370. Sue Tischler, department chair at Carver, credits the raise in scores to the decision to enroll all Carver ninth and tenth graders in IMP. The students who took the PSSA in April 2002 were the first Carver class to be entirely enrolled in IMP.

Our second item concerns the release of the results of a longitudinal study sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The focus was on the joint impact of IMP and block scheduling on algebra achievement and course taking at Strath Haven High School—now an all-IMP school. The study comprised the Ph.D. dissertation of Dr. Steven Kramer of the University of Maryland. Dr. Kramer compared the achievement of this first all-IMP group to the last group that was all-traditional. He reported that the joint innovation of IMP and block scheduling, with extra time allocated to planning and staff development, was followed by improvements in student mathematics achievement. Specifically, compared to an earlier cohort of students who had used a traditional schedule and curriculum, the IMP students were better able to formulate algebraic models, interpret graphs and tables, solve algebra problems presented in context, and work in pairs to solve an extended, open-ended, applied algebra problem. Students who had used a traditional schedule and curriculum were better able to translate a line graph into an equation and to simplify expressions with integer (but not fractional) coefficients. Furthermore, the IMP students elected to take more math courses. Indeed, 58% of students using the block schedule and IMP completed four IMP courses and went on to enroll in at least one additional advanced mathematics class. In contrast, only 48% of students using a traditional curriculum and schedule completed three core courses (algebra 1, geometry, and algebra 2) and went on to enroll in at least one additional advanced mathematics class.

Finally, Dr. Kramer found that IMP students did extraordinarily well in the demanding BC Advanced Placement Calculus. And, not only was the number of students taking the exam higher, but of the 20 IMP students taking the BC Calculus exam, 18 received a score of “5” and the other two received a score of “4” for a mean score of 4.9. As Dr. Kramer pointed out, that year there were only seven other high schools in the United States where at least 20 students completed the BC Calculus exam and the school-wide mean score was 4.9 or higher.

Details of both the Carver High School results and Kramer study can be found online at http://www.gphillymath.org/StudentAchievement/.

Fall 2002

We want to share (with the author’s permission) a letter sent from a Lucent Technologies scientist to the Curriculum Supervisor at Strath Haven High School in suburban Philadelphia.

On January 6, I had an opportunity to visit Strath Haven High School and observe Interactive Mathematics Program classes taught by Mesdames Barbara Stankus and Teddie Psitos. What a way to teach mathematics! Perhaps, I should say to teach any class.

You may wonder how I got the opportunity. My daughter Terri is a math-major sophomore of Bryn Mawr College and wants to be a math teacher. She learned about IMP and contacted Mrs. Stankus. When she invited Terri to observe her class, Terri asked me to come along with her. I am a senior scientist of Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories and taught at a few colleges, most recently at Columbia. I also taught mathematics at Princeton very briefly after I got my degree. I know mathematics and teaching.

These classes focused on problem-solving skills with real-life problems which students could relate to. I think that was just great. In addition, the way Mesdames Stankus and Psitos taught and how class activities were organized provided an opportunity to learn other skills: teamwork and presentation. Here is a summary of my observations: First, students work as a group. This promotes teamwork and they learn how to get along with others. We hear too often that many young people do not know how to get along with others and manage conflicts, since we in the U.S. have traditionally emphasized individual creativity and excellence. Second, students learn presentation skills. The presentation skill is extremely important no matter what profession a student may get into in the future. It is something we all need more of and one cannot succeed without. I was quite impressed when a high school sophomore explained a math problem with such competence. It was an eyeopening experience. And I hope more subjects be taught this way. I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Mesdames Stankus and Psitos, and to say ‘keep on going.’

Sincerely yours, B. Sung Kim, Ph.D.

Spring 2002

Pennsylvania’s latest graduating IMP 4 teacher class has just completed their final Pollster’s Dilemma training with Ned Wolff (second from left, bottom row). They are a representative group, teaching at ten different high schools located in Philadelphia, the nearby Pennsylvania suburbs, and in New Jersey.

Fall 2001

IMP continues to grow in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Region, supported by our National Science Foundation Local System Change grant, the Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Program. Our most successful IMP implementations continue to be at those high schools that have opted for whole-departmental change.

Our first all-IMP high school is Strath Haven High School in the Wallingford/Swarthmore School District. They began IMP in 1996. In June 2001, they graduated their first all-IMP senior class. Each of these 246 students (except for transfers) went through all four years of IMP, and many went on to take other math courses, including several different AP courses. We are very proud of their results. In spring 2001, six students took the AB Calculus exam, five of whom received a score of 5, and one a score of 3. Twenty students took the BC Calculus exam, of whom 18 received a score of 5 and two received a 4. In addition, 20 students took the AP statistics exam. Ten of those students received a score of 5, eight a 4, and two received a score of 3. Thus, of the 46 scores, every one merited college credit!

