Mathematics Curriculum Topic Study: Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Practice

"This book addresses the needs of teachers at every level in their teaching careers, as well as those who support and work with teachers. The processes can be used individually to guide professional learning and teaching, or within almost any professional development structure for facilitating group learning. "
-Katherine E. Stiles, Senior Program Associate, WestEd

"This resource supports continual professional growth of both content and pedagogical knowledge and will help teachers focus on the appropriate research. What a time saver this is!"
-Rhonda Naylor, National Board Certified Mathematics Teacher Campus Middle School, Englewood, CO

Attain the tools to plan and incorporate standards-based instruction that positively impacts student achievement!

Becoming an accomplished mathematics teacher requires not only a thorough understanding of content, but also a familiarity with mathematics standards and research. However, a strategy for translating standards and research into instructional practice has been lacking since the advent of standards-based education reform.

Mathematics Curriculum Topic Study provides a systematic professional development strategy that links mathematics standards and research to curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Developed by authors Page Keeley and Cheryl M. Rose of the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, the NSF-funded Curriculum Topic Study (CTS) process can help educators align their practice with research-based concepts and skills required in local, state, and national standards. Successfully field-tested with hundreds of teachers, mathematics coordinators, and staff developers, this book contains 92 ready-to-use CTS guides arranged in seven categories that are aligned with NCTM content and process standards.

Designed to work in a variety of contexts, the CTS process will help teachers:

• Increase their content and pedagogical knowledge
• Better understand and access mathematics research
• Translate standards to the classroom in a conscious, scholarly way
• Learn to recognize and address learning difficulties
• Increase opportunities for all students to achieve mathematical literacy

An essential investment toward improving student achievement in mathematics for K-12 teachers, staff developers, directors of curriculum, department chairs and math educators, this innovative resource is also appropriate for preservice teachers and preservice higher education faculty.

Page is a prolific author of over twenty national best-selling and award-winning books, including twelve books in the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series, four books in the first edition Curriculum Topic Study series, and four books in the Science and Mathematics Formative Assessment- Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning series. Several of her books have received prestigious awards in educational publishing.  She has authored numerous journal articles and contributed to several book chapters. She is a frequent invited speaker at regional, national, and international conferences on the topic of formative assessment in science, understanding students’ (and teachers’) thinking, and teaching for conceptual understanding.

Prior to leaving the classroom to work at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance in 1996, Page taught middle and high school science for 15 years. At that time she was an active teacher leader at the state and national level, serving two terms as President of the Maine Science Teachers Association and NSTA District II Director 1995-1998 and NSTA Executive Board member (prior to the Board and Council restructuring in 1997). She received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Secondary Science Teaching in 1992 and the Milken National Distinguished Educator Award in 1993.

Since leaving the classroom in 1996, her work in leadership and professional development has been nationally recognized.  In 2008 she was elected the 63rd President of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the world′s largest organization of K-12, university, and informal science educators. In 2009 she received the National Staff Development Council’s (now Learning Forward) . In 2013 she received the Outstanding Leadership in Science Education award from the National Science Education Leadership Association (NSELA) and in 2018, The Distinguished Service to Science Education Award from NSTA.  She has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Maine, was a Cohort 1 Fellow in the National Academy for Science and Mathematics Education Leadership, was a science literacy leader for the AAAS/Project 2061 Professional Development Program, and served on several national advisory boards. She has a strong interest in global science education and has led science/STEM education delegations to South Africa (2009), China (2010), India (2012), Cuba (2014), Iceland (2017), Panama (2018), and Costa Rica (2019).

Prior to entering the teaching profession, Page was a research assistant for immunogeneticist, Dr. Leonard Shultz, at the Jackson Laboratory of Mammalian Genetics in Bar Harbor, Maine. She received her B.S. in Life Sciences/pre-veterinary studies from the University of New Hampshire and her Masters degree in Science Education from the University of Maine. In her spare time she enjoys travel, reading, photography, fiber art, and dabbles in modernist cooking and culinary art. A Maine resident for almost 40 years, Page and her husband currently reside in Fort Myers, FL and Wickford, RI. Page can be contacted at pagekeeley@gmail.com or through her web site at www.uncoveringstudentideas.org

Cheryl Rose Tobey is a senior mathematics associate at Education Development Center (EDC) in Massachusetts. She is the project director for Formative Assessment in the Mathematics Classroom: Engaging Teachers and Students (FACETS) and a mathematics specialist for Differentiated Professional Development: Building Mathematics Knowledge for Teaching Struggling Students (DPD); both projects are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). She also serves as a director of development for an Institute for Educational Science (IES) project, Eliciting Mathematics Misconceptions (EM2). Her work is primarily in the areas of formative assessment and professional development.

Prior to joining EDC, Tobey was the senior program director for mathematics at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA), where she served as the co–principal investigator of the mathematics section of the NSF-funded Curriculum Topic Study, and principal investigator and project director of two Title IIa state Mathematics and Science Partnership projects. Prior to working on these projects, Tobey was the co–principal investigator and project director for MMSA’s NSF-funded Local Systemic Change Initiative, Broadening Educational Access to Mathematics in Maine (BEAMM), and she was a fellow in Cohort 4 of the National Academy for Science and Mathematics Education Leadership. She is the coauthor of six published Corwin books, including seven books in the Uncovering Student Thinking series (2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014), two Mathematics Curriculum Topic Study resources (2006, 2012), and Mathematics Formative Assessment: 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction and Learning (2011). Before joining MMSA in 2001 to begin working with teachers, Tobey was a high school and middle school mathematics educator for ten years. She received her BS in secondary mathematics education from the University of Maine at Farmington and her MEd from City University in Seattle. She currently lives in Maine with her husband and blended family of five children.