News Release

Mathematics educator, researcher receives NSF CAREER award

Grant and Award Announcement

Virginia Tech

Blacksburg, Va. -- Gwen Lloyd, a mathematics educator in the Virginia Tech Department of Mathematics who also teaches methods courses in the Department of Teaching and Learning, recently received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the NSF's most prestigious awards for new faculty.

Lloyd's award will support the development of an integrated program of research and education and was received from the Research in Education, Policy, and Practice program -- part of the NSF Directorate of Education and Human Resources. The grant is for $438,354 for the years 2000-2005. The project is titled, "Building a Theory of Teacher Learning With and About Mathematics Curriculum: The Role of Innovative K-12 Materials in Elementary Teacher Education."

Lloyd will focus on the professional development of prospective elementary teachers in the context of current mathematics education reform efforts in the United States. Her published work has focused on how both pre-service and veteran mathematics teachers interpret, implement, and learn from innovative curriculum materials.

"Numerous empirical studies over the past decade have indicated that teachers' attempts to enact reform visions in their classrooms are fraught with conceptual and practical challenges," said Lloyd, "many of which relate to teachers' lack of personal familiarity with reform-oriented instructional practices and representations of mathematics. In light of this situation, this project creates opportunities for prospective teachers to learn about mathematics and pedagogy by working with reform-oriented K-12 curriculum materials, and examines how such experiences can promote meaningful, long-term changes in prospective teachers' conceptions and classroom practices."

In the mathematics and methods courses required of prospective elementary teachers, strategies will be developed for using reform-oriented curriculum materials to support the transformation of prospective teachers' conceptions of mathematics, teaching, and learning. The specific challenges that teachers encounter through engagement with curriculum materials, and the impact of these challenges on teachers' conceptions and early classroom practices, will be investigated using interpretive case study methods. Through examination of prospective and beginning teachers' learning with and about curriculum, this project will produce vital findings about the role that innovative curriculum materials can play in the educational reform process. Such results have potential to impact the content and processes of teacher preparation and professional development programs in mathematics education.

An assistant professor at Virginia Tech since 1996, Lloyd has taught mathematics content and methods courses for preservice and inservice teachers, facilitated doctoral seminars, supervised student teachers, and worked collaboratively with middle and high school teachers on reform-oriented curriculum development and implementation. In the spring of 1999, Lloyd was a member of a faculty team that received an XCaliber Award from Virginia Tech in recognition of teaching and curriculum development efforts at the Math Emporium.

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The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career development activities of those faculty members who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative, integrative, and effective research and education career development plans that build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education.

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Faculty member: Gwen Lloyd
540-231-5053 lloyd@vt.edu



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