Professional Development Program for High School Mathematics Teachers

IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, January 23-27, 2006

    1. Preliminary

      This program aims to offer free training for high school mathematics teachers throughout the state of Rio de Janeiro. It has been conducted in various forms since 1990, covering topics relevant to all three years of high school. Currently, this program receives support from the Millennium Institute Project for the Global and Integrated Advancement of Brazilian Mathematics and Contribution to the Region , the Financing Agency for Studies and Projects (FINEP), VITAE Support for Culture, Education and Social Promotion, and the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro .

      This program resulted in a series of books specifically aimed at high school teachers, published in the SBM 's Mathematics Teacher Collection . It is safe to say that this collection represents the best resource available in Brazil for training high school mathematics teachers.

      Most of the first books in the collection resulted from the first phase of the program, carried out between 1990 and 1993, sponsored by VITAE, which trained approximately 800 teachers from all over Brazil. Each of the books from this project is dedicated to a topic in secondary education. The following titles are available:

      In a later phase, with the support of the CAPES-FAPERJ program, the books entitled *The Mathematics of High School – vol. 1* , *vol. 2* , and *vol. 3* were produced. As the name indicates, they are organized to cover, each one, the material of one of the high school grades. In addition to the care taken with the concept and critical perspective of each topic, present in all the books in the Collection, the books in this new series are more relevant to the classroom, discussing the teacher's role in teaching each subject and offering suggestions for their practice. There is a constant concern to provide teachers with tools to demonstrate the relevance of what they teach, relating the topics to each other and to their applications.

    2. Program details
      • Course Organization

        The program is conducted in independent modules, each covering selected topics from all three grade levels. Activities within each module take place during school breaks.

      • Training development

        The group to be trained will consist of 100 teachers in the State of Rio de Janeiro and 50 to 100 teachers in other centers. Each module consists of full-time training (from 9 am to 5 pm) for one week. Daily activities consist of lectures in the morning and group work in the afternoon.

    3. Location

      Each module of the program will be held simultaneously at IMPA and partner institutions throughout the country. Lectures will be broadcast live via the internet, using RNP's infrastructure, from IMPA to participating institutions in other states. Participating professors will be able to submit questions during the lectures using a chat program. Afternoon activities will be conducted locally. The participating institutions are as follows:

    4. Team

      The team responsible for preparing and implementing the two modules that make up this project consists of:

      • Augusto César Morgado
      • Eduardo Wagner
      • Elon Lages Lima (coordinator)
      • Paulo Cezar Pinto Carvalho
      • Maria Celano Maia (executive secretary)
      • Priscilla Fernandes Pomateli (secretary)

      This group has been working together for several years on activities related to mathematics education, such as the publication of the Mathematics Teacher's Magazine, the Mathematics Olympiads (regional, national and international), the authorship of several books on secondary school mathematics and, mainly, the conception and implementation of this program.

    5. Schedule:

      For this module, the selected topics were:

        • Complex Numbers
        • Polynomials
        • Linear Systems
        • Analytic Geometry in Space
        • Matrices and Determinants

      Program of the Week

      Exercises and Solutions

    6. Previous Programs