The Arizona Mathematics Partnership (AMP) began in 2012 as a National Science Foundation-funded grant project involving Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Glendale Community College, Scottsdale Community College and seven Arizona school districts. AMP’s primary goal is to support teachers in advancing their knowledge about the teaching and learning of middle school mathematics, while supporting shifts in national mathematics content standards and student practices.
AMP provided a systemic model of sustainable professional development in partner schools and colleges to achieve the goal of increasing student achievement in middle school mathematics courses, enabling them to make a successful transition to more challenging courses in high school. AMP served more than 300 math teachers in Arizona who participated in:
- Summer institutes and workshops that emphasized the development of conceptual understanding, computational fluency, and problem‑solving skills among the participants and their students
- Collaborative communities of learners (CCOLs) that helped teachers connect what they learned in the institutes and workshops with their classroom practices
- Instructional rounds that engaged administrators with the CCOLs
- Targeted development of teacher leaders to sustain the CCOLs beyond the AMP project’s life.
AMP had a positive effect on student mathematical achievement. Average scores on the state-level assessment of the students taught by AMP teachers increased after participating in AMP, relative to no changes in scores prior to participating in AMP. Student achievement scores also increased for each year a student was taught by an AMP teacher.
For more information about AMP, visit https://apps.cgc.maricopa.edu/amp/amp/index.html.