ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Tusculum College Python TEAM2 Project is designed to enhance the content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and pedagogical content knowledge of high school mathematics and computer science teachers in the high-needs school districts surrounding Tusculum College's home campus in Greene County and its instructional sites in Hamblen and Knox counties.
Project participants will benefit from five on-site days of professional development in Tusculum College’s Meen Center for Science and Math along with a 10-month online credit-bearing course in the Python computer language. The content focus will be on the use of Python computer programming to solve mathematical problems. Participants will explore mathematical concepts, learn the Python Programming language, and develop programs to solve the kinds of problems they teach in their high school classrooms.
The project will include training in the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM); Swivl™ robots and iPads which will facilitate participants’ ability to videotape their own teaching. Participants will use the video lessons to evaluate their own teaching and that of a peer using TEAM, and at the end of the project will use excerpts from those videos to highlight TEAM instructional practices. The Swivl™ robot facilitated videos, together with TEAM professional development, will enhance teachers’ skill in motivating students, grouping students, knowledge of students, and support of students’ problem solving, all of which are instructional practices embedded in TEAM. Professional development in team building and facilitating student group work will support teachers’ pedagogical skills and participants’ discussions of students’ learning of specific mathematical concepts while supporting their development of pedagogical content knowledge.