PUBLICATIONS

2019

The Better Math Teaching Network (BMTN) is a networked improvement community of researchers, teachers, and instructional leaders from New England who use improvement science principles to increase the number of students who are actively and deeply engaged in algebra content. The BMTN’s second year of implementation occurred during the 2017–18 school year. Key findings include:

1. Continued high teacher participation and engagement. As with the first cohort, BMTN teachers actively participated in roughly 100 hours of individual, small group, and whole group network activities.
2. Increased opportunities for deep student engagement. As reported both by teachers and students, BMTN classrooms provided increasing opportunities for students to deepen their understanding of algebra over the course of the 2017–18 year.
3. Progress made towards achieving the network aim. The BMTN made steady progress towards meeting its aim of increasing the number of algebra students who connect, justify, and solve with depth.
4. Continued deepening of student-centered instruction. Through math content study groups, the selection of instructional tasks, and the testing of instructional routines, BMTN classrooms had a stronger focus on developing mathematical relationships.
5. Experienced BMTN teachers key to spreading network learning. Through their interactions with new BMTN members and the sharing of refined instructional routines, returning BMTN teachers helped accelerate the learning of new BMTN teachers and share the work of BMTN to teachers outside the network.