MTEP 2.0 Change Agents: Leading the charge to transform secondary mathematics teacher preparation

Every successful endeavor requires good leadership, and that’s where the MTEP 2.0 Change Agents come in. Each MTEP member university has a designated Change Agent who organizes their program’s networked improvement community, or NIC, of university faculty, K–12 partners, and others collaborating to improve their local secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs.

In many cases, several program NICs work together as a team NIC to coordinate work in a given geographic area. For example, the North Carolina MTEP team includes 12 program NICs from across the state. Each team also has a designated Team Change Agent. All told, there are 50 Program Change Agents and 24 Team Change Agents (or co-Change Agents).

MTEP 2.0 Change Agents have three primary roles:

1. Nurture their NICs. Change Agents call meetings of their NICs and work to build productive relationships within the communities. In addition, Change Agents are encouraged to look for opportunities to expand their NICs’ membership.
   
   Diane Barrett, University of Hawai'i at Hilo and MTEP Hui Team Change Agent, said, "Being a Change Agent has helped me and my colleagues to reduce the isolation and distance between us and to realize that we have each other!"
   
   Part of building the NIC community is advancing the effective operation of the NIC to carry out improvement efforts as defined by its Driver Diagram and ensuring the NIC documents at least one PDSA cycle per semester.
   
   "PDSA Cycles are a great opportunity for teams to learn together while focusing on improvement," April Pforts, Iowa Department of Education and Iowa MTEP Team Change Agent, said. "They have become a regular part of my practice when working with educators, schools and mathematics organizations."
   
   
2. Participate in the MTEP 2.0 Change Agent network, including the planned support activities. Change Agents are encouraged to attend MTEP 2.0 events, including the annual MTEP Conference and the monthly NIC-Casts, and to ensure good representation of their team at these events. In addition, MTEP 2.0 holds at least two meetings specifically for the Change Agents each semester. The long-term goal is to develop a thriving community in which Change Agents can interact across teams to learn from and with each other. In addition, Change Coaches are assigned to each team to provide support to its Change Agents.
   
   
3. Ensure data collection is completed. While perhaps a less glamorous part of the job description, data is needed to help NICs track their progress as well as the overall progress of the MTEP 2.0 network. Gathering evidence to guide the work of a NIC is essential to the model.