SummerMath for Teachers
SummerMath for Teachers (SMT) is an innovative in-service teacher education program that provides professional development opportunities for teachers, teacher leaders, and math coaches. Established at Mount Holyoke College in 1983, SMT offers a variety of summer institutes, academic-year courses, and courses and seminars in mathematics education for teachers and administrators. In addition, SMT is a site for educational research through multi-year programs funded by the National Science Foundation.
SMT’s success over three decades lies in its commitment to support educators as they examine how learning takes place, to provide opportunities to become aware of their own abilities as mathematical thinkers, and to help school systems to build and support classroom environments that focus on developing the mathematical ideas of students. SummerMath for Teachers’ beliefs are compatible with the mathematical practices expressed in the NCTM Standards and the Common Core Standards.
SMT offers a variety of courses and seminars for educators of grades K-8, and seminars for school administrators. All SMT projects share the following three goals:
- to provide educators with opportunities to investigate the mathematical ideas that are embedded in the K-8 curriculum.
- to engage educators in a process of reflection on the nature of learning so that their experience in our SMT classrooms will inform their practice.
- to enact the kind of classroom instruction and assessment that is consistent with the Common Core and NCTM Standards.
The power of SMT’s program is rooted in the total integration of its goals. Teachers are not told how to teach. They have opportunities to experience learning in an environment that supports the development of conceptual understanding, to reflect on their own experiences in the course, and to consider the implications of their experiences for their own classrooms.
SMT’s strategically designed programs have helped hundreds of teachers reimagine the way they teach mathematics. Many past participants have taken on new roles as teacher leaders working to encourage other colleagues in their schools and districts to consider and incorporate a variety of new teaching strategies, to develop a view of the study of mathematics as inquiry into ideas, and to implement a pedagogy based on student thinking and discourse.