Washington Mathematics

This edition of Washington Mathematics includes member benefits, opportunities for prizes and awards, and for PD and clock hours. The content is focused on the equity based practice of Going Deep with Math and on the ideas from Math for Human Flourishing. Please watch for opportunities to get involved by responding to a question or sharing a problem approach. We also welcome feedback to help us shape future newsletters.

NEW Members: We are excited to have you! Thank you for recently joining us. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Ongoing Members: Thank you so much for spreading the word of the WSMC and encouraging others to join. We appreciate your ongoing support.

Former Members: We miss you! Please consider renewing and rejoining the WSMC community.

Never been a member?: We urge you to take look at what the WSMC can offer and join here!

The newsletter is best viewed on a larger screen. On a computer or tablet if you click "view in browser" (above) you'll see a Table of Contents to the left that can be clicked for navigation.

• President's Message - Maryke Haynes
• 5-Equity Based Practices - Rebecca Borowski
• Meme of the Moment - Howie Hua
• Fluency Feature
• Member Highlight - Kim Newton
• Northwest Math Conference - Tacoma 2025
• Quarterly Quandary - Challenging problems
• A Book We LOVE.
• 2025 High School Math Contest - Next Steps
• Prizes and Opportunities
• Professional Development and Clock Hours
• Math Night!
• WSMC Details and Announcements

One of our goals this year was to start thinking together about equity-based practices in mathematics and to start conversations among our members and in our communities. The WSMC Board has begun reading and thinking about this topic, and you’ll see frequent references in this year’s newsletters.

The 5 practices from The Impact of Identity in K-12 Mathematics (Aguirre, Mayfield-Ingram, Martin):

1. Going deep with mathematics - (Current focus)

2. Leveraging multiple mathematical competencies

3. Affirming mathematics learners’ identities - (previous focus)

4. Challenging spaces of marginality

5. Drawing on multiple resources of knowledge

Meme by Howie Hua @howie_hua

This fluency feature is closely connected to our Equity-based Teaching Practice focus for this issue- Going Deep with Mathematics: Lessons include high cognitive demand tasks that support and strengthen student development of the strands of mathematical proficiency, including conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and problem solving and reasoning. (Impact of Identity in k-12 Mathematics, 2024)

Being Fluent is Not Memorization.

When we discuss students being fluent in mathematics, it’s more than memorizing the multiplication facts up to 10 or 12 or the steps to add fractions. Fluency requires us to understand a situation and then decide what to do.
What would YOU do to solve 499 + 17?

Procedural fluency encompasses three key aspects:

• Accuracy: Students should be able to solve mathematical problems correctly.

• Efficiency: Students should complete work within a reasonable amount of time, which varies depending on the difficulty of the problem. For problems with basic facts, for example, expectations are that a student can solve the problem within about three seconds.

• Flexibility: Students should be able to select an appropriate strategy, apply a strategy to a new problem, and/or adapt a strategy to solve a problem.
  
  

Now let’s return to our original problem of 499 + 17. If we followed the standard algorithm, carrying digits to regroup as necessary, it might look like the image below:

This algorithm does work and there is a time and place for learning it, but it sometimes leads to misunderstandings around place value effecting understanding later in learning.

Whereas, if we practice the Making Tens strategy (through games and activities), we can efficiently solve this problem mentally. In this case, we see that we can make 500 by taking one from the 17. Now the problem becomes 500 + 16, which is more efficient and less prone to error.

So, let’s not teach facts to memorize. Let’s teach strategies that empower our students to become proficient problem solvers.

Meet Kim Newton, Washington’s finalist this year for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST), the nation's highest honor for teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM, including computer science).

Kim is a 3rd grade teacher and mentor for other teachers in math at Grant Elementary in Spokane. She answered the following questions for us:

Who inspires you and why/how?

I am inspired by the math educator community. It's a community that focuses on joy and wonder, and every time I am able to connect with other math educators I am always inspired to go back to the classroom and try new things.

What advice would you give to 2014 You?

As time goes on, you will realize that your job is rarely to impart knowledge. More often your job will be to facilitate the discovery of knowledge, to allow students to become true learners. Focus on their ideas and curiosities and you will not only educate them - you will empower them.

If you weren't in education, what would you be doing?

Ironically, I did not discover a love for math until I was a teacher. I originally thought I would become a journalist, combining my love of writing and travel. If I ever decide to do a 180 degree turn in life, I'd probably pursue that.

We'd like to thank Kim Newton for being such an incredible educator and agreeing to be highlighted in this issue. If you or someone you know is doing noteworthy things related to mathematics let us know so that we can continue to highlight what our members are up to.

