Teachers Selected for WVU Fellowship Program

KCS Teachers Selected for WVU Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teacher Fellowship Program
Posted on 12/10/2020

Photo: Ann Hall on left and Jennifer McLean on right. 

Kanawha County Schools is pleased to announce that Ann Hall, a mathematics teacher at John Adams Middle, and Jennifer McLean, a mathematics teacher at West Side Middle, have been selected as “Mountaineer Mathematics Master Teachers (M3T) Noyce Fellows,” as part of a $3 million grant to West Virginia University (WVU) from the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, supported by additional grants from the West Virginia Department of Education. Hall and McLean are two of 19 M3T Noyce Fellows in the first cohort participating in the project, representing 17 counties across West Virginia. 

“As M3T Fellows, we have the opportunity to collaborate with amazing math educators throughout the state which improves our teaching effectiveness in the classroom,” said Hall. 

McLean stated, “It’s an honor to be selected as an M3T Fellow. As part of the pilot program last year, I have experienced the benefits that come from being part of a cohort of excellent math teachers such as these. I’m really excited to continue this work here in Kanawha County alongside Ann.”

The M3T project builds on previous efforts to support secondary mathematics teacher leadership and instructional improvement across West Virginia, which started in Pocahontas County about a decade ago. Over the next five years, fellows will work with M3T project leads, Dr. Matthew Campbell, assistant professor of mathematics education at WVU, and Joanna Burt-Kinderman, instructional coach for Pocahontas County Schools, who was recognized in 2019 by Education Week as a “Leader to Learn From,” as well as a team of other mathematics and mathematics education faculty at WVU.

“We have a unique and powerful opportunity to work with these outstanding mathematics teachers across West Virginia over the next five years,” said Campbell. “Our state’s teachers should be at the center of improving mathematics teaching and learning and, with this cohort of fellows, we will work to understand how to make that possible.”

M3T Noyce Fellows must continue to serve in their role as a middle or high school mathematics teacher as part of their commitment to the program. Fellows will work as a network to identify and solve specific problems in their own classrooms and share that learning. In time, they will also lead similar improvement efforts with teachers in their local school or district context. By the end of the project, fellows will be supported to mentor other emerging teacher leaders across the state. 

“Math teachers’ problems, solutions and perspectives are too often locked in their classrooms, where no one can learn from or with them,” said Burt-Kinderman. “M3T fellows will link problems of teaching and learning to potential solutions across the state and nation and, as we learn to improve, we are excited for teachers across the state to learn with us.”

Since they began their work with the project this fall, fellows have met regularly to build their improvement network, attended national conferences virtually, and collaborated with the West Virginia Department of Education on the development of materials for educators across the state. In the spring, fellows will begin a process of developing, testing, and refining possible solutions to problems they have identified in their mathematics classrooms. 

“Kanawha County Schools is proud to have Ms. McLean and Ms. Hall selected for this prestigious program,” said KCS superintendent, Dr. Tom Williams. “Participation in this program and the skills that they’ll share with their colleagues here in KCS will positively impact our continued dedication to math education improvement.”

The M3T program will be accepting applications for a second cohort of fellows in Spring 2021, with a goal to support at least 40 fellows total. More information: https://cehs.wvu.edu/news-events/2020/11/18/cehs-announces-first-cohort-of-mountaineer-mathematics-master-teacher-noyce-fellows.

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