Keynote Speakers for the 2012 National Math Recovery Conference
Teaching as Listening
by Dr. Michelle L. Stephan
Wednesday May 2, 2012 8:00 am
Posing questions and tasks is at the foundation of all Math Recovery programs. Have you ever thought about how you listen to your students’ responses? In this keynote address, Dr. Michelle Stephan will discuss three types of listening that teachers can engage in. The first involves listening to your students evaluatively; you are “listening for” a certain answer. A second way to listen to your students is to “listen to” their explanations. In other words, you are listening interpretively to insure that they have a meaningful way to solve a problem. A final way to listen to students is to listen hermeneutically or to listen without judgment; to listen with the intent of understanding their thinking and building on what they know to ask the next question. There are good reasons to engage in all three types of listening but Dr. Michelle Stephan will show how listening hermeneutically is crucial not only for the SNAP and Interventionist programs but particularly relevant in the Add+VantageMR classroom.
Bio:
Michelle Stephan is Director of Special Projects, STEM Center University of North Carolina Charlotte. Prior to joining NC Charlotte, she was a professor of mathematics education at the University of Central Florida and a full-time middle school mathematics teacher in the Florida public school system. Her research has included investigating first, third, eighth and college students' understanding of mathematics through collaborations with members of the Freudenthal Institute, in the Netherlands. She has been involved in developing curricula that are reform oriented for linear measurement, place value, statistics, and differential equations. She is interested in teaching as an inquiry process for students and teaching as a profession in which teachers inquire as well.
Evaluating Math Recovery: The Impact of Implementation
of Fidelity on Student Outcomes
by Dr. Charles Munter
Wednesday May 2, 2012 3:00 pm
Dr. Munter was part of a Vanderbilt University research team funded by the Institute of Education Sciences that conducted a two-year evaluation (2007-2009) of the Math Recovery Intervention Specialist (MRIS) program. The study was conducted in 20 elementary schools (five urban, ten suburban and five rural), representing five districts in two states. The number of study participants totaled 517 in Year 1 and 510 in Year 2, of whom 172 received tutoring in Year 1 and 171 received tutoring in Year 2.
In this session, the presenter will highlight key findings with respect to the implementation of MRIS and its relation to findings of the evaluation, and the discussant will address how USMRC can learn from this research in the context of strengthening current and future programs.
Charles Munter is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Based on a view of the problem of instructional improvement at scale as a matter of supporting teachers’ and others’ learning as they develop new forms of practice, his work concerns three areas of need in the field: 1) the need for concrete, operational definitions of aspects of high-quality mathematics instruction, 2) the need to think developmentally about teachers’ learning of such forms of practice, and 3) the need to consider how to design and organize particular institutional contexts to support such development in teachers’ instruction.
Developing the Essential Strategies
to Reinforce the Relationship
Between Multiplication and Division
by James Burnett
Thursday May 3, 2012 8:00 am
Simple visual aids and models should be used to help students form a mind picture that links to the thinking strategy. This session will demonstrate the use of these aids and show how the thinking strategies can be generalized and extended beyond the number fact range.
Bio:
James Burnett lives and works in Australia but is President of ORIGO Education, Inc. in the USA. With more than 200 publications to his name, James strives to lift the profile of elementary math through an essential balance of dynamic teacher training and the development of quality research-based support materials that support skills in thinking.
Jumpstarting Early Numeracy: Curriculum Reform in an Urban District
by Dr. Francine Cabral Roy
Friday May 4, 2012 10:45 am
This presentation demarcates the revision of an elementary mathematics curriculum that occurred in a struggling urban district, and highlights how Math Recovery programs and other research resources influenced this work. Initially the focus was on increasing the professional knowledge of mathematics coaches and teachers around how children learn mathematics. As the coaches understanding of these knowledge bases grew, so too did the clarity that significant instructional change would not happen without an overhaul of the existing mathematics curriculum. There began a radical transformation away from pacing guides, a comprehensive reform program, and “standards” to a curriculum designed around big ideas and connected content, the teaching of which occurs developmentally and is supported by innovative rather than prescriptive resources.
What are the key components of successful change on this scale? This presentation will share the challenges faced and highlight the methods and benefits of the supports put in place that resulted in student achievement that outpaced state-wide improvement.
Bio:
Prior to her appointment as Assistant Superintendent of Schools and Chief Academic Officer for Fall River Public Schools, Fran Roy was a mathematics education consultant. A former secondary mathematics teacher and university educator, she holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Mathematics Education from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her scholarly works, including several publications, focus on teaching mathematics to urban youth. Recently she had a book chapter in the NCTM publication, "Models of Intervention in Mathematics".