Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

This meeting, along with the next one, were a two-step approach to further integrating DEI principles into our personal and departmental goals for next year. We reviewed the discussions we’ve had over the last two years and revisited the criteria of Access and Achievement (along the “dominant” axis) and Identity and Power (along the “critical” axis) applied to math education to guide us in our work.

Following the discussion to determine what was most useful for the group, we talked about the challenge presented by addressing controversial topics in a math class, and what kind of training or preparation we might need to skillfully integrate contemporary issues with our math content, and also to facilitate discussions that exclude no one in the class. We also consider how the detracked model in the upper grades of the MS program and the changes planned for the HS program will dovetail with this effort.

Next time we meet we will set out personal professional goals related to both the dominant and critical axes, as well as departmental goals for the year.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

We began the meeting with a math problem to get the math mind working!

We heard from members of each division about the work that we had been doing severally, with an eye on equity in the realms of pedagogy and curriculum. The MS faculty are visiting one another’s classrooms and reflecting together on choices they make in classes. Chris shared with us a project his students have been working on for Black History Month, in which a student presents on a black mathematician each time the class meets. This is reminiscent of the Mathematician Project and might be a good model to elaborate on.

In the HS, we reported on the outcome of our daylong workshop, articulating and refining the content of a two-year core sequence in the high school that we envision as being detracked, picking up on the work the middle school program has been doing this year with the 8th grade. We anchored the content for this class in the progressive and inclusive values we have made explicit in previous meetings. In brief, we’ve determined the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. Our next move is to discuss the ‘how’ — work for the spring trimester.

We looked briefly at the draft of the curriculum assessment tool and wondered if it could be made more concrete somehow. We will revisit this at our next meeting.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

The math department did not meet this week. The time will be dedicated to develop changes in the middle and high school curricula to support the revisioning of the math program. We will meet together as a department in February for updates and to plan near-term and long term changes.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

We opened the meeting by discussing the revisioning that is underway in the high school math department. We reviewed some of the materials that came out of our workshop day on Wednesday 10/13, focusing first on the potential we see for a variety of exciting math electives for 11th and 12th graders.

From there, the conversation pivoted to what such a slate of electives would require in the 9th and 10th grade core sequence, how that could be organized, potential obstacles, and finally what the changes would mean for our colleagues in the middle school. We discussed how math as a secondary school subject is perceived by our students and their families, and what structural tensions we have to address when considering a revision to our approach. While the original agenda had included some activities related explicitly to DEI principles, several were addressed in our conversation about the organization of the high school program, including equity considerations by race and by learning difference, and the challenge of meeting the needs of diverse learners in both heterogenous and tracked math classes.

Next meeting we will explore the work being done in the middle school on standards-based grading, get a brief update on the high school’s work, and revisit the activities on the agenda for this past meeting.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

Please find the agenda and meeting slides at this link for the overview of the math department’s meeting. Here were a few takeaways:

• We welcomed Chris and Holmes to our middle school faculty, and Joon to our high school faculty as a leave replacement for Sergei.
• We reviewed last year’s work on the DEI initiative laid out by the school, and reacquainted ourselves with a central frame that focuses on access, achievement, identity, and power.
• Michelle updated the department on a change in the structure of 8th grade math classes: the students have not been split into normal- and accelerated-paced classes. To meet the needs of the students, an extra period for support or enrichment has been provided for 8th grade students.
• Pat updated the department about ongoing work among the high school math faculty, re-visioning the math program there and focusing on a two-year core cycle that leads into a elective program for junior and senior year for all students.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

After playing around with a few neat maps that I came across on the Internet, we used the short meeting (my last of the year with parental leave in T3) to start thinking ahead to goal-setting for the 21-22 school year.

We discussed the initial frame for the current year, set out by the DEI Coordinators and by the chair (and determined somewhat by COVID times as well). Given that COVID impacts and our community’s commitment to DEI work will continue into next school year, I laid out a framework for goal-setting for the department. Each member will have two personal practice goals: one focused on access and achievement (the “dominant” math ed paradigm) and one focused on identity and power (the “critical” math ed paradigm). They can articulate these now and prep over the summer for their implementation in the new school year. (When the department first meets next year, we’ll be able to reflect on progress so far, rather than starting this process then!)

We will also collectively choose a departmental goal, using the list of questions that the DEI coordinators and Mark offered to us in the beginning of this school year, on the assumption that those questions will still be relevant.

We will set both personal and departmental goals across the last two meetings of the year. For T3, Karima will take over the chair responsibilities of facilitating and recording while I’m on leave.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

In our third meeting of the year, the members of the math department reported out on their progress with the goals they had stated in meeting #2, and also offered a general check-in about new learnings recently. In particular, we discussed aspects of our classes that we felt more confident about in our second trimester of remote and concurrent/in-person learning.