Another accomplishment of Strath Haven’s first all-IMP class was fielding a team of eight IMP senior students (six males and two females) to compete in the JETS (Junior Engineering Technical Society) competition in February 2001. In that competition, students work in teams, applying mathematical problem-solving skills to solve real-world problems. The team tied for first place nationally in their division! A major component of the competition involves responding to open-ended, subjective questions. Students reported that their years of experience writing up POWs definitely helped put them over the top! We commend the mathematics teaching staff at Strath Haven for their dedication and skill as exemplary teachers.

Twelve other high schools in the Philadelphia region are in the process of developing all IMP classes. These high schools include Haverford, Interboro, Academy Park, Carver, Parkway, Palisades, Bensalem, Pennridge, Pennsauken, Gloucester Technical, Furness, and Kensington.

Spring 2001

Strath Haven High School, in the Wallingford/Swarthmore School District, a suburb of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania’s first 100% IMP high school, just achieved the distinction of being the highest-scoring comprehensive high school in the state of Pennsylvania on the eleventh-grade math portion of Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA).

Eleventh graders throughout the state take this high stakes test. This was the first time in a Philadelphia area high school that every eleventh grader was an IMP student, including Honors track students. The teachers at Wallingford/Swarthmore are especially proud of the fact that out of slightly more than 250 eleventh-grade students who took the PSSA, 161 of their students scored in the top quartile, while only nine scored in the bottom quartile.

Barbara Stankus, a veteran Wallingford/Swarthmore IMP teacher (currently on special assignment with the Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project) was told by her students that they were eager to take more math because of how math was presented in IMP. Indeed, during the current academic year, there are 1400

Fall 2000

The 1999–2000 academic year was busy and productive for our regional center. Our biggest development has been the growth of IMP in nearby suburban districts. Whereas one year ago we had two suburban districts in our IMP family, we now have nine! Several of these districts have undergone whole-school change and now offer IMP as the only mathematics curriculum for all their students.

We are able to support our new IMP teachers through our National Science Foundation grant, the Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project. This grant emphasizes professional development including teacher inservices and classroom mentoring for participating teachers. Our mentors are recently retired veteran IMP teachers, eager to support others who are new to the curriculum.

Our center’s teachers and directors continue to enjoy working with our colleagues in other regions. For example, our lead teachers and directors are helping New York City’s efforts to support and expand IMP. We also continue to share results of our statistical analyses of IMP student outcomes and are happy to offer technical advice to others who are conducting their own studies.

Spring 1999

The number of IMP schools in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area continues to grow. Contributing to this growth are favorable local statistics showing that, on average, IMP students have outscored their traditionally-taught counterparts on the Stanford Achievement Test (the SAT-9). The SAT-9 is used by Philadelphia's superintendent to evaluate schools, so principals take the results very seriously. The test is well-suited to IMP since it assesses both content and problem-solving processes. It also includes questions on probability, statistics, and discrete math-all of which are given far greater coverage by IMP than by traditional curricula.

As more and more teachers join our IMP family, we've had to find new ways of maintaining a high level of classroom support. We took advantage of the fact that several veteran IMP teachers took early retirement last year and were thus available during school hours. We have hired them to travel to IMP schools to mentor new teachers. Their contributions to IMP's success in the region have been invaluable!

This summer, we will offer IMP inservices at multiple sites throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Complementing these inservices will be week-long workshops on teaching reform calculus and AP statistics. These latter workshops are especially appealing to IMP teachers who've completed the four years of IMP inservice and seek new summer professional development opportunities.

Fall 1999

With the support of our NSF Local Systemic Change grant, the Philadelphia regional IMP family continues to grow. We are focusing the majority of our efforts on schools committed to making whole-school change, wherein nearly every member of the mathematics department will participate in inservice programs and eventually teach the curriculum.

To help schools reach that level of commitment, we work with them in a systematic process for eight to twelve months to prepare them to adopt reform mathematics curricula such as IMP. The preparation for change includes starting with general awareness workshops, self-assessment, looking at student work, visiting other schools, and trying out the Baker's Choice IMP replacement unit.

Our seven years of IMP experience have convinced us that the program has a dramatically higher probability of long-lasting success when an entire school-including teachers and administrators-are committed to change.

