Associate Professor
Urban Education, The Graduate School
Mathematics in America’s Cities: Children, Teachers and Communities
Professor Cooley conducts a long-term study of NYC Teaching Fellows in her four-year, $2.7 million NSF project, Mathematics in America’s Cities: Children, Teachers and Communities, in collaboration with Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Each year the teaching fellows program trains 300 mathematics fellows. Since 2004, Professor Cooley has been following eight case studies of new mathematics teaching fellows by video, audio, and field notes to understand how mathematics is taught in the classroom. Studying teachers over time who are trained to teach in high needs schools and learning about what influences them will allow her to determine whether the national standards are currently being met, uncover how urban children are learning math, and make recommendations. “I want to have a research base to talk about mathematics education for teachers. There is anecdotal information and people have opinions of what teachers should do, but very little is based on research.”