MANCHESTER, Tenn. — For 10 days in June, elementary and
middle school teachers from more than five southern Middle Tennessee counties
covered a hand-painted brain with sticky notes showing mistakes they had made
during each day.
They also adorned the walls of Coffee County Middle School
hallways with their individual and team work sheets from the various days’
activities.
To view video about the 2016 MTSU Summer Institute Project
Impact, visit https://youtu.be/1NbGS1WRH-g.
The group of 150 teachers from primarily Bedford, Cannon,
Coffee, Grundy and Rutherford counties recently completed the fourth year of
the MTSU-led and Tennessee Department of Education grant-funded Summer
Institute Project Impact.
Teachers attending the institute, which is led by MTSU
faculty and graduate students, have seen a marked improvement in their students’
understanding of math.
“We’ve been working hard on mathematics problems and
understanding students’ solutions to mathematics problems,” said Dr. Angela
Barlow, MTSU Math and Science Education Ph.D. Program director.
“We read vignettes,” Barlow added. “We watch videos, and we
talk about the mathematics in those as well as the instructional practices
because our goal is to improve student achievement. And we know to do that we
need student-centered instruction and that is at the heart of Project Impact.”
Sunshine Robbins, who teaches second-graders at Auburn
Elementary School in Auburntown, Tennessee, in Cannon County, said she “likes
to come and collaborate with other teachers and get new ideas … critical things
I can use in the classroom.”
“I can keep up to date with things that are going on in the
math world,” Robbins added.
Murfreesboro resident Keisha Banks, who teaches
eighth-graders math at Community Middle School in Unionville, Tennessee, in
Bedford County, said attending the workshop “really makes you think … and
re-think everything you’ve been taught but in a different way.”
“What I have found beneficial is the multiple teaching
strategies, different ways we can respond to students and different resources,”
Banks added.
Many of the teachers purchased T-shirts with a Schoolhouse
Rock typeface stating “Impact 4 Life” as a theme for the fourth Project Impact.
The group’s motto atop the brain in the school’s hallway read: “Mistakes are
expected, respected and inspected.”
Barlow said the teachers will convene on a Saturday in
August as the school year resumes and MTSU faculty will visit them in their
schools in the coming months.
“We will go in and do a demonstration lesson,” Barlow said
of the school visits. “Someone from MTSU will teach the lesson while the
teachers watch.”
The fifth Summer Institute Project Impact will be held next
June. Barlow suggests any K-8 teachers interested in attending should email her
at Angela.Barlow@mtsu.edu or talk to
teachers who are a part of the group.
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