In our previous meeting, several high school teachers had suggested they were thinking about introducing the Gini index in their upperclass courses, and with updates a collaboration was proposed between several junior and senior math classes at the end of T2. Also, “Data Talks” were discussed as a means to start classes in the middle school, so as a way of get students thinking about stats and their application to contemporary issues. Finally, several teachers talked about their work in emphasizing rich classroom discussions over Zoom, formative assessment, and methods for offering voice comments on student work.

Next, Lindsey Rosenblatt, a consultant working with the Lower School this year on differentiating the program and supporting teachers, presented some of the work she was doing with students, including some videos of Lower School students doing Number Talks to supplement their math work in the classroom.

Finally, we planned for a group share-out of takeaways from recent PDs and helpful tools. Also, in response to the needs stated by members of the department in meeting #2, the chair offered a variety of resources related to identity work in mathematics and data sets to help bring contemporary issues into our classrooms. See below for that list.

Next meeting will include the share out and triple-goal-setting for next year: first, personal goals for each member along both the dominant and critical axes of mathematical education (as discussed in meetings #1 and #2), and second, a department-wide goal relating to the equity considerations offered at the top of the year by the DEI coordinators.

Here are the resources for consideration.

• Mathematicians from Marginalized Communities

• • • • The Mathematicians Project: Mathematicians are Not Just White Dudes. Crowdsourced research into nonwhite and nonmale mathematicians, with more resources. (link)
      • Black History Month and Mathematics. Projects and resources related to Benjamin Banneker and Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughn (link)

• “Real World” Data Sets

• • • • Our World in Data — visualizations, newsletter (link)
      • The COVID Tracking Project (link)

• Math and Social Justice/Anti-Racism

• • • Mathematics and Social Justice Course at Swarthmore, reading list and syllabus (link)
    • AMS Blog: What does anti-racism in math look like? (link)
    • Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) article: Mathematics in Context: The Pedagogy of Liberation (link)
    • From the Packer blog: Building an Anti-Racist Math Curriculum (link)

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

Submitted by: Pat Higgisotn

The substance of our last meeting of the year was a check-in where each member of the department shared one hope for next year and one challenge they anticipated. We discussed these together, and planned to attend or watch one online PD relevant to our concerns on our own time and be ready to report back on it. Some opportunities shared with the group are copied below.

We also celebrated Debra Rawlins, the departing Lower School Math Coordinator.

 1) NCTM 100 Days of Professional Learning: This is so much good stuff! A whole chunk of the cancelled NCTM annual conference put online, easily accessible if you missed the time for the webinar. These are generally NOT specified to online teaching/learning, but now is a good time to think outside the box. They continue through August. I’d point out a few that I’m excited about but like there are a lot!

2) Problem-Based Learning K-12 Virtual Summit: Passed on to me by former LREI math teacher Chris Vicevich, this is tomorrow and is quite long but you can attend just one or two parts and access recordings later. Also free! I’ve signed up already. If we’re online-only next year(?), it might be a good time to explore the kind of work students can do independently and then report back on.

3) Virtual STEM Forum on Remote Learning: More geared to the moment, these are free recordings posted during Teacher Appreciation Week.

4) YouCubed’s 21st Century Teaching and Learning: Pass on by our very own Michelle Boehm, a six lesson course on data science and its application/integration to math ed. Relevant to our mutual interests! 

5) Desmos Webinars: A variety of trainings on using Desmos, some of which are geared to remote learning (but all of which are relevant to it, since Desmos is a digital tool so many students are already familiar with).

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

We did a few rounds of the Rose/Bud/Thorn protocols to check in — first about where we were conferencing from (five Brooklyns, two Manhattans, one North Carolina, one Hawaii!), and then what has been working well in the time of distance learning and what has been challenging.

Many reported success in using tools like Seesaw, Classroom, and Jamboard, and in hearing more from students that we don’t often hear from in class. There was hope that we could bring some of our online tools back with us when we return to normal classroom teaching. Persistent challenges included using the brief time with have with our classes, and creating connections with students who are struggling.

We kept things light and short for all of the reasons meetings should be light and short right now. For our next and final meeting of the year, we hope to take advantage of NCTM’s 100 Days of Professional Learning, the program of livestreams and webinars, presenting the workshops that were intended for the Annual Conference this year but were cancelled along with it. We’ll also briefly look ahead to next year, acknowledging the persistent uncertainty while thinking about what recovery from this time will look like in the math program.