The University of Georgia Math and Parent Partnership program took place at four Title I elementary schools in Griffin, GA. Our project included classroom teachers who enjoyed learning along with the parents in the two mini-courses we offered. Parents, teachers, and children alike learned how to use tangrams to understand fractions, and they took the MAPPS activities back to their homes and classrooms for more practice. After having struggled with fractions throughout the year, one 2nd grade student announced, “Oh, I got it. I got it now!” as she shifted the tangram pieces.  She could explain her understanding as well. She realized that the smaller triangle was half the size of the larger triangle. Furthermore, she could also recognize the fractional relationship between the trapezoid and hexagon with pattern blocks.

We are finding that MAPPS empowered parents to work with their children on math homework instead of sending them off to their rooms to complete it alone. Also, the parents and teachers in MAPPS formed close-knit learning communities. By the end of the second mini-course, they didn’t want it to end! We held graduation ceremonies at each school, and every participant received a certificate for participating. We look forward to expanding to neighboring school districts in the 2009-2010 school year.

Andrea Knapp, Ph.D.

Mathematics and Science Education

University of Georgia Griffin Campus

 The MAPPS mini-course, Geometry for Parents, ran from the first week of January to the last week of February, 2009, for parents of students from Hohokam Middle School, Tucson, or one of its feeder elementary schools: Lawrence, Johnson, Maldonado, and Miller.  Also, throughout the 2008 – 2009 school year, fifteen two-hour, stand-alone Math for Parents – MAPPS Workshops took place throughout the five schools.  The facilitators for both mini-course and workshops were teachers from the five schools.  In March, teacher-facilitators, principals from the participating schools, and others on the MAPPS team commented on the year’s activities.   The selected comments that appear below reflect the rich benefits of MAPPS activities to the schools. 

Several talked about the benefits of MAPPS activities to the parents and their children:

“The parents who took the course were excited to be there.  They looked forward to the next meeting.” - teacher

“[in the workshops] I like having their student next to them working with them because it gives students an opportunity to teach their parents.”  - principal

“MAPPS is the best thing we have going for the parents.”  - teacher

“The parents really enjoyed coming.”  - teacher

Many discussed the benefits to the teacher-facilitators themselves:

“Excellent training/professional development for our teachers….I have really seen the benefits of the professional development with the teachers on [the MAPPS team].”           - principal

“The MAPPS activities are fabulous!  Very engaging and fun.  I love how they’re broken down into bite-sized bits of information that build upon one another.  I think the teachers loved these activities as much as the parents did!  I would *love* to participate again next year!” - teacher

“A lot of the facilitators really learned a lot of mathematics and a lot about teaching mathematics by teaching the mini-course.” – administrator

Several brought up the issue of cooperation and bonding that took place between teacher-facilitators from the different schools:

“I see benefits [of MAPPS] on so very many levels.  The networking that teachers in the feeder pattern have done is tremendous.  They have pulled together to work on a meaningful project that includes deepening content understandings as they consider how to deliver that same content to [parent] participants.  [All] that must flow over into classroom practice.  They are honing instructional practice related to learners of all ages.  They are sharing their passion for mathematics with parents who appear to become excited as they work through the content themselves.  In essence, every teacher involved is refining mathematics leadership skills, learning with and from each other.”    - teacher

“In the end, for the facilitators [teaching the mini-course] was a bonding experience between the Hohokam folk and the feeder folk.  The two groups wound up having respect for each other.” –  administrator

“What worked: The cooperation of feeder pattern MAPPS teachers.”  - teacher

Others spoke of building community:

“The interaction and community building at Hohokam was great…  We should always …help parents feel more comfortable within the school setting.  Their support and trust come as they get to know us.”  - teacher

“At the heart of the concept was for us to inspire our community of families to learn math skills to assist their children.  Secondary was to begin to change the ‘negative’ perception of Hohokam and invite the feeder-pattern to our campus prior to their actual middle school articulation.”  - teacher

“Relationships amongst teachers, administrators, parents, and children were developed.” - principal

David

David has talked about the Hohokom Middle School project and the last session of the Geometry mini-course series. I would like to take a few minutes and tell you about the MAPPS training I did with the teachers that facilitated the Geometry for Parents mini-course.  I did three 6-hour training sessions with the teachers; two in December and one in January. I enjoyed facilitating this group as they were excited and exuberant about learning and teaching the Geometry mini-course to parents.  The information even carried over into their classrooms. They talked about activities we did in the training that they could do in their classes with their students. The teachers had formed a bond to where each of them wanted to be present the evening of the mini-course session.  During each mini-course session there were 2 main facilitators and at least 4 facilitator helpers. During the training we worked through each session and activity in its entirety and in January debriefed about the previous sessions on how is it going and what modifications need to be made for sessions 6-8.   The debriefing time was very valuable in that the teachers were able to express their joys and frustrations. Ah ha’s the teachers experienced while facilitating each mini-course session  were:  parents are still willing to work even though they have reached a frustration level; parents share their ah ha with each other; parents are engrossed and motivated; parents make meaningful connections to their daily life and share with others. Some frustrations that the teachers expressed were: not having parents show up that said they would, parents eat and leave, start time, and too much distance between training and sessions.  Some of the frustrations expressed are out of our control but we can keep working at it. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear from you. I do know that in planning for the next mini-course in the fall and from the teachers input, I would like to have more training sessions, shorter in length, and closer to the time of the delivery of the mini-course sessions with the parents.

