At a Glance
At Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center (GACTC), two certified math teachers collaborate with CTE instructors to help them integrate math concepts into lesson plans.
Overview
With the support of two math teachers, career and technical education (CTE) instructors at GACTC align their program curriculum with career-specific math concepts. First, the math teachers help the CTE instructors identify math concepts within the CTE program that they can address. The math teachers and CTE instructors then develop lesson plans and activities that address these concepts. The math teachers also provide instruction to students who need additional support with math.
Origin / Implementation
GACTC instructors wanted to better prepare students with the math skills they would need to be successful in their careers and on the math component of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). The instructors realized they needed support to help students achieve these goals. Therefore, in 2013, two math teachers began collaborating on an individual basis with CTE instructors to help them integrate math concepts and skills into their program curriculum.
The math teachers and CTE instructors meet with each other about once a week to develop math lessons. These lessons are broken down into smaller units of instruction and relate CTE math to both high school math and math concepts covered on the PSSA. The math teachers present the math lessons to students, which is done once a week during the theory classroom of each CTE program area. The lessons typically last for about 15 to 20 minutes of each 45-minute class period.
There are 28 program areas at GACTC. The two math instructors split the classes between them, and they each teach the same classes from year-to-year.
Results / Impact
To measure their progress in learning the math concepts they are taught, students are given pre- and post-assessments. The math teachers created a math PSSA bank from which to pull questions for the assessments. The 25-question assessments are structured with the same five topics covered by the PSSA exam. Both the pre- and post-assessments are given once a year.
PSSA math scores have increased over time.
Contact
Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center
http://www.gactc.edu/
Denise Bumgarner, Math Instructor
denise.bumgarner@gactc.edu