Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

We started with a little math: a warm-up activity from Play With Your Math (#2, the Pentagram) and a brief discussion of this map of contemporary mathematics at Quanta magazine. Karima mentioned some students working (rather diligently and over a long time) on the app SUMAZE. It’s addicting, watch out!

Then Debra shared with us the continuing work in the Lower School of transitioning to the new TERC, and we discussed the possibility of using our fifth meeting time to do classroom visits to the Lower School. Especially since we will be losing the institutional knowledge that Debra represents at the end of this year, we are hoping to get a better sense of the student experience “upstream”, both in terms of mathematical concepts and pedagogical methods.

Finally, we took a look at the Anti-Bias Domains from our PD Day handouts (also found on Teaching Tolerance’s Social Justice Standards), and had an initial discussion of how these might apply to our work in math classrooms.

We discussed the way identity could be filtered through mathematics, and how it could be more intentional when promoting student on talking about their identity (and wondered briefly about identity as mathematicians). We discussed diversity in the context of the history of math and being intentional about writing problems in class. We discussed justice applied in certain LS math projects (crowd counting, food vendor project) and in addressing gender inequities in children’s discourse.

It’s a start!

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

We started with a discussion about motivation based around a blog post, and folks shared their classroom practices relating to problem solving and sharing and learning from errors. Debra caught us up on information about the lower school program.

We discussed our audit of data literacy across the curriculum, and planned how to do that, building on the work we’ve done already. Then we discussed short and long term goals for a  school visit. From prior conversations, we had planned to look at data literacy and differentiation, but our interest seems to expand more broadly to general progressive practice in math, and how schools navigate the tension between values, practices, and institutional priorities. There seem to be some opportunities for trips to institutions like Francis Parker and the Laboratory School, but since we’re so far into the year, we’ve considered closer visits to placed like Calhoun, Avenues, or a project-based school. Inspired by the English department’s writing professional day, we wondered about the possibilities of working on math for a professional development day, perhaps at New York Math Circles.

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.

Submitted by: Pat Higgiston

We checked in to start the school year, sharing one math-related thing we did or encountered during the summer. This ranged from professional conferences, to new insights into our school-wide math curriculum, to unique encounters with math in our day-to-day lives — and opened a conversation about a controversy about mathematical notation that took hold of Twitter over the summer, and touched on the way we talk about school math with our students and the ways that context influences our work.

We then briefly reviewed the previous years’ work, led by my predecessor, Michelle Boehm, and discussed what the coming year could look like and how we could best use our time. I committed to sending around a survey to gauge the kinds of questions the members of the department were asking themselves about their math practice now.

We also discussed the possibility of doing a kind of survey of our students’ shared work in classes, based loosely on the NY Times’ photos and essay about blackboards at university campuses.

Debriefed videotaping experience. 

• • • In watching the taped classes, we noticed that all of us use group work so this was the crux of the conversation. Questions we discussed:
      • Are we doing group work just to say we are doing it?
      • While working in groups, what is the level of engagement of each student and are they creating knowledge together? How do we know?
      • When do we teach them what to do in groups? How are we teaching them to be in groups? Do they know what a productive group “looks like”?
      • How do we promote mathematical discourse during group work? How do we pay attention to the students on both ends? Example: students are in a small group discussing homework. They all have the same answer so there is no real conversation. What can we give students to promote curiosity or what can they refer to when they’re stuck? Some students don’t know the questions to ask. (Here are what Pat and Shafeiq have given their students.)
      • While working in groups, are they taking good notes?
    • How do we marry building/reinforcing technical skills while fostering risk-taking. (Kids coming through LS / MS don’t seem to be afraid to play with a problem.)

Click here to read feedback about videotaping experience in general.

Two Tuesday department times were given for members to watch and comment on 5 hours of collected class videos made by Michelle, Debra, Rob, Sergei, Pat and Shafeiq.

Debriefed first videotaped class using Swivl tech.  Small group in attendance made a quick video to get a sense of how best to use equipment.

In next month, department members will videotape a class.

In lieu of March 5th meeting, members are committed to viewing and commenting on colleagues’ videos. Once that’s done, can we identify a bigger overarching question that can be addressed in the spring that perhaps someone can come in and help us think about. Mini-retreat in spring?

Science and Math met together. Daniel shared a lesson from 9th grade chemistry (determining the relationship between pressure and volume), Debra shared a 3rd grade lesson on odd and even numbers and counting steps, and Michelle shared a 7th grade lesson on gym locker shapes/design and redesign of Dunkin’ Donuts boxes. We reflected on similarities between each and skills that we were building in common across the subjects, then we met in high school and middle/lower school groups to discuss more specific connections and reflections.

Department has agreed to engage in professional discussion of one or two of the mathematical best practices (perhaps posing purposeful questions) by videotaping a few of our classes in the next couple of months. We’ll spend a half day – end of January, mid Feb. to view and discuss. This will be much easier to do than organizing visits and we will have a shared experience as a department.