Mary Maxwell West

Organization/Institution
About Me (Bio)
Since joining PERG in 1993, Mary has worked primarily on evaluation and research on the Bob Moses Algebra Project. The work has included:An 11-year study of the development of the math department, and student outcomes, in one middle school;
Studies of classroom discourse of two master teachers; Tracking student math course enrollment from Algebra Project middle schools into high school in three sites, with comparison groups;Collaborating with project-affiliated mathematicians, math educators, and professional development specialists, to study teacher development; Collaborating with the project's youth initiative to describe youth development; Coordinating researchers in various sites across the country.

Prior to joining PERG, Mary was evaluator for an NSF-funded grant for development of mathematics teacher preparation programs at four Boston area universities; a grant for college Algebra materials development; a grant for dissemination of NSF-funded elementary and middle school math curricula. She also conducted research on the development of proportional reasoning, and on science teachers' use of a computer-based conferencing system. She was also Co-director of a national center, based at Harvard Graduate School of Education, for research on new technologies in math and science education.

Algebra Project, Inc.
09/01/2008

This project is developing and conducting research on the Cohort Model for addressing the mathematics education of students that perform in the bottom quartile on state and district tests. The predicted outcome is that most students will remain in the cohort for all four years and that almost all of those who do will perform well enough on college entrance exams to be admitted and will test out of remedial mathematics courses.