Today, My grade level colleagues, the math coach, and I attended the Massachusetts Math and Science Institute at WPI in Worcester. It was a wonderful institute that demonstrated great depth and effort with regard to math and science teaching in Massachusetts. There were many wonderful take aways.
Commissioner Riley opened the day with an uplifting message about teacher-driven efforts.
Later in the day, John Urschel gave an inspiring talk about his story related to math and education as well as his thoughts about education today. He highlighted the fact that he wished he knew more about the field of math and great mathematicians when he was young, but instead it wasn't until college that he learned more about the field.
The specific workshops introduced me to the Massachusetts Math and Science Ambassadors' work which is linked on this page.
Specifically I learned more about the problem solving approaches below:
Three Act Tasks
I also spent time at a workshop related to building new tasks and what makes up a high quality task. The rubrics at the top and bottom of the page were cited as good resources for task development and identification. The process below for task development was shared with us.
- What standards do we want to include?
- How can we match the rubric for high quality instruction?
- Draft, pilot, assess, reflect, and revise
I met Hilary Kreisberg who authored the book below, a good book to share with families who want to empower their child's math success and engagement.
Moving towards greater depth and success with math teaching and learning takes time. I look forward to studying the materials shared with greater focus this summer and into next year on my own and with colleagues. It's awesome to see a movement in the directions shared today as I'm sure it will spell greater success and engagement for students throughout the state.
