Anne Herndon and Holli Aflatouni, who will be the "caretakers" for the newly revived EXXONTNT listserv, contributed to the article below. Through the efforts of Bob Speiser, the listserv will "live" at Brigham Young University in Utah.
One of the most frequently-asked questions during Exxon's fall conference was, "Where is the listserv?" Since so many people used and valued the listserv for making and keeping connections with members of the Exxon family across the country, having it no longer around had been very disheartening. The listserv was so valuable because it provided a way to bounce ideas back and forth; talk to understanding people about the isolation, frustrations, and triumphs of teaching against the norms; and learn about rich mathematics environments in other places.
Well, we are pleased to announce that the listserv is up and running again! If you would like to participate in the EXXONTNT listserv, please follow these instructions:
To subscribe, just send an e-mail message with these words in the body of the message: subscribe exxontnt. You can put those words in the subject line of the e-mail for your own purposes, but you will not be subscribed unless they appear in the body of the message. The account from which you send your message will be subscribed to the list. Please address the e-mail to majordomo@math.byu.edu. After subscribing, you will receive additional information.
This listserv offers an opportunity for Exxon K-3 project participants and friends of the K-3 Program to engage in conversations with others around their projects, mathematics education, children's learning of mathematics, their own mathematical learning, and the complexity of teaching mathematics. Rather than limit this list to any specific topic, we want to let topics emerge on their own within the general framework given above.
A topic has emerged, contributed by Pat Hess. She writes: "I have a subject I'd like to get thoughts on. In the December issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Judith Newman talks about how quickly new teachers are inducted into the culture of their school, even though their pre-service work had extensive training and practice with reform methods. The author describes one teacher who wanted to have students keep portfolios and was told, 'We don't do that here.'
"My question to you is, 'Do you have a mentoring group at your school that supports, not squelches new teachers? And if you do, please describe it.'" Pat
Now there's one for the listserv. Let the conversations begin! Ed.
As promised in
last month's Intersection, what follows is Pat Hess's
account of her visits to Liberty and Longview Elementary Schools
in Murray, Utah. The accompanying photos help tell the story.
Thanks, Pat! Ed.
Kellie Freestone's class, Liberty
Kindergartners working in pairs cut strings their heights and used those strings to find objects around the room that were shorter, about the same, or longer. They had to make decisions about who goes first, how to hold the string down, and how to record the information. Their findings?
Professor Walter - longer
The table top - about the same
Friends - just a little shorter or a little longer!
Michi Byrd's
class, Liberty
First-graders explored how to tell how many dots are on a strip of paper when some are covered and the paper clip is at the sixth dot.
"I walked up and felt the dots and then added to twelve."
"I started on six and added to twelve."
"I measured how big the dots were and then guessed twelve."
"I used my fingers to measure the space between the dots."
Judy Newfarmer's
class, Liberty
Two second-graders explained their thinking in solving this problem: "Three children found $.50 on the way to school. After trying but failing to find the owner, they had to decide how to share the money equally."
"It's almost impossible."
"They found more money in the gutter."
"We made it four people instead of three because four is an even number so it will divide into 50."
"I gave my friends $.17 cents and me $.16 because I can go home and get an extra penny."
Parent Math Night,
Liberty
Children and parents tried to find how many different towers they could make three cubes high using two colors. It was an activity that was engaging to both adults and children as participants explained how many towers could be made and why. Principal Marilyn Prettyman was on hand as well.
Dori Mann's class,
Longview
Kindergartners explored mathematics concepts as they worked with geoboards, examined shapes, made designs, and recorded patterns.
Comments
Teachers in the Liberty Elementary School study group talked about wanting help, support, and instruction on questioning techniques. Similar requests have been expressed by others as well. Does anyone reading this newsletter have a resource to recommend?
Dori and Kellie have agree to take the Math and Literature books by Marilyn Burns and design lessons for their kindergarten classes. This was not an assignment, but a decision that they made after reading the books. I'm anxious to see the results of their work.
Many thanks to Linda Coutts, K-7 Mathematics Coordinator for the public schools in Columbia, Missouri, and director of the Exxon project there, for contributing the article below. Ed.
This year, through the use of district Eisenhower funds, we have begun mathematics leadership teams in each of our eighteen elementary buildings. Each building nominated at least one teacher to represent their campus on a K-2 and a 3-5-leadership team.
The teams meet once a month to focus on issues appropriate to the building(s) and grade level span. Since we have a mixture of teachers with some who would rather not leave their classrooms or prepare for a substitute, I have offered the leadership team meetings as either a release-day or as an after-school option. Depending on which option a teacher chooses, Eisenhower money is used either to pay for the substitute or to provide a stipend to the teacher. This boils down to four different leadership teams! Crazy at times—yes! However, I feel it's important to meet the needs of our teachers as well as our students. We will meet four times during the first semester and twice during the second semester.
