Improvement Program for High School Mathematics Teachers

IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, January 22-26, 2001.

  1. Preliminaries

    This project aims to provide training for high school math teachers from all over the state of Rio de Janeiro. It has been running since 1990 and continues the successful program undertaken by the same group to train teachers in subjects relating to the three grades of secondary school.

    It resulted in a series of books especially aimed at secondary school teachers, published in the SBM’s Mathematics Teacher’s Collection. It is safe to say that this collection represents the best reference available in Brazil for training secondary school mathematics teachers.

    Most of the first books in the collection were the result of another project undertaken by the same group, sponsored by VITAE, which trained around 800 teachers from all over Brazil. Each of the books from this project is dedicated to a high school subject. The following titles are available:

    In another phase, which was supported by the CAPES-FAPERJ program, the books entitled A Matemática do Ensino Médio – volume 1, volume 2 and volume 3 were produced. As the name suggests, they are organized in such a way as to cover, each one, the material for one of the high school grades. In addition to the care taken with the concept and the critical view of each subject, present in all the books in the Collection, the books in this new series are closer to the classroom, discussing the teacher’s attitude when teaching each subject and giving suggestions for their performance. There is a constant concern to give teachers the tools to demonstrate the relevance of what they teach, relating the topics to each other and to applications.

    Distribution of the first volume of the series began in January 1997 and aroused strong interest throughout the country. The first edition, of 2000 copies, sold out in six months. The state of Ceará, for example, bought 750 copies to distribute to all the teachers in its network. The Pró-Ciências programs in Ceará, Pernambuco, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Santa Catarina and Goiás use the same book.

  2. Program breakdown
    • Course Organization

      The program consists of two modules, covering selected topics from the three grades. In each module, the first activities take place during school breaks.

    • Training development

      The group to be trained will include 100 teachers. Each of the two modules will be applied over the course of a semester, according to the schedule below:

      1o Module: from January to June
      2o Module: July to November

      The beginning of each module consists of full-time training for one week. Each day’s activities consist of lectures in the morning and group work in the afternoon. At the end of the working week, each group of teachers receives an assignment, involving problem-solving and the preparation of additional teaching materials.

      Three months after the start of each module (March, April and May for the 1st and August, September and October for the 2nd), one-day follow-up meetings are held on a Sunday each month to critically discuss the work done by the groups.

      Teachers will be assessed at the beginning and end of each module. The assessments will seek to measure the evolution of the teachers’ knowledge and attitude towards the subjects studied. The initial assessment will consist of a general test aimed at estimating the teacher’s familiarity with the central themes of secondary school mathematics. The final assessment will be made up of the homework plus a written test, which will aim to determine the extent to which the teacher has taken advantage of the opportunity to observe the ideas presented by the instructors.

      All activities are carried out at IMPA.

  3. Team

    The team responsible for preparing and applying the two modules that make up this project is made up of:

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

    This group has been working together for several years on activities related to the teaching of mathematics, such as the publication of the Mathematics Teacher’s Magazine (which has existed for 14 years), the Mathematics Olympics (regional, national and international), the authorship of several books on secondary school mathematics and, above all, the design and implementation of this program.

  4. Registration
  5. Previous Programs