Another component that we have found to be necessary for long-term success is the collection and analysis of student achievement data. Towards this end, we've received $75,000 from the National Science Foundation to design and implement a four-year longitudinal study analyzing the impact of IMP and block scheduling at Strath Haven High School, an all-IMP school in suburban Philadelphia. That study, to begin this fall, will be done in collaboration with researchers at the University of Maryland.

Our project now has a cadre of over 40 mentors and inservice presenters. To assure continued high quality and adherence to the IMP philosophy, we have initiated a series of workshops for ten of our most experienced teacher-leaders. Modeled after national IMP's TOPS program, these workshops give participants the opportunity to discuss presentation strategies, design inservice agendas, and develop effective ways to mentor other teachers.

Spring 1998

We have several exciting developments taking place at the Philadelphia region IMP center. First, we are awaiting final word on our Local Systemic Change grant proposal, which we recently submitted to NSF. If funded, the grant will enable us to provide staff development in IMP and other reform mathematics projects to over 600 teachers in the greater Philadelphia and southern New Jersey area.

Last spring, crews from the Philadelphia Broadcasting System spent two days filming IMP classes and interviewing IMP students at Central High School. IMP will be featured in the final episode of a seven-part series, "Life by the Numbers," which will air nationally this April.

Congratulations go to Barbara Mosely, one of our veteran IMP teachers. Barbara was recently named Mathematics Teacher of the Year of the Delaware Valley. She credits IMP with rejuvenating her teaching career.

IMP students from our first graduating class are now completing their first year of college. Several students visited their IMP teachers over semester break and reported very positive experiences with their collegiate mathematics courses. We have initiated a formal survey of all our IMP graduates' college experiences and also continue our ongoing matched-sample statistical analyses comparing IMP and traditionally taught students on various high school achievement indices.

Fall 1998

In June, we received funding from the National Science Foundation to launch the Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project (GPSMP). The goal of this project is to provide inservice, teacher mentoring, and other support to those nearby school districts who wish to implement IMP or other NSF-funded curricula.

Thus far, the grant has enabled us to bring another seven high schools into our IMP family, including four more in Philadelphia, two in suburban Pennsylvania, and our first school in New Jersey. Indeed, this summer alone, we have trained more than 70 new IMP Year 1 teachers! We've also run workshops on the teaching of AP statistics and reform calculus, both of which are natural extensions of the IMP curriculum.

Spring 1997

The Philadelphia IMP program made the news recently, when WQED Public Television videotaped it as part of an eight-part series on Mathematics called "Life by the Numbers." IMP is included in the series' last episode, "Making a Difference," which features several innovative approaches to teaching mathematics.

Interviewed on IMP for the program were Joe Merlino, LaSalle University mathematics specialist; Alice Jordan, coordinator of mathematics education at Beaver College, and Ned Wolff, associate professor of mathematics and computer science at Beaver College and codirector of Philadelphia IMP.

Students Were TV Stars

The true stars of the show, according to Ned Wolff, were IMP students themselves, from Year 1 and Year 4 classes. Activities were chosen which convey the uniqueness and power of the program. IMP 1 students did selected activities from The Pit and the Pendulum, and IMP 4 students worked on the last day of the High Dive unit, when they "put it all together" to solve the unit problem.

Fall 1997

The School District of Philadelphia released its annual report card in September for individual schools based on citywide scores on the Stanford Achievement Test–9th edition (SAT-9), staff and student attendance, and promotion.

In a matched-sample analysis of SAT-9 scores of eleventh-grade IMP students versus traditionally taught eleventh-grade algebra students at two highly academic Philadelphia high schools, the IMP students scored better in most categories of the test.

In the Philadelphia suburbs, the Wallingford/Swarthmore School District has adopted IMP and Visual Mathematics (an NSF-funded program for the middle school). The result is a well-coordinated K–12 mathematics program which is producing exceptional student achievement outcomes. All 20 mathematics teachers in the district are involved in training for both programs.

The Philadelphia Education Fund is working on a report which will show how "teacher networks" like IMP have had a profound influence on policy in the Philadelphia Schools District. In order to implement educational reform, the district has had to rely on IMP and other "networked teachers" to exert leadership in various non-classroom capacities throughout a district. Many IMP teachers, for example, have been playing key leadership roles in the Philadelphia district in creating new citywide standards and assessments, and designing citywide mathematics summer inservices. And, several IMP teachers have gone on to occupy important administrative positions. For example, Kathleen McKinley, a former IMP Year 3 teacher, was appointed on September 1, 1997 to be an assistant to the Director of the Philadelphia Urban Systemic Initiative.

The Philadelphia site is working with the New York site to provide IMP training. This year, the Philadelphia IMP program welcomes 22 new IMP teachers. IMP is currently being taught in half of Philadelphia's 34 high schools.

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