Hopefully, this professional development activity will not be a one-time (one-year) shot. As I shared with the participants during one of our first meetings, I see this as a real opportunity to make a difference in mathematics education for our students. I explained to them that they hadn't necessarily signed up for a lifetime, but that my experiences with one-time shots show that they do not result in lasting change or improvement. I am hoping that eventually the leadership team members will take an active role in their schools in professional development as well as in sharing and gathering information.
I see this project as a three-year program. The first year would be devoted to study and self-implementation and playing around with the ideas. The second year would be a more formal sharing of ideas with building colleagues. By the third year, I would hope that team members would be taking an active staff development role in their own buildings.
How did I entice our teachers to participate in this activity? Besides being offered the opportunity to meet with teachers throughout the district, each building was given $1,000 (district free-text money) to spend on mathematics materials or resources that would enhance their program. (This money was over and above the funding the district already provides for materials for each building. Free-text money at the elementary level is centrally controlled.) Eighteen of the team members were able to attend our state annual mathematics conference, and ten team members were able to attend the NCTM regional meeting in Des Moines.
We have been extremely lucky to have Paul Trafton from the University of Northern Iowa leading our K-2 Mathematics Leadership Teams this year. So far Paul has met with the teams three times. What a gift to be able to study and investigate problem-centered classrooms with Paul. My goal for this year is to help our primary teachers be more comfortable in listening to their students and then developing mathematical experiences based on what they hear and what they know about how mathematics is learned.
Much of the time is spent with teachers sharing their successes. Since we are still building our community, there hasn't been much sharing of frustrations as yet—not openly anyway. I have asked the team members to keep a journal of their journey, and I hope that they will be willing to share excerpts in time. Thanks to Exxon for allowing Paul Trafton to use some of his funds for networking.
The focus of our 3-5 Leadership Team is a little different than that of the K-2 group. That's not to say that problem-centered classrooms are not important, we just are not quite there yet. We are also meeting once a month and are currently investigating the mathematics taught in grades 3-5 and examining the resources presently available to us.
Besides the leadership teams, we are also conducting an evaluation of our K-2 mathematics program. This is another committee of teachers who are meeting throughout the year to evaluate our current curriculum against our state standards, the NCTM Standards 2000 (draft), as well as what we believe is important for the children of Columbia, Missouri. Our plan is to make a K-2 program recommendation to the Board of Education this spring for implementation next fall.
I share this with the Exxon group as an example of how the support of the Exxon Educational Foundation K-2 Mathematics Specialist money can even be far reaching after 10 years. The leadership-team model I described earlier was patterned off the model I used for our original K-3 Exxon Mathematics Specialist Grant. This model has worked very well for us in the Columbia Public Schools. If anyone is interested in knowing more about our leadership teams or our K-2 program evaluation, please contact me at the Columbia Public Schools, 555 Vandiver, Suite A, Columbia, MO 65202. I also wish to thank the Exxon Education Foundation for its continued support with various projects here in Columbia.
Martha LaPointe submitted this article about some connections their Exxon project participants have recently made. Thanks, Martha! Ed.
The Northern Maine Central Aroostook Council on Education (CACE) finally feels like it is winter. We now have about two feet of snow on the ground so snowmobilers and skiers are happy. And, so are the children. Banks of snow are equivalent to a whole new set of playground equipment.
Three members of our Exxon Math Specialist Committee—Marty Belanger, Martha LaPointe and Susan Maynard— traveled to Virginia to visit the Hanover County Exxon site on December 3 and 4. Jean Moon had recommended that we visit them because we have similar demographics and because our developing model resembles theirs.
We sat in on their committee meeting on Thursday morning and heard an overview of activities at individual schools and of the whole committee. We developed a good understanding of how their math specialists function. Even though there are many size contrasts between our two groups, we did find that there are many similarities. School population is one area of major contrast. Their smallest school has 400; our smallest has 20! Once we visited the classrooms, however, we found that kids are the same everywhere.
After the morning committee meeting, and lunch at the Smokey Pig, we visited Colonial Williamsburg while the Virginia group continued with their business.
On Friday, we found ourselves driving over rural country roads, some more than once, trying to find the next school on our itinerary. We visited four different classrooms in four different buildings. Teachers arranged their schedules so that we could observe students doing mathematics. With three of us taking notes and photos, we were able to capture different angles of the lessons. We left with many organizational ideas to bring back to our full committee.
In order to get a good price on our plane tickets, we stayed over Saturday night. We visited Washington, D.C. on an unseasonably warm day. Shirt sleeves in December was unusual attire for Northern Mainers. When we stood at the door of the plane on our return to Aroostook, and saw six inches of snow and felt cold rain hit our faces, we wanted to turn around and go back to Virginia.
At our next meeting, three days after our return, we were able to hammer out a fine definition of a math specialist in a short time. Our grant-writing committee had been grappling to develop an understanding and definition of math specialist. Viewing a math specialist team at work certainly helped us clarify our thinking and accomplish a difficult task. We have a draft of a proposal that includes a plan for training math specialists and dissemination of teaching strategies to other teachers. At our next grant development meeting, we will meet with the university grant-writer who is our wordsmith. Our goal is to have our application ready to submit by the end of March. We feel we are well on our way.