Mary

Tuesday was the final session of Geometry for Parents at Tucson’s Hohokam Middle School gym.  The evening began with a Mexican buffet followed by recognition of district administrators who were there to help celebrate the occasion: Hohokam’s assistant principal, principals of the four feeder elementary schools, director of Native American Studies, elementary mathematics curriculum specialist, Title I Coordinator, and Title I Mathematics Project Specialist.  (The latter two coordinate the MAPPS project at Hohokam and feeders.)  There were more, but you get the idea.  Lots of support.  Lots of enthusiasm.  They asked me to say a few words.  I said “Math and Parents makes a powerful combo.  Parents, because evidence shows that parental involvement in activities like MAPPS - engagement with classroom content – ranks at the top of factors that correlate with student success.  Math, because it opens doors: it’s the key to success in future careers and the key to access to higher education.”  I ended by telling them I hoped to see them at future MAPPS activities.   

The formalities over, we got down to mathematics: building models of the regular polyhedra.  Several tables of parents were clustered around one end of the gym.  Each of the 40 or so parents got copies of patterns for each regular polyhedron to take home for building models with their kids.  Each table also had sets of Polydron and other commercial plastic manipulatives.  Using these, the parents set about in earnest to make 3-d models of the Platonic solids.  Lots of success.  Lots of showing everybody else the models they made. 

The culminating activity was to build giant polyhedral frameworks out of dowels and connectors.  Parents moved to the other end of the gym where they found piles of dowels (4ft long, 3/8” diameter) and connectors made out of small bolts and pieces of plastic tubing (just the right size for a dowel to fit snugly inside).  Parents arranged themselves in four or five groups and set about making “life-size” regular polyhedral with dowels as edges and connectors as vertices.  I saw one group making a cube – frustrated because it wouldn’t stand up!  They pretty quickly turned to making polyhedra with triangular faces.  Tetrahedra.  Octahedra.  Pretty easy.  Finally, two groups formed, each attempting to make an icosahedron.   One started by replicating, on the floor, a large version of the paper pattern.  The other group just started putting it together – in the air.   Some folk stuck dowels in the plastic tubing and made triangular faces.  Others held the connectors in the air with the dowels stuck in and helped to keep the contraption from falling apart.  A lot of cooperation.  A lot of discussion of what to do next.  A lot of puzzling over why it wasn’t coming together.  Finally, someone looked at a small model and concluded that each connector had to have exactly 5 dowels – and that their “life size” model-in-progress had a couple of connectors with 6.  Some careful removing of the “spurious” dowels.  Some more adjusting.  Then, all of a sudden, there it was!  A complete, person-sized icosahedron!  “We did it!”  High fives all around.  The finished model was person-high, about 5’8” off the ground.  Some folk crawled inside to celebrate and get the feel of being “inside” an icosahedron.   Cool.

The evening ended with prizes and certificates.  Smiling parents walked out with newfound math friends, talking about getting back together for the next MAPPS event.  I can’t wait!

David

Here is an up-date on a local project. In the Stories section of our Web site, we reported that, last winter, a team of individuals from Tucson Unified School District ran a Math for Parents Mini-Course at Hohokam Middle School for parents from Hohokam and Johnson Elementary (a feeder to Hohokam).  It was so successful that other feeder elementary schools wanted to join in and the district decided to offer two sections of a new Mini-Course this winter.  In our Web site story, we mention that the demographics of Hohokam is 49% Hispanic, 49% Yaqui, 2% anglo.  Yaqui is a local Native American tribe.  When tribal council members found out that an average of 40 parents attended each of the 8 sessions of last winter’s course, they were astounded.  They had never attracted that many parents to a single parent event - ever. 

So, right now, two sections of Geometry for Parents are taking place for parents of Hohokam, Lawrence, Johnson, Miller, and Maldonado students.  One section takes place in the Hohokam school library.  The other takes place about a mile away at Southwest Education Center.  The sessions of the course take place every Tuesday evening, 5:30-7:30.  They began January 5.  Since sessions build on each other, the ideal is that each parent participant attend all 8 sessions. 

The model the Hohokam team is using to facilitate the course is kind of a team-teaching one.  Last November, Mary ran two, 6-hour workshops here on campus to train a group of 12 teachers from the participating schools to facilitate the courses.  At each Mini Course session all these trained teachers show up - more or less.  At the session I attended last week two were facilitating; the others circulated to answer questions and provide encouragement.  Next session, roles will be reversed.  This model of facilitating is sort of new for us.  In previous Mini-Course offerings, the model was one facilitator throughout the course — a master teacher (not always from the parents’ kids’ schools) — and a couple of assistants circulating among the parents.  The Hohokam model has a real plus.  Since the facilitators are from the participating schools, there is a strong buy-in from the teaching staff of each participating school.

At the session I attended, there was a lottery for half a dozen baskets of goodies.  These were handed out with a lot of fanfare at the end of the session.  I think this happens every session.  Last Saturday Mary ran a third workshop for the facilitating teachers to debrief the first half of the course and to complete their training for the Mini-Course.  We should hear from Mary on this, soon.  Stay tuned!

David