Chapter 8: Curriculum Implementation Through Teacher Collaboration

The year Columbia Public Schools (CPS) began full implementation of Connected Mathematics (Lappan, Fey, Fitzgerald, Friel, & Phillips, 2002), I became the full-time mathematics coordinator for grades 6–12. I entered teaching as a second career and after eight years as a classroom teacher, I became the mathematics coordinator on a part-time basis. As a former junior high and high school mathematics teacher I brought a variety of experiences to the position of secondary mathematics coordinator. These experiences included using the NSF-funded secondary mathematics program Core-Plus (Coxford et al., 1998), serving as president of our state mathematics association, and collaborating as a writer of the Missouri Curriculum Framework and related documents.