We'd like to thank our Virginia hostesses for their hospitality. We felt welcome and comfortable joining their meeting. And thanks to Jean Moon for helping us make the connections.
The next time you hear from us, we'll be tired of those banks of snow. It will be nearly spring for most of you. We, however, don't recognize it until sometime in May.
Thanks to Barbara Flynn, director of the Arlington Primary Math Specialist Program in Texas, for sending in this anecdote. Ed.
"Last Thursday afternoon, I was meeting with a group of elementary teachers to discuss the textbooks which have been submitted for adoption. The subject of assessing students' understanding was being discussed, and I brought up the importance of assessing prior knowledge and the mistake of making assumptions that students always understand what has been taught by us as teachers.
"Rivon Kellis, one of our math specialists involved in the Exxon Professional Development Project, told this story. She said that before our first meeting in August, she had explained to her first grade class that she would be absent one day each month and would be learning mathematics and bringing back materials and activities that would make learning mathematics more fun for them. That week, she reminded them that she would be absent for her Exxon meeting. When she returned the following day, one of her students asked her, 'Mrs. Kellis, did you have fun at the gas station yesterday?'"
Debbie Pittman is on the way to receiving her doctorate from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Her major is education leadership and her minor is mathematics education (K-8). Since she estimates that it will take two to two and a half years to complete her dissertation, she anticipates graduating in 2001. She writes that she will continue to work full time, including her work with the Exxon project in Hanover County, Virginia, while she completes her doctoral program.
Best wishes from all of us, Debbie!
Thanks to Renee Cassel, district parent involvement facilitator for mathematics in Irving, Texas, for this recommendation. Ed.
This year three Parent Involvement Facilitators had the opportunity to go to the Texas Education Agency's Third Annual Parent Involvement Conference in Houston, Texas where we found an incredible resource to supplement our Family Nights and Parent and Child Side-by-Sides. Family Learning Events, Science and Math Activities through a Literacy Approach was created by the Texas Statewide Systemic Initiative, Charles A. Dana Center, University of Texas at Austin (Educational Products Inc. 1-800-365-5345, $25.00). This tool-kit includes four model Family Learning Events: Crawly Creatures, All Full of Air, Seeds and Things, and Water Works and all the information needed to host such events. These events were stimulated by the EQUALS programs Family Math and Family Science. Each event includes instructions for 15-20 station activities, a 20-minute group activity, and a song or poem to celebrate the conclusion of the event. The tool-kit also comes with diskettes that include event flyers, reminder labels, press releases, and Explorer's notebooks. All materials are in English and Spanish.
In Learning and Leading With Technology
Thanks to Bob Witte for forwarding this item. Ed.
The November 1998 issue (Volume 26, Number 3) of Learning and Leading With Technology features an article entitled "Listserv Learning" by Kathleen Martin and Donna Bearden. The article describes the successful results of a project that engaged Exxon K-3 teachers in almost-daily conversations over the EXXONTNT listserv about their students' experiences with a piece of software. (See Intersection, February and March 1997, and January 1998).
Asked to observe and share what happened when their students explored "My Make-Believe Castle," participating teachers swapped ideas, learned from one another, and supported one another's professional development over the course of several months. In addition, as the article states, "The Castle project became a springboard for the exchange of many powerful ideas about learning environments, teaching, and problem solving."
If you wish to read this article, please contact your editor for a copy.
In JRME
Pat Hess submitted the information below. Thanks, Pat. Ed.
See the January 1999 issue of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education for an article entitled, "Relationships Between Research and the NCTM Standards," by James Hiebert. Deborah Schifter, Chair of the NCTM Research Advisory Committee, writes in the introduction: "The article is a resource that can form the basis of discussion with policy makers, journalists, school administrators, teachers, and concerned parents."
This article is a very thoughtful description of what we should expect from research and how some things do not relate to research and others do. It could serve as an important resource for math teachers or supervisors. You can receive copies of this journal from NCTM or read the abstract and find out how to subscribe to JRME Online at www.nctm.org.
If you haven't yet had a chance, you might want to take a look at NCTM's new "Do Math" Web Site at www.domath.org. As part of NCTM's public service announcement campaign, "Do math...and you can do anything," the site features mathematics activities that children can do at home with their families or on their own. Activities are divided into four grade levels: Pre-K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12. Check it out!
Thanks to Bob Witte for passing along this quotation:
From Paul Goodman: "Fundamentally, there is no right education except growing up into a worthwhile world."
And one your editor especially likes:
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..."
we'll have moments to remember." Especially if you send some of the most memorable ones to your editor! Please consider writing about your project, your colleagues, or your students for an upcoming issue.
Many thanks to everyone who sent in something for this issue. The next deadline is Monday, February 8. Please send your contributions to Jean Ehnebuske, 105 Hideaway Cove, Georgetown, TX 78628; phone, (512)869-1580; fax, (512) 869-8477; e-mail, jehne@ibm.net. Thanks!
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