Dr. Steve Rhine Receives FIPSE Grant

We are delighted to announce that Professor Steve Rhine (Graduate School of Education) has received a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant.

The $742,000 grant from U.S. Department of Education will fund the Algebraic Thinking Project, whose purpose is to restructure pre-service math teacher education by synthesizing research on students' thinking and misconceptions of algebra into a Center for Algebraic Thinking that will empower new teachers to open the algebra gateway with their students. The Center for Algebraic Thinking will provide a suite of resources for teachers including an online encyclopedia of algebraic thinking, a catalog of formative assessment problems, and a matrix of technological tools.   Steve and colleagues from Pacific University, George Fox University, and Western Oregon University will collaborate on the Algebraic Thinking Project and restructure Math Methods courses to increase pre-service teachers' knowledge, skills, and dispositions towards students' algebraic thinking to ultimately improve students' algebra understanding, test scores, graduation rates, and college enrollment.

More about the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Program (From the U.S. Dept of Education website): The program supports and disseminates innovative reform projects that promise to be models for improving the quality of postsecondary education and increasing student access. Awards are made in a number of areas including: postsecondary education access; retention and completion; student preparation for college; cost-effectiveness; and curricula reform.

For even more about the FIPSE Program go to: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fipsecomp/index.html