American Nicaraguan School

MATH DEPARTMENT MEETING REPORT

April 27th 2016 / 2:15 to 3:00 PM / ROOM 6

ATTENDEES
Camilo Q, NHuerta, Monica S. Claudia Genet, Lucrecia DF, Lisana N.

AGENDA - OBJECTIVES
Last Meeting Follow-up
1. We met as a department last April 20th with to address issues regarding the
way we are asking questions to engage students into active participation and
interaction in between them.

Current Objectives:
There were three questions to be analyzed and discussed with the team.

Are we asking our students questions to generate student - student

interaction?.
What type of questions should we ask to ensure student
understanding?
How do I make sure when to move forward to the next topic? or higher
level of rigor within the same topic?

ACTIVITY(IES) TO ACCOMPLISH OBJECTIVE(S):

1. Camilo Quiones volunteered to give us a demo mini-class on how to find
area of figures formed in between curves (functions) using definite integrals, so that
we could observe and reflect on how to ask the right type of questions/waiting time.
(10-12 min)
2. After the presentation, we came as a group to explore the different ways to
approach how to present, develop, and conclude the topic.
3. We reached the presentation part, where we all discussed and gave
recommendations on how to do it. Yet, we will need to explore more about the
development (teaching strategies), and conclusion (assessment) of this approach.
Questioning is a key component to ensure student understanding, so it is imperative

to all of the members of the math department to have the same framework to
present, develop, and assess a topic with regards to questions.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO ADDRESS/SOLVE THE ISSUE:

Norman Huerta: I found an article which I am encouraging you teachers to read and put it
into practice as soon as possible. It doesnt give us all of the answers, but it gives us
strategies for what we are trying to fix.
https://nrich.maths.org/2473
Camilo Quiones:
A very good article that we should discos in our meeting. There are some very important
questions that we can adapt to our content like what is next This is very specific for
subject and topic. And other that I think can be added to the ANS way to address and solve
Math Word Problems. We should discuss about Levels of Mathematical Thinking that is
mentioned in the article and how can we go through all those levels or most of them in our
assessment.

Monica Schneiderman:
I think many of us use higher level thinking questions but we dont necessarily allow the
students enough time or provide them enough guidance to fully answer them. When I do
higher level thinking Qs I struggle to not give them answers when they cant figure it out. To
avoid this, Ive been trying the strategy of answering their questions with another question.
That way I cant give them the answer. Instead Im asking them something that has them
reconsider their thought process or consider another point of view.
Claudia Genet:

Kyle Martin:

Lucrecia DeFranco:

Lisana Narvaez:
I allow a Q&A after notes and modelling. After students go through a series of practice
problems (all presented in different formats and contexts), on a sticky note they number the
practice problems in order by difficulty to easiest. I take the top 4 or 5 challenging problems
and use them to drive the instruction in the next class session to clarify any misconceptions.

COMMON AGREEMENTS:
We are absolutely clear that we have to work/improve upon our I-do-it, We-do-it, You-do-it
method to develop our lessons. (Different types of Qs included)
Our waiting time for our questions has to be decreased as we move along our math tracks:
6th grades could spend up to 30 sec to respond, whereas our seniors should take no more
than 10 sec.
We must set a time to let students interact in couples, groups of three, or centers: a good
suggestion is to give them a max of two minutes for small group and a max of 5 min for a
center.
The time factor is something we should be aware of, so that we can plan accordingly to
catch up with what it is still missing this school year.
Communication in between teachers to address uncovered/half covered topics this year has
to be done before the end of the school year, to plan accordingly for our next school year.

NEXT MEETING AGENDA: LETS MEET ON MAY 11TH 2016.