By Meghan Leadabrand, MTEP 2.0 project co-manager
We are excited to welcome the newest team to the MTEP network, the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) networked improvement community (NIC). The UNI NIC team is a partnership between the UNI Department of Mathematics, UNI College of Education, and a local high school.
By Spring 2028, the UNI NIC aims to improve retention of math teaching majors by 5% and improve relationships between the UNI Department of Mathematics, UNI College of Education and partner school districts to create a cadre of mentor teachers. The team’s current focus is retention, including improving pass rates for specific courses, providing departmental support for students to build a mathematics community, improving the consistency and proactiveness of student academic advising and effectively collecting and communicating data for course enrollment needs within the math department.
The team joined MTEP to connect with other teams working to transform secondary mathematics education preparation, share strategies across teams, and to meaningfully engage in the PDSA cycle process, said team leader Elizabeth Hughes, UNI professor of mathematics education.
"Before joining MTEP, we often 'felt' that our efforts to improve our program were successful and possibly had anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness," said Hughes. "Using the PDSA cycle has really helped us collect data to support those 'feelings' of success. Having real evidence of our effective changes has made a positive impact on our attempts to convince stakeholders to support our efforts."
Additional team members include faculty from the UNI Department of Mathematics (Kimberly Conner, Heather Gallivan, Catherine Miller, Chepina Rumsey, Sam Eskelson, Brian Townsend, Adrienne Stanley and TJ Hitchman) and the UNI College of Education (Megan Balong). The team also includes the math department chair of Cedar Falls High School (Joshua Wilkinson).
"We have always sought to improve various aspects of our mathematics teaching program and frequently enact new innovations," said Hughes. "We look forward to sharing our successes and learning more about the work other MTEP NICs are doing."