If you’ve been on social media lately you’ve probably seen posts from parents who are frustrated while helping their children with their mathematics homework. It appears that there is a “new way” of doing math that is different from the “old way” that many parents learned when they were in school. In reality, the changes are not as extreme as is often portrayed but it is still important that we take time to learn together as a community about some new approaches and how this is helping our students to learn.
On the evenings of April 27th, May 25th and June 16th from 5:30pm-6:30pm our goal is to have a series of Mathematics Family Nights for parents to learn more about the shifts in teaching of Mathematics, the reasons for these shifts, and most importantly, how understanding these shifts will help us to better support our students.
These workshops will take place at North Reading High School and will feature classroom teachers and Title 1 Math support teachers at all levels (elementary, middle, and high school). Parents will be able to sign up for and attend sessions at the level(s) of their choosing.
The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics offers some wonderful supports for educators and families in order to understand new or unfamiliar mathematics concepts. A series of videos, available here: http://bit.ly/1CWNyRh provide insgihts into many topics that are very important including:
The world that our students will be entering for college and careers will require a very different set of mathematical skills for a greater number of students than was ever required in the past. A deeper, conceptual understanding of mathematics is required in order for students to progress to higher levels of mathematics. In North Reading, our educators are preparing students to think in many ways and to foster this conceptual understanding so that the traditional mathematics concepts of higher level mathematics will be more accessible to a greater number of students than ever before. The careers that await our students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics certainly will require this greater level of comfort and enjoyment of mathematics that these new approaches strive to build.
Please join us on any or all of the family mathematics nights to learn more. Please use this sign-up link in order for us to best prepare for our audience on each evening: http://bit.ly/1UwgbS8. More information will also be coming soon through our outreach emails. We look forward to seeing you and learning more together as a community of support for our students.
