PROJECT ABSTRACT

MIDDLE MATTERS (M2) is a collaborative partnership between James Madison University’s College of Education (COE), Office of Outreach and Engagement (OOE), and Hopewell City Public Schools (HCPS) with the goals to provide accelerated, alternative teacher preparation and traditional professional development to increase the number of highly qualified and effective middle grades science and mathematics teachers, to design products and processes that improve the effectiveness of HCPS’ recruitment and retention of highly qualified teachers, especially in STEM related areas, and to design a substantially replicable alternative teacher licensure and professional development model for school divisions in rural areas, particularly those serving military families.

James Madison University’s College of Education, through the Learning, Technology and Leadership Education Department (LTLE) and the Middle, Secondary and Mathematics Education Department (MMSE), will partner with the James Madison University’s Office of Outreach and Engagement, the Hopewell City Public Schools, and the Virginia Advanced Studies Strategies (VASS) to provide content, instruction, assessment of learning, mentoring and coaching, and on-going support for participating teachers, teacher candidates, leadership team members, and faculty. JMU’s role will be as support and facilitator while HCPS contextualizes information and skills to best meet their priority needs for highly qualified teachers who are effective STEM teachers of their diverse student population. With the leadership of the M2 Management Team, the Middle Matters project will model and support effective on-going formative and summative evidence based decision making through bi-annual evaluation seminars.