Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

At this meeting, our newest member Ramsey introduced himself and asked great questions about the program. Welcome to LREI, Ramsey!

Before the meeting, I shared this survey to understand the kinds of questions the members of the math department were considering in the midst of their work this fall, and what work seemed most productive to continue going into next year. Once everyone contributed, I shared the results to form the basis of the conversation.

At the meeting, we split into cross-divisional groups to explore different aspects of our practice: 1) pedagogical practice, 2) the math program, and 3) the paradigm of school mathematics in general, and our relationship to it at LREI. Each group was charged with discussing any themes that came up in the survey results.

Many themes were familiar (in practice, differentiation assessment; in program, the question of tracking and how we align/compete with other schools, especially in the middle school years when transfers and applications are frequent; in paradigm, the versions of progressivism and our broad goals for our students across 14 years and beyond). An urgency emerged in the conversation about finding where data literacy was found in our curriculum.

As for the activity focus of the year, the department was most interested in two approaches: 1) exploring conceptual through lines across the program, and 2) planning and reflecting around a big school visit for the whole department, like the visit to the Park School a few years ago. (There was also moderate interest in reviewing/streamlining/reforming the curriculum).

Taken together, the department decided that it would be worthwhile to focus on the two aspects of our practice. 1) Data literacy in our curriculum: we would consider the conceptual through-lines in each division for data literacy (probability and statistics), how we align with peer institutions that our students come from (or go to) in the middle years, and ultimately how we align with curricular standards like the Common Core. We would also explore 2) planning and reflecting around a school visit to a K-12 progressive school. Our intention is to study how they integrate a) data literacy across the curriculum, and b) how they differentiate in classes and how their structure affects how they think about differentiation (class selection and tracking). It was suggested that a list of past NIPEN schools might provide a good list of possible locations.

I will follow up with the department to plan next steps.