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Now accepting REGISTRATION for our upcoming Seminar
In Addition
after school mathematics program
Learn how to set up and fund your own
In Addition A one day seminar October 7,
2010 � Bristol, CT.
In Addition,
a much-heralded elementary school after-school program,
helps children to develop a set of convictions so they
will exhibit an increased engagement in the mathematics
learning process and become increasingly adaptive
learners who can apply their understandings in new,
unpredictable situations. It has enjoyed nine years of
success.
Speakers:
Judith
McVarish, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of
Mathematics Education at
Director of
In Addition: A
St. John�s After-School Mathematics Program in which
students and their parents build mathematical confidence
and competence by framing questions they wonder about
into investigations.
For over three
decades, Dr. McVarish has been in the mathematics
education field � as a teacher, tutor, staff developer,
and college professor. She has taught at
Margot Ely, Ph.D.
Retired professor of education at
NYU, classroom teacher, qualitative researcher, project
team member � finds her greatest satisfaction in seeking
and building collaborations that mesh with her work into
a m�lange of research, writing, teaching, community
involvement and social action. Published author.
Belen Matias, Ph.D.
Classroom teacher, co-founder of
two Montessori schools in
�It is not a program focused on testing but all the
students who participate improve their test scores.�
From Ideas to Action:
Creating and supporting an after-school math program � Based on nine years of experience
in public school settings, the speakers will tell their
stories of their belief framework; how they got started;
how they put together and worked to nourish a team; how
parents were involved; examples of community outreach;
what was learned by children, parents, and the team;
what worked and what didn�t work, and visions of the
future. And
for those of you who consider it important, how our
children scored on tests. We will share media and written
evidences, schematic of our daily, weekly, and yearly
plans and we will solicit seminar participant input and
response.
Attendees will learn
� You will learn how to select a
supporting staff; what and how to teach; what not to
teach; the role of inquiry; how to reach out to school
and community; how to involve parents and caregivers;
how to recognize signs of growth and signs of danger,
and how to organize a retreat.
Funding
�
In
Addition Afterschool Mathematics Program
Helping
Students to Think Critically
From
Instructor�s Field Notes- The children and I had spent the previous day making observations in two different parks. Their notebooks showed lists of questions they had written about people, the playground equipment, and the space. I began getting the children prepared for their next project. Tricia: Does anyone want to talk a bit about something that they observed yesterday? Jamila: I was looking at the people that were there, and I thought that there were more people at the first park that we went to. Kira: That because it�s better. Taylor: And it�s bigger and has sand. Tricia: Did anyone count the number of people at each park? Oscar: Yes, there were twenty-eight people at Kelly Park (first park) and thirteen at Seal Park (second park). Kelissa: I don�t think that that means that more people always go to Kelly Park. It could just be there are more kids in that area. Jamila: Or that there are more babies, because I think Kelly Park is a baby park. Tricia: What could we do to answer this question of whether one park always has more people than the other park? Rasheed: We could go and count them and write them down. Reed: But we need to go more than once if we want to say if it always happens. Tricia: What do you mean? Reed: Well, we would have to go like three times to make sure that Kelly Park always has more people. Kelissa: I was always wondering what most people who go to the park do while they are there. _____________________________________________________________________________________ �We seek to engage children in learning in learning mathematics by encouraging students to ask their own questions and seek answers to those questions.�
Margot Ely, Ph.D., NYU
Some of the Student�s, Teacher�s and Parent�s Quotes Gathered over
the Nine Years the Program has been in Operation
PARENT:
I want to congratulate you as a group of teachers who
love to teach. I like the efforts you are putting into
this process. The kids can learn other ways to study and
understand math, and also grow as a person....The ways
of thinking we did by measuring things allowed us to
open our minds to think in different ways.
PARENT: ...without even
realizing it, we are learning. Learning about ourselves,
our children and our surroundings... Thanks for always
being there for our families.
In Addition Team--YOU GUYS ROCK.
PARENT...(translated from
Spanish)
I think this program is important for my child.
It is an unforgettable experience that you hardly get in
other schools-and what is more, we get to know the
teachers better.
PARENT: (translated from
Spanish} I like all the individual attention we get and
especially to share with my child and the teacher. Good
program, In Addition. It is very well organized. Thank
you for everything.
STUDENT:
Being in In Addition makes me think of the all those
times that I made mistakes and threw my work away. It
makes me think that maybe I could have invented
something.
STUDENT: Another thing I
learned was how to make a team plan and also it taught
me to be a team player and not get mad when I lose the
game or in life and I'll always keep that thought in my
head.
TEACHER:
We encouraged risk-taking when approaching new and
challenging problems.
We explored strategies and discussed their
efficacy.
Was this the best strategy to use?
How could I have approached this problem
differently?
Could it have been solved faster?
And of course, the best one, what went wrong?
This, of course, is always a fun one because we
engage ourselves in many challenging problems of the day
that don�t always yield easy solutions.
TEACHER:
I think of the team as my second family and our bond
means a lot to me. We all come together because we care
for the kids and we care for finding ways to reach them.
It involves teaching them how to think for
themselves, rather than telling them what to think, and
it's a breath of fresh air for all of us. We start by
knowing the children, and then formulate a
plan...instead of making a plan, then forcing the
children to adapt themselves to it.�
TEACHER:
�In Addition has always been a special time of
day for me.
Whether I was a classroom teacher or a math staff
developer, it has always represented a time that I was
able to teach in a way that was more open, without as
many constraints involved in a regular school day.
The focus on project-based learning with the
children helping to make the decisions about what we
were learning and choosing the direction in which we go.
It�s also a special time for the children as well
because they have much more ownership in their learning
as compared to the regular school day. �
TEACHER: �It was encouraging to see, as
we do each year, how the younger students grow in their
risk-taking and confidence as they adapt to the In
Addition culture and progress through their first year.
That might be my favorite thing to reflect on
each year.
It validates the culture we have created in In Addition
and those young students, in some sense, become our
torchbearers to the next year.� |
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Design & Development by: FMP