Carol Fry Bohlin

Mathematics education professor Carol Fry Bohlin believes in taking steps to empower teachers: "I am passionate about helping teachers increase their mathematical competence and confidence so that they can go far beyond merely covering mathematics topics to uncovering the beauty and power of mathematics in their classrooms, thus helping to increase their students' knowledge of and enthusiasm for this fascinating subject." As part of her efforts, she helped develop STEPSS (Strategies for Teacher Excellence Promoting Student Success), a six-year $3.9 million project funded by the National Science Foundation. STEPSS is designed to strengthen and enhance the mathematics content knowledge and teaching skills of K-6 teachers, administrators and pre-service teachers in the Visalia Unified School District. As co-project director and coordinator of the master's program for STEPSS teachers, Bohlin's research entailed collecting attitudinal and mathematics performance data to measure the effectiveness of the program. The results showed a positive relationship between teacher involvement in STEPSS activities and their students’ performance on mathematics assessments and attitudes toward mathematics. In addition to having spearheaded the San Joaquin Valley Math Project for 15 years, Bohlin is the founding editor of the weekly news journal California Online Mathematics Education Times and the founding president of the California Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.