Middle School Mathematics Institute and MSMI 2010

The Middle School Mathematics Institute is taking shape. MSMI will be a 501(c)3 non profit corporation whose purpose is:

to improve elementary mathematics education, with a focus on grades 4-8,
by:

* providing professional development in mathematics content for elementary school level math teachers
* supporting parents in understanding effective mathematics curriculum and support materials used in schools
*supporting students by providing the means for them to gain confidence and competence in their application of mathematics through improved instruction.

MSMI will focus primarily on teacher education, through workshops and institutes that teach mathematical content to teachers. Specifically, the workshops will be on school mathematics, but at a deeper level, so it is directly applicable to their classroom experience.

For now, that content will come from Wu, but I'm open to incorporating anyone else's clear, coherent, correct schoool mathematics for teaching teachers.

MSMI will have a second focus as well, which is parent education. MSMI will give talks and workshops to help parents understand the road to algebra: how important college prep math is, what the foundations are for that math, what should be learned when, how to evaluate a school's math program, and finally, what a coherent, concise, correct math program looks like. The hope is that the MSMI parent component will reinforce the teacher component and vice versa at a given school, with parents and schools coming to have a shared vision about what a college bound mathematics curriculum entails, and how best to teach that material.

The first institute is a week long mini course on fractions and decimals. It's June 14-18, 2010, in St. Paul MN. Prof. Wu will present the material for the week. It is based on his math textbook written specifically for prospective teachers.

I had hoped to get 30 teachers. I have already 23 confirmed participants with a week left for registration, and 3 other schools that are expected to send teachers but have not confirmed final numbers.

I hope to videotape the conference. I don't think the host facility will have enough outgoing bandwidth to live stream, but I hope to get a portion of the conference--say, an hour of Wu's talk--available as a stream on the MSMI website afterwards.

If anyone else from KTM is interested in attending, or learning more, let me know!