NCTM Conference - Boston

#NCTMBoston

Starting my second year of teaching and my first at Capital High School in Helena (my Alma Mater), I was very excited to get ahold of as much professional development as possible. I taught in Rigby, Idaho last year, and had a great first year, but now that I had the 1^st year rockiness out of the way, I was eager to get my hands on some professional development that would foster my development as an educator. I applied for and was granted two scholarships, one from my school district and one from MCTM. For these I am extremely grateful as together they made an expensive trip to the NCTM national conference in Boston a possibility instead of a 2^nd-year teacher’s dream. I am very grateful for MCTM for making this scholarship a possibility, and I am also thankful for this opportunity to share some of what I learned in Boston.

I arrived in Boston late Tuesday afternoon and was able to reconnect with an old classmate before the craziness of the conference started. I explored the history and culture of Boston Wednesday morning while I waited for my friend and colleague to arrive so that we could catch the opening session at #NCTMBoston (the hashtag that we enjoyed using all week on various forms of social media).

Opening Talk by Elizabeth Green

Paul Revere and Old North Church 

"One if by land, two if by sea"

The opening ceremony was highlighted by a talk from Elizabeth Green, a notable educational journalist who has traveled all over the world learning about education and what its biggest  challenges are. Her main point was outlined by a trip to Japan where she witnessed fantastic practices and great results. Upon asking where the Japanese schools learned these techniques, they promptly told her that they learned them from us! Ms. Green was astounded to hear that the practices that Japanese teachers were employing were based on research conducted here in the US. Her biggest question to the 3500+ educators gathered in the ballroom was “why are we not employing the results of our own research?” It is a question not easily answered, but one easily worth pondering.

Feeling excited to be learning from so many fellow educators and fellow math teachers, I got an early start on the sessions Thursday morning, attending three in a row. There is no way to fully brief you on all of the incredibly valuable sessions I attended over the four days of conference, but I will do my best to highlight some of the most impactful.

Win probability example from a 

session titled "Strategy in Sports"

One of my favorite sessions was “Game Show Math” taught by Bowen Kerins.  Bowen has worked on and consulted for numerous game shows, and shared his experiences helping the shows maximize enjoyment and appeal while minimizing payout. He also demonstrated how we can include game show activities to teach probability and even game theory or combinatorics. He used several games from The Price is Right and discussed how they are skewed by the producers to make sure that the outcomes are desirable for the show. We played “½ Off” and “5 Keys” and learned how the show manipulates the outcomes via study and probability! The probability is easily approached by high school students in a stats class, but could also be readily adapted for Geometry or Algebra II students.  The best part of the discussion was comparing Price is Right games to Deal or No Deal and calculating the fairness of each. The teachers in the room had a great time role-playing the game, and students will have a blast as well.

My two favorite sessions by far were titled “When Am I Ever Gonna Use This Anyway??” given by Adam Poetzel and “Fake-World Math” given by Dan Meyer.  Adam’s talk focused on giving teachers possible responses to impart upon students the importance mathematics holds in the world we live in.  I learned several new tools to help students find the value in the mathematics they are being taught, instead of using the cliché can of standard responses. His presentation was geared so that a teacher could turn around and give a version of it to their own students in response to every math teacher’s favorite question: “When will we ever use this in real life?”  Although this talk offered me many tools for my tool bag of responses, Dan Meyer’s talk offered more in the way of lesson material to answer the question before it is even asked. Dan talked about what textbooks call modeling and why it isn’t modeling. Giving us a couple of tools to decide for ourselves if something is modeling, Dan led the group through several examples of good and bad modeling tasks.  Hearing these two talks as the last two talks of the conference was a great way to leave Boston energized, invigorated, and inspired to do the best I can for my students, not only in teaching them mathematical skills, but in impressing upon them the value of mathematics in our world. I will close with the same classic quote that Adam Poetzel finished his presentation with: “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.”

Can't go to Boston without going to Fenway!

Thank you again to MCTM for giving me this opportunity to experience my first NCTM Annual Meeting, and I hope to be able to soak up the immense source of networking and collaboration that NCTM conference provides. I hope every member of MCTM takes advantage of the great scholarship opportunities offered, so that everyone can have the valuable experience that I did.

                                                                                                                                                                                    Ryan Swenson
Capital High School, Helena
MCTM Scholarship Recipient