Education Services - California Math and Science Partnership (CaMPS) Grant

The Marin County Office of Education recently applied for the California Math and Science Partnership (CaMSP) Cohort 12 funding to provide math and science professional development to teachers countywide.  The proposed project, Marin's Next Generation Collaborative for Science and Math (M-NGC), is a partnership with the College of Marin, the Department of Education at Dominican University, and the Exploratorium to build the capacity of Marin County K-5 teachers to develop student knowledge, skills, and practices, in both Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSS-M). 

A central tenet of the grant will be to make explicit the structures of an equitable classroom to support all learners.  These include an emphasis on problem solving, use of questioning strategies that support deep understanding, and building students' academic language through hands-on learning, discussion, and writing.  Each of the three years, teachers will focus on a different science domain (earth, life, physical), and engage in real-world applied math problems related to this content.  The 24 follow-up hours will be based on a lesson-study approach.  Teachers will co-plan lessons at their grade level based on the content of the intensives, have guided self-reflection activities, and then meet in facilated workshops to review videos of teacher lessons and discuss their practice.