Building mathematics skills in a vocational context
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Mathematics
How did the teachers prepare for and implement the project?
The Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers covered a variety of vocational subjects:
- business and marketing;
- information technology;
- health occupations;
- automotive technology;
- agricultural mechanics; and
- horticulture.
The 114 teachers chosen to implement the pilot project each found a maths teacher who was willing to work with them. Together, they attended a professional development workshop for their specific curriculum area. During the workshop, the teams of maths and CTE teachers identified the mathematical concepts embedded in their particular CTE curriculum. Together, they developed between five and ten lessons that would help to teach these concepts explicitly.
Each lesson had to include specific elements. As well as planning the lessons together during the course, the pairs of teachers met before each lesson to review the lesson plan, discuss questions that might come up and to cover any queries or concerns that the CTE teacher might have. After each lesson had been taught, the pair met again and discussed how it went, using a series of debriefing questions provided by the researchers. The maths teacher wrote up and submitted a report to the researchers, based on this discussion.
The maths teachers supported their colleagues before and after the lessons, but the CTE teachers had to teach the maths-enhanced lessons alone. The learning was two-way. Maths teachers described the experience as “eye-opening” and were particularly enthusiastic about learning new applications. During the project, mutual respect between the colleagues grew.
“My partner is a veteran… he’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know.” (Maths teacher)
“We try in mathematics to get real-world applications, but [CTE] is doing it every day – they’re just right in there.” (Maths teacher)