After a fantastic conference in Whistler BC for the October 2024 NWMC, we are already well into the planning stages for 2025 in Tacoma. We hope to see you there and encourage you to start planning now to invite your colleagues and to get your school and district support.

Join the mailing list for the conference now to stay up-to-date on news and announcements until next October. You can also read there about the program strands and discover why an octopus was chosen as the logo.

Remember, WSMC members get a discount registration at the Northwest Math Conference each year. Anyone who attends the conference can also apply in person for clock hours at the WSMC table for only $2.00 per clock hour.

Quarterly Quandary presents challenging problems for anyone to try. Feel free to use these with your students to generate some great discussions.

The delightful and challenging problems below are just a small sample of the amazing geometric figure based puzzles created by Catriona Agg (formerly Catriona Schearer). These are from a collection made available on the Murderous Maths website. You can go directly to the page featuring Catriona's puzzles by clicking THIS LINK. or follow Catriona on X @CShearer41

Below are just a few more of the many problems available from Catriona Agg's collection.

Share your approach with us! We're interested in responses whether or not you've got an "answer," we want to see how you are thinking of these. We may feature some responses in our next newsletter!

See one solution for last issue's "Sonia Spider building her web" here.

Note: Submitting to the link above requires you to sign in to Google so that images/files can be shared in a Google form. If you cannot submit responses that way, feel free to email to garrythecarpenter@gmail.com instead)

by: Francis Su, with reflections from ChristopherJackson

Mentioned above in our President's message for this issue, Francis Su's Mathematics for Human Flourishing is also providing inspiration for our Membership Roundtables. (more upcoming in January and March) The book is intrinsically connected to this issue's equity-based-practice focus of Going Deep with Mathematics, as well as with the exciting Quarterly Quandary above. For many reasons, Mathematics for Human Flourishing is a book we love, and that we hope you will love as well. Winner of the 2021 Euler Book Prize, this amazing book is described below:

While many authors have presented compelling cases for the beauty and utility of mathematics, Mathematics for Human Flourishing takes a different tack, presenting mathematics as a discipline that has the power to transform lives and speak to the very core of what it means to be human.

Su’s writing artfully blends personal narrative with scholarly perspectives and mathematical problems that challenge the reader to engage in their own mathematical journey as the book unfolds. As powerful as Su’s narrative is, his thesis is driven home in dramatic fashion through the included writings of Christopher Jackson, whose own journey led him to discover the transformative power of mathematics from behind prison walls.

In the conclusion of the book, Su encourages his readers, writing: “I hope you now never feel like saying, ‘I’m not a math person,’ because you are a human person, and you can see how doing math is tightly bound to being human.” He hopes that his readers will “speak about mathematics with others as a vitally human endeavor, grounded in basic desires that we all share, and elevated by virtues to which we can all aspire.”

Su and Jackson’s book is well-positioned to accomplish these lofty goals. Indeed, if taken to heart, Mathematics for Human Flourishing will transform the reader’s conception of what it means to do mathematics, to apply mathematics, and to find mathematics beautiful.

(The description above is taken from the American Mathematical Association's citation for the Euler Book Prize in 2021)

There's still time! Whether you've already started a team or want to jump in and start one right now, here are some "next steps" for what your team should be working on. You can check out the structure of the contest here. This year’s regional contests will take place on Wednesday, March 12th followed by a statewide contest on Saturday May 3rd.

Why participate?

• Builds teamwork! Students compete against a standard rather than against each other.
• Students get to do math in a fun, challenging, and collaborative environment.
• Team problems and projects AND competitions for individuals.
• A math team/club gives students a place to belong and a sense of purpose.
• Access and problems for all students from Algebra and beyond.
• Students can win awards, swag, recognition or tuition vouchers. See previous year's winners here.

• Only $15 or less per student who attends - covers both regional and state competitions
  
  

Next Steps (for how to get started, see our Back-to-School Newsletter):

• Continue meeting and practicing with your group with previous problems

• Preview the Team Project
• Decide to do the project
• Set a team of 2 to 6 students to complete the project
• Plan a timeline
• Submit an electronic copy by February 24, 2025
• Hold regular meetings to practice for the in-person contest events. Note: all written contests allow the use of an SAT approved calculator
• Use past contests to practice for Team Problem
• Set teams of 3 from different grade levels. Note: Students may “play up” (i.e. a 9th grade student may be listed as grade 10, 11, or 12)
• Use past contests to practice for Topical Problems
• Decide if students will compete as a team of 3 (see above), as individuals, or some of each
• Teams do NOT need to be the same as those set for the team problem
• Choose 3 competitors for the Knowdown (students who are willing to compete in front of an audience)
• Preview the Math + Art Contest
• Share this opportunity with your students
• Three Categories: 3-Dimensional, 2-Dimensional, and Digital
• Forward this opportunity to your art teacher(s) and digital design teacher(s)
  
  

You can find more information by exploring the WSMC HS Math Contest website.

