GSTLC Math Course Provides Tools for Teachers

This summer, almost 30 K-8 teachers from Middletown and Meriden are participating in the Intel Math Summer Course at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center. The intensive 80-hour math content course is being co-taught by a mathematician and a math education specialist: Wesleyan’s Cameron Hill, assistant professor of mathematics, and Shelley Jones from Central Connecticut State University. The course is part of Green Street’s Math Institute, a program designed to get teachers excited about math, prepared for Common Core, equipped with a toolkit of activities to bring key math concepts into their classrooms through the arts, and more.

“With Common Core and STEM interest taking center stage in education, mathematics is a major area of focus for school districts,” said Sara MacSorley, director of the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center and Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science (PIMMS). “Our Math Institute helps teachers better understand the concepts they are teaching, build their own math confidence, and also gives them tools to use in the classroom.”

Green Street teaching artist Elizabeth Dellinger is also participating in the program. “The arts can play an important role in differentiation and helping each student math content in different ways,” MacSorley said. “Since Elizabeth is an incredible vocalist and musician, shel’ll be helping to develop a math and music workshop to help educators integrate the arts into math instruction.”

Later this month, Green Street will be hosting a second Intel Math Summer Course in Killingly, Conn. featuring Christopher Rasmussen, assistant professor of mathematics, and Sharon Heyman, a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut.

(Photos by Laurie Kenney)