Essential Competencies

What Are The Essential Competencies?

SREB states have committed to the following middle grades goal: Achievement in the middle grades for all groups of students exceeds national averages and performance gaps are closed. This goal can only be achieved with a middle grades mission that prepares all students for success in a rigorous high school curriculum via high-quality instruction from knowledgeable teachers. The current status of mathematics achievement and teacher quality in the SREB states provides evidence that a set of agreed-upon essential competencies for middle grades mathematics teachers is needed. In response to this need, the Essential Competencies were developed SREB convened an advisory panel consisting of middle grades and high school mathematics teachers, district-level mathematics coordinators, higher education faculty in both the Arts and Sciences and Colleges of Education, and selected state department of education representatives. Using the following guiding questions, the panel's charge was to identify the most essential mathematics content and pedagogy competencies for middle grades mathematics teachers:

• What knowledge, skills and experiences in mathematics do middle grades mathematics teachers need to be successful?
• What knowledge, skills and experiences in mathematics do middle grades mathematics teachers typically lack if they have an elementary education background?
• What knowledge, skills and experiences in mathematics separate middle grades mathematics teachers who are successful from those who are not?

Every state department of education in the SREB region reviewed the competencies to ensure that they were indeed the most essential competencies for middle grades mathematics teachers. Finally, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education standards and Praxis II assessment framework from the Educational Testing Service for middle grades mathematics were used as validity checks.

The Essential Competencies for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers include three different types of competencies:

• Mathematics Content Competencies
• Mathematics Process Competencies
• Instructional Competencies

Mathematics Content Competencies

The 12 mathematics content competencies address the major strands of mathematic including: number and operations, algebra and functions, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Teachers need to study mathematics at an advanced level so they understand the importance of what they are teaching in the middle grades and how it connects to what students will be learning in high school. With more middle grades mathematics teachers teaching courses for high school credit, the content in the mathematics content competencies is intended to develop that level of expertise in teachers.

Mathematics Process Competencies

The five mathematics process competencies provide the context for learning the material contained in the content competencies. Middle grades mathematics teachers need to investigate mathematical ideas and build their confidence as mathematicians in order to pass that spirit of learning mathematics on to their students.

Instructional Competencies

The five instructional or pedagogy competencies focus on how mathematics is taught is just as important as what mathematics is taught, especially to middle grades students. The pedagogy competencies are intended to provide guidance to teachers in the area of preparation for instruction, using appropriate tools in instruction and reflecting on the effectiveness of lessons to determine how well the instructional plan was implemented.

Learn how the seven (7) online courses address each of the required competencies visit the SREB Middle Grades Math Series Course and Competency Matrix.

How you can use the competencies

States and individual teachers can use the competencies in a number of ways.

States can:

• upgrade the content knowledge of teachers currently teaching middle grades mathematics by assisting districts and schools in assessing current teachers' mathematics content knowledge. The Essential Competencies for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers can serve as a framework for preparing self- and external assessment of mathematics knowledge;
• use the Essential Competencies for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers as the basis for providing ongoing content-focused professional development workshops. South Carolina is one SREB state that has used regional professional development for middle grades mathematics teachers to improve student achievement;
• use the Essential Competencies for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers to mount a statewide effort to realign the mathematics curriculum to have more students leaving grade eight ready for or having completed Algebra I; and
• use the seven Web-based courses designed to increase the content knowledge of middle grades mathematics teachers and to make quality courseware more accessible to existing middle grades teachers.

Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers can:

• Carefully review the 22 competencies and assess their understanding of each;
• Take the ETS Praxis II Middle Grades Mathematics "Testlet" (forthcoming on TheTeacherCenter website) to further assess their current knowledge and understanding in essential mathematics competencies;
• Determine which courses from the series best meet their current needs in content, process and instruction using the competency/course matrix;
• Review the course information on the site; and
• Begin the enrollment process.