Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Hotels for MEA/MFT in October

Here is the room reservation information for MEA/MFT in October.  We have two options for hotels with group rates.
Option 1: Hilton Garden Inn - this is where the Teacher of the Year banquet will be held.

We have 15 rooms booked there for Wednesday, Oct. 18, and Thursday, Oct. 19, and 15 rooms for Friday, Oct. 20. 
These are 2 queen beds for $134 a night.
Reservations must be booked by Sept. 18th.

Make reservations online:
Group Name: Montana Council for Teachers of Mathematics
Group Code: MCTM
Check-in: 18-OCT-2017
Check-out: 21-OCT-2017
Hotel Name: Hilton Garden Inn Missoula
Hotel Address: 3720 North Reserve Street
Missoula, Montana
59808
Phone Number:
(406)532-5300

Option 2: Holiday Inn Express which is across the street from the Hilton.  These rates may go up some depending on how many rooms  are reserved.
Our negotiated rate is $99 for either size room.  There are 13 double queens and 12 Kings reserved Wednesday and Thursday nights and 5 of each reserved for Friday night.
 
Reservations made by telephone or online
Group code - MTC

150 Expressway
Missoula, MT 59808
(406)830-3100

Rooms must be reserved by Sept. 30th for our negotiated rate.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Remember the Ala...math by Shari Kepner (MCTM Scholarship winner)

I am very thankful for the financial support MCTM offers its members to seek out professional development. I used an MCTM teacher scholarship to help finance my trip to San Antonio in April for the NCTM Annual Meeting & Exposition.

The adventure started with a fabulously uneventful evening flight from Bozeman to Salt Lake City. Things started to get exciting when David “The Admiral” Robinson walked onto my flight from Salt Lake to San Antonio. For the record, a 7’1” man can fit within the confines of first class seating. I practiced my sly cell camera skills in baggage claim; unfortunately, I will not be able to supplement my teacher salary with any lucrative deals from paparazzi firms.

The weather in San Antonio was marvelous, as was the food and the Riverwalk. I was happy to meet up with friends from around Texas, including a member of my grad program cohort as well as a former student who is now teaching in Austin. One of my favorite aspects of travelling to national math conferences is randomly bumping into other members of the Montana math family. Maybe the real joy is knowing that our Montana math family is rather small and it is both joyful and relatively easy to network with each other across our geographically large state.

As a fellow Penn State graduate, meeting John Urschel was a real highlight of the trip for me. (Yes, I did ask him to sign my graphing calculator.) I enjoyed his keynote address and my favorite quote was, “If math isn’t for you, then money probably isn’t either.” His message inspired me to do more to encourage kids to not just pursue their math prowess in science related fields, but that I should encourage more students to become mathematicians.

The best individual session I attended was titled, “The Truth About Mathematical Modeling.”
I was hoping to find a little more clarity in parsing the similarities and differences between the CCSS Modeling conceptual category and the CCSS Modeling math practice. What I found was that - YIKES! – seemingly few people understand or recognize modeling in math classrooms. I’m thankful for the work that STREAM continues to do to help Montana math educators move toward integrating modeling into their math classrooms.

I have wanted to visit Alamo since 1985, and you can probably guess which Tim Burton film inspired that desire. Security Officer Limon was not amused when I asked where the basement was, but she did graciously pose for a photo next to the map of the Alamo grounds with me. Ahhh, we can’t be serious all of the time, can we?