Career and Technical Education Mathematics Professional Development Program

Helping all students achieve high academic standards is a shared goal of faculty and administrators. CORD has developed a strategic professional development program designed to help teachers infuse higher levels of mathematics into career and technical education courses at the high school level. The program will enable CTE teachers and academic teachers to deepen students’ understanding of algebra and geometry concepts as they are used to solve authentic workplace problems. The career areas offered for training are: 

• Agriculture/Natural Resources
• Automotive Technology
• Business and Marketing
• Construction
• Health Services

CORD’s Math Enrichment for Career and Technical Education uses example exercises from the technical areas above as a basis for professional development.  The program encourages a strong working relationship between academic math teachers and the CTE teachers in each school.  CTE and Math teacher pairs will correlate CTE and math standards and learn the process of developing workplace problems.  In addition, teachers will learn to integrate authentic workplace problems into CTE and Academic math courses.

Math Topics Covered

Prealgebra
Fractions
Decimals
Powers and Roots
Geometry, Basic Concepts and Terms
Scientific Notation
Data Displays

Algebra
Writing and Solving Equations and Inequalities
Ratio, Proportion, and Percent
Measurement and Unit Analysis
Formulas
Linear Equations and Inequalities
Nonlinear Equations
Systems of Equations and Inequalities
Statistics and Probability

Geometry
Right-Triangle Relationships
Perimeter and Circumference
Area
Volume of Prisms and Cylinders

Program Details
This professional development program is designed for 30 teachers per session. Schools are encouraged to include a teacher in each of the career areas selected and a math teacher to work together as a team. The program encompasses:

• 6 days of face-to-face training (to be delivered within a 13-week period as three, 2-day sessions on math concepts, strategies, and program goals)
• 13 weeks of online support (delivered between and after face-to-face sessions)
• Teacher’s training manual 
• CD-ROM of problem bank developed during the program and one-year subscription to a web-based problem bank collected from professional development delivered nationwide

Comments from recent course participants:

From a CTE teacher:

“When I got my kids at the beginning of the year, they couldn't believe how much math I was teaching them.  They even made the comment that they came here for Building Construction, not math.  Now they can see the relevance of it. Believe it or not, my kids have gotten used to all the math that I teach.  In using a Builder's Level or Transit Level, they can now figure distances (hypotenuse) and the angle to turn the level. Now it is an everyday thing to them.  They aren't intimidated by math anymore.”

From Academic teachers:

“I think I'm more consciously seeking associations between what I teach and what career/tech teachers do and use. I think I'm including more references to those areas in my explanations and examples. My mindset for viewing my topics is broader and less abstract because of the time I've spent hearing how career/tech teachers view the same content.”

“I also enjoyed seeing how CTE teachers approach similar subject matter, and I agree, it has broadened my horizons considerably.”