MIST Project Progress

District Theories of Action
In the Summer and Fall of 2007, we interviewed district leaders to document the four participating districts' theories of action for improving the quality of middle grades mathematics teaching and learning. A theory of action comprises (1) a district's goals for high-quality mathematics instruction, (2) its design for supporting instructional improvement, and (3) the underlying conjectures about both a trajectory of organizational improvement and the specific means of supporting the envisioned improvement process.

Round 1 Data Collection and Feedback Cycle
In January 2008 we interviewed approximately 50 district leaders, school leaders, coaches, and teachers in each of the four districts about school and district level supports. In May 2008, we provided feedback based on an analysis of the interviews to District Leaders in each of the four districts. This feedback focused on how their improvement designs are actually playing out and included actionable recommendations about how their improvement designs might be adjusted to make them more effective. We also presented our findings to groups of principals and teachers in each district.

Round 2 Data Collection and Feedback Cycle
In October 2008 we interviewed District Leaders in each of the four districts to document any changes to their improvement designs, thereby documenting the impact of our feedback. In January-March 2009, we will collect a second round of data and provide feedback to the District Leaders in May 2009.

Establishment of Base-Line Data by which to Measure Instructional Improvement
We have completed the following analyses to establish base-line data against which to assess their improvements in teachers' instructional practices and the institutional settings in which they work during the last three years of the project:
1) We have completed an analysis of the 120 teachers' instructional practices, based on video data collected during Round One. We used the Instructional Quality Assessment (IQA), developed by the University of Pittsburgh, to code two problem-solving lessons for each teacher.
2) We have completed an analysis of the 120 teachers and 29 middle grades mathematics coaches' mathematical knowledge for teaching, using the Learning Mathematics for Teaching Assessment (LMT), developed by Deborah Ball and colleagues at the University of Michigan.
3) We are in the midst of completing an analysis of the Round One survey data (120 teachers and 30 principals).

Ongoing Analyses to Test and Refine our Hypotheses
1) In order to test and refine our hypotheses about how a shared vision of high-quality mathematics instruction among varied stakeholders supports instructional improvement at scale, we are developing measures of the extent to which a shared vision of high-quality mathematics teaching has been established across teachers, school leaders, and district leaders.

2) In order to test and refine our hypotheses about whether and under what conditions mathematics teacher networks support instructional improvement at scale, we are completing an analysis of teacher advice networks for each of the participating schools and creating a measure of the depth of interaction that is specific to teaching mathematics.

3) In order to test and refine our hypotheses about how access to expertise supports instructional improvement at scale, we are currently using our measures of teacher, coach, and principal expertise and our network analysis to answer the following questions:
• How is access to expertise facilitated by other dimensions of the institutional setting in which instructional leaders and teachers work (e.g., presence of teacher networks, extent to which a shared vision of high-quality instruction has been established, relations of accountability and assistance, forms of instructional leadership)?
• How do dimensions of principal expertise support access to expertise for mathematics teachers?
• How do differences in coaching models affect how coaches' expertise is recognized and how coaches are used to support instructional improvement at scale?