These awards and opportunities available from the National Museum of Mathematics

• The 2025 Rosenthal Prize for Innovation and Inspiration in Math Teaching - Win $25,000 for sharing an inspirational classroom mathematics activity; application opens January 1, 2025)
  
  

• The Rosenthal Prize Summer Institute - Learn about previous prize-winning lessons during a 3-day expenses-paid trip next summer to the Rosenthal Prize Institute
  
  

• The Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Math Communication (for students) - High school students can win a cash prize for sharing math creatively with the world through public communication (reels, blogs, TikTok videos, podcasts, songs, and more); applications due April 23, 2025

Dear 7th and 8th grade teachers,

Our colleagues at the University of Washington, Ben Shapiro and Lauren Bricker, are helping us to connect with middle school teachers who teach computational thinking skills in either computing courses or other content areas. We are running a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education to understand how computational thinking is taught in schools (Utah State University protocol #13877). We are recruiting 25 teachers from across the country to participate in an observation study of classroom instruction. Each participating teacher will receive a $250 check as a participation incentive. Participation entails permitting videorecording of your classroom instruction during an instructional unit in any content area that has a learning objective of enhancing your students’ computational thinking skills (this does not need to be the only learning objective) during the 2024-2025 academic year. Observation would take place only for one period of the day for each day of the unit. Recordings are never made public or provided to anyone outside the research team. We estimate the necessary time beyond the normal teaching you would do for your instructional unit anyway to be no more than 1 hour for discussion and coordination.

If you are interested, please contact David Feldon, the principal investigator of the project by email at david.feldon@usu.edu.

Clock Hours - The WSMC is committed to offering free clock hour opportunities to its members and is working on bringing back some great professional development.

Membership Roundtables: A fantastic opportunity to talk math with other WSMC members. The November session was well attended and very much enjoyed by attendees. Members can still join for the January and March roundtable sessions! See info below:

FREE: Membership Roundtable Sessions: Up to 3 free clock hours still available for members.

You are invited! Membership Roundtables offer an opportunity to connect with math educators around the state. In 90 minute sessions, we will be using Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing to inspire our discussions. So get comfy, grab scratch paper and your favorite writing implement and join us to connect with others while we find our path to flourishing! The next session is Tuesday January 14 2025, at 7pm. Up to 3 Free Clock Hours remain available to members. RSVP

Asynchronous Professional Development- Grassroots Workshops

Grassroots Workshops, founded by Robert Kaplinsky, is a space where educators can learn at their own pace based on their own needs. These workshops give the flexibility to try things on in the classroom and come back for more. Take the quiz to find out which workshops are just right for you.

Math Boxes Launch:

Benefit for WSMC members!

Are you interested in hosting an amazing K-8 math experience in your area? WSMC has prepared boxes of math activities ready to open and share. The boxes contain 10-12 fun activities to show the community what math can be. They come with all necessary equipment and instructions for your community to have fun exploring and discovering mathematics.

These boxes will are NOW available to check out and use in your area. Contact Kelly Casto if you are on the East side and Kristi Martin if you are on the West side of the state if you are interested in hosting this amazing event.

WSMC Educator Support Fund

The Washington State Mathematics Council provides funds to support mathematics-related initiatives, identified by members via an application. Individual awards range from $50 to $500.

Awards

Washington State Mathematics Council supports outstanding math educators by offering three awards. Two WSMC members, each an outstanding mathematics educator, are honored annually. The Hall of Fame Award is given to honor an outstanding contributor to the field of mathematics education, one who has given time and effort over a long period of time (ten years or more).

Rita Lowe Scholarships

WSMC gives annual scholarships in the amount of $1000, awarded to:

• High school students planning to become math teachers
  
• College students planning to become math teachers, and
  
• Math teachers pursuing further professional growth.
  

Membership Benefits

• Discounted registration to the NWMC conference*

• Frequent drawings for free books and other swag at conferences, PD offerings, and/or through quarterly newsletters.

• Make connections to math educators across the state.

• Upcoming opportunities for free clock hours.

• Click here to join, renew or donate. Membership is only $25 a year!

Email: wsmcboard@gmail.com
Website: http://www.wsmc.net/

This quarter’s newsletter was written & compiled by Monique Cabellon, Kelly Casto, Rebecca Borowski, Garry Carpenter, Maryke Haynes, Tina Mott, Tami Matsumoto, and Rosalyn Miller. We thank you for reading! We'd love to get some feedback about this newletter to help with future editions. Please help us by clicking here.