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FOR RELEASE
October 13, 2000
Contact:
David Thomas
(202) 401-1579
TECHNOLOGY GRANTS TO IMPROVE MATH, SCIENCE TEACHING
U. S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley today announced two awards to use cutting-edge technology to help improve the teaching of math and science.
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has received a five-year, $39 million grant to create a new national online service called Teacherline and the Concord Consortium will use a one-year, $1 million grant for the Seeing Math Telecommunications Project, which will study the use of the Internet to deliver professional development resources to teachers.
Recently, the National Commission on Mathematics and Science, chaired by former Sen. John Glenn, issued Before It?s Too Late, a report focused on the urgent need to improve the preparation and professional development of math and science teachers.
"As the Glenn Commission recently reminded us, effective math and science teaching are critical to the nation's future," Riley said. "These projects are steps in the right direction."
PBS Teacherline will link the resources of PBS, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, school districts in 16 states, state departments of education, five colleges of education, the International Society for Technology in Education, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Current and prospective teachers will receive a wide variety of math and technology resources to aid teaching and learning, including on-line mentoring, teacher discussions, and videos of classroom practices. The project is designed to help teachers meet professional and state standards for math and technology.
The key innovation in Seeing Math will be 10 highly interactive on-line digital video case studies, which will provide math teaching models that have proven to be highly effective in improving teaching techniques. The case studies can be linked to lesson plans, students? work, standards and assessments, teacher reflection, and on-line discussion groups.
These grants were funded by the Telecommunications Mathematics Demonstration Project in the Education Department?s Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
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