Employing Project-based Learning to Address the Next Generation Mathematics Standards in High Schools

In the summer of 2015, a five-day professional development workshop was held at West Virginia University Institute of Technology, located in Montgomery, West Virginia, with the objective of providing systematic training of project based learning to high school math teachers. Twenty-two teachers participated in the workshop. Instructors of the workshop were faculty members from West Virginia University Institute of Technology, West Virginia University, and West Virginia State University. The workshop's focus was project based learning, which employs projects closely related to real world applications to facilitate delivering abstract concepts. Specifically during the workshop, the participating high school math teachers learned designing engineering projects, mapping engineering projects to Next Generation math standards/objectives, and assessing the outcomes of project-based learning. Each participating teacher is required to implement at least one engineering project in his/her math class and the results will be collected by the superintendents of the three participating school districts. The workshop has two primary hypotheses: (i) teachers who participated in the workshop will increase their self-efficacy toward implementing project-based learning, applying engineering and technology to address content standards and objectives, and using assessments to inform instruction, and (ii) project-based learning will improve students' self-efficacy and learning effectiveness in math, and in turn, will increase their interest/intention to pursue STEM disciplines. The impact of the workshop on teachers is determined through surveys and interviews. Social Cognitive Career Theory is applied to evaluate the impact of project-based learning on the participating teachers' students. Results of the surveys, interviews, and student performance will be presented at the conference.