by John T. Sutton, PhD, MTEP project evaluator
The Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership (MTEP) 2.0 provides a coordinated research, development, and implementation effort for secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs to promote research and best practices in the field. The partnership work is focused to achieve the following aim: By 2025, 65 MTEP programs, including 11 historically under-resourced and/or minority-serving institutions, will be actively engaged in an explicit, localized, prioritized improvement process toward alignment with the AMTE standards and MTEP Guiding Principles, in order to increase the number of well-prepared beginning secondary mathematics teachers while foregrounding issues of equity and access both in the objectives and practices of the programs.
The 2024 MTEP 2.0 Conference was held on February 8, 2024, as a professional activity that took place in-person at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, FL (61 participants), and virtually via Zoom (24 participants). The conference was conducted as an evening meeting on Thursday as part of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) Annual Conference which took place at the same facility. The participants joining in the conference represented 18 MTEP teams comprised of different institutions, including universities, colleges, state departments of education, K-12 school districts, NSF-funded projects, and private institutions. The meeting was carried out with support from the NSF-funded Using Networked Improvement Communities to Design and Implement Program Transformation Tools for Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation (NIC-Transform) project (Award #s 2141730 and 2141737).
The agenda for the conference focused on a variety of activities for participants to engage with colleagues. One of these activities was a series of brief, five-minute Ignite presentations, designed to provide insights and information about MTEP projects, issues, and institutional approaches to improving secondary mathematics teacher preparation. A series of breakout sessions allowed participants to engage in discussions and information-sharing with other professionals targeting specific issues associated with MTEP and the change process to improve secondary mathematics teacher preparation at the project and institutional levels. The titles of the six Ignite presentations and five breakout sessions are conveyed in Exhibit 1.
A survey was given to participants at the completion of the 2024 MTEP 2.0 Conference which asked questions regarding the logistics and usefulness of the conference and sought ratings of the various sessions, the progress in meeting the conference goals, the timing of the conference, and topics for future directions for MTEP 2.0 activities. Survey questions were scaled and open-ended, with 48 participants in the conference responding (57% response rate). The majority of respondents (73%) were mathematics teacher educators (college or university). The remaining respondents were distributed across other roles (8% identified a state educator, PhD candidate, graduate student, or university induction coordinator); non-math teacher educators (6%); and college or university administrators of mathematics and K-12 mathematics teachers (4% each).
Respondents were asked to identify their purpose for attending the conference. Thirty-five respondents indicated they were active members of MTEP teams while the remaining 13 respondents indicated they were interested in learning more about MTEP. The logistics for the conference were all rated between excellent and good. As can be seen in Exhibit 2, responses from the 2024 MTEP 2.0 Conference Evaluation Report show all statements and sessions were rated highly. There were six statements regarding the Ignite Session (upper left), all rated between somewhat agree and strongly agree. The conference sessions (upper right) were all rated between somewhat useful and very useful. Ratings of agreement with statements for breakout sessions (lower left) were all rated between somewhat agree and strongly agree. Finally, ratings of agreement with statements for the conference as a whole (lower right) were rated between somewhat agree and strongly agree.
In addition to the scaled items, respondents were asked to respond to a limited number of open-ended questions at the end of the survey. Responses for the question, “What was the MOST valuable aspect of this 2024 MTEP 2.0 Conference and why?” clustered around five areas: collaboration (20 responses), networking (7 responses), Ignite Session (6 responses), goals/focus (5 responses), and structure of sessions (2 responses). When asked to offer any suggestions on the timing for the 2025 MTEP 2.0 Conference, responses clustered around four areas: evening meeting (with dinner) on Thursday (19 responses), cautions/considerations (7 responses), pre- or post-conference meeting (6 responses), and virtual option (2 responses). When asked what topics or types of sessions should be considered for inclusion in future MTEP events, including the 2025 MTEP 2.0 Conference, responses clustered around six areas: other thoughts (9 responses of individual ideas), meeting with teams/regional discussions (3 responses), partnership discussions (2 responses), equitable practices (2 responses), structure (2 responses) and funding opportunities (2 responses).
Overall, the responses to the 2024 MTEP Conference Evaluation suggest that this was a useful event that largely met the needs of the participants. The project is reviewing these responses as planning begins for the 2025 MTEP Conference to make it an even better event.