Richard Pieper

Fellowship Placement: National Science Foundation
Cohort: 2003-2004

Richard Pieper has taught for twenty-three years in the public schools in both Idaho and Wyoming at the junior high and high school levels in mathematics. The last eight years Richard was involved in ongoing professional development and teaching with standards-based mathematics curricula. He also coached MathCounts for eighteen years.

During his fellowship, Richard served in the National Science Foundation in the Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education (ESIE) Division of the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate. Some of the activities in which Richard participated were: gathering and compiling research on the effectiveness of standards-based mathematics curriculum and professional development to help teachers implement the curricula, assisting with meetings between program officers and principle investigators, giving feedback on content and wording of proposals being developed, and helping with the planning and carrying out of the week honoring the Presidential Awardees who came to Washington, DC during that time.

Richard’s Fellowship experience gave him the opportunity to see the STEM educational process from a broad view at the national level. He became more aware of the many vibrant STEM curricula that exists and their impact on student learning. These experiences have been invaluable in his current position (since 2004) in the mathematics department at Brigham Young University-Idaho where he helps to prepare future PK-12 mathematics teachers and has been involved in creating curriculum and course materials.