National Summit on the Mathematical Education of Teachers:
Meeting the Demand for High Quality Mathematics Education in America

November 2 and 3, 2001, Tysons Corner Doubletree Hotel, Tysons Corner VA

     Purpose
     Selection Criteria
     Application Procedures and Deadlines

Purpose

Efforts to improve the mathematical education of teachers, both undergraduate and on-going professional development,  are far more likely to be successful and sustainable when all the parties involved are working with common purpose.  Recommendations 6 through 10 of the MET document address this need for cooperative effort--between mathematics departments and schools of education, between two- and four-year colleges, between mathematics faculty and school mathematics teachers, and , more broadly, among mathematicians, deans, school district administrators, and policy making agencies at the state and local level. Indeed, a major new thrust of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at NSF is the formation of partnerships between institutions of higher education and state agencies responsible for K-12 education.

In support of the belief that the mathematics community can lead the way in providing good models for building the kinds of cooperative efforts needed for long term improvement of teacher education, the ExxonMobil Foundation will offer 12 planning grants of $3,000 each to assist National Summit participants in developing plans for partnerships or other innovative cooperative efforts among groups involved in teacher education. Teacher education in this context includes both the preparation of future teachers and the on-going education of practicing teachers. These grants are intended to provide the participant teams with the resources needed to develop an action plan which will then be supported by the local institutions involved or which can be used to obtain external federal or private foundation funding.  

A participant team may submit a proposal for such a planning grant either prior to the National Summit or within the four weeks following it. Approximately half of the awards (based on pre-Summit proposals) will be announced at the closing session of the National Summit with the other half (based on post-Summit proposals) to be announced about six weeks later. The awards will be made directly to the mathematics department of the participant team. (Participant teams which submit a proposal in the first round but do not receive an award may submit a new or revised proposal for the second round.)

Selection Criteria

Since  proposals will be evaluated on how likely they are to provide a strong beginning to a fruitful collaboration to improve the mathematical education of teachers, the specific criteria the reviewers will use in evaluating proposals are the following:

1. Is there a clear focus and a clearly articulated problem the partnership will address?
2. Are all the people essential to the solution involved?
3. Is the plan reasonable and likely to succeed?
4. Is there evidence of commitment by all the parties involved?

Application Procedures and Deadlines

Proposals should consist of three pages:

1. The first page should contain
       a) the names, positions, and contact information (address, phone, fax, and email), of the persons involved,
       b) a one paragraph abstract of the proposal, and
       c) a brief budget.
2. The next two pages should contain the narrative description of the planning process.

Proposals should be submitted electronically by email to rosier@math.georgetown.edu. (Plain ASCII text, RTF, Word Perfect, MS Word, PDF, and DVI formats are all acceptable.)  The subject line of the email should be "ExxonMobil Grant - <name of your institution>."

The deadline for receipt of proposals to be considered in the first round is Friday, October 19. Announcement of awards will be made by ExxonMobil Foundation President Ed Ahnert at the closing session of the National Summit on November 3.

The deadline for receipt of proposals to be considered in the second round is Friday, November 30. Announcement of awards will be made on December 14. (Participant teams which submit a proposal in the first round but do not receive an award may submit a new or revised proposal for the second round.)