Teaching Fellows' Meetings

2007 Mathematics Cohort Fellows' Meetings

The 2006 and 2007 Mathematics Cohorts met together for their fall meeting in Manhattan Beach, CA. Throughout the meeting, fellows analyzed video cases as well as segments of their own teaching to examine the role of questioning as a means to assess and advance students’ understanding.  The fellows also explored how different mathematics tasks provide students with different opportunities to learn mathematical concepts and teachers different opportunities to assess student thinking and reasoning.

The fellows continued to work on their reflective portfolios by working in small groups to clarify their goal for the year and identify steps that could be taken to learn about and improve on that goal. Each lesson study group also met to discuss progress.

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) played host to the 2007 Math Fellows Cohort spring 2008 meeting. The meeting was held on April 4 & 5, 2008 at their Washington, DC, headquarters in the Carriage House Conference Center. Coinciding with Washington’s Cherry Blossom Festival, the fellows attended two days of workshops on the role of technology in the mathematics curriculum and understanding content.  The Fellows recently received a copy of Maple 11, a mathematical computer algebra system. Therefore, most of the workshops focused on how to create interactive, inquiry-based activities using Maple 11. The workshops were led by Dr. Douglas Ensley, Professor of Mathematics at Shippensburg University and Editor of the MAA Digital Library. Dr. Ensley began with a series of examples designed to familiarize the fellows with Maple’s capabilities. The workshops concluded with the Fellows designing their own inquiry-based activities based on the information provided by Dr. Ensley. These activities will eventually be implemented in their classrooms and incorporated into their portfolios and lesson study.

The Fellows also continued to work on their lesson study units and their 2008 portfolio goals.

October 19-20, 2007 

The Holiday Inn Golden Gate Hotel in downtown San Francisco, California was the location for the fall 2007 meeting of the 2007 Math Fellows Cohort. The first meeting for this cohort was filled with a number of activities that were designed to challenge the fellows’ perceptions of mathematics and how to use their knowledge of mathematics to build effective activities that engage students in the discovery process. The workshops were led by Dr. Judy Rector, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at Berea College. Dr. Rector led the fellows through a series of activities that demonstrated the use of manipulatives in scaffolding mathematical concepts. The workshops were supplemented with a visit to Mission High School where the fellows had an opportunity to observe and compare the activities of Mission High School mathematics teachers with the activities presented in the workshops.

The Fellows also worked on their lesson study units which were started at the summer 2007 meeting and began discussions of their 2008 portfolio goals.