Minutes of AMAPS Meeting

March 16, 2006

 

The meeting was held at Russo’s on the Bay. Our hosts were Fran Bellows & Ellen Hook from Texas Instruments.

 

 

            Fran Bellows opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and asking them to complete the subscription card.  Danny then asked if there was anyone who had a vacancy or had any teachers in excess.  He said that it would be better if we filled our vacancies in-house rather than to rely on the Department of Education or the Region to place people who may be better off in a different school.

            Michelle Montgomery from Moody’s Mega Math Challenge discussed the recent competition that they sponsored.  Students had 14 hours to solve a challenging real-world problem on a Saturday or a Sunday.  The competition was held entirely by Internet.  There were a total of 149 teams, 129 of which submitted solutions.  This year’s competition dealt with solving the social security problem.  About ½ of the schools that participated state-wide were from NYC.  Everyone from Moody’s spoke about the success of the competition and hopes that it can be funded again next year.

            Jonathan Schweig from Math For America spoke about the Master teacher program.  They are currently looking for outstanding teachers with at least three years of teaching experience.  The deadline for applying is March 27, 2006.  They are currently working with regions 5, 9, and 10 but hope to expand the program next year. 

            Steve Balasiano spoke about the ATMNYC conference.  He distributed fliers.  The keynote speakers for the next meeting are Miguel Cordero and Ron Schwarz. 

            Danny spoke about various summer programs (American Math Society, and Scholars Academy).  The American Math society has a website.  Their programs are geared for the high end student. 

            Norval Soleyn, Assistant Director of College NOW at CCNY spoke about some summer programs that they offer.  The deadline for applying is April 14th.  The courses available were listed in the folder that was distributed. 

            Danny Jaye and Linda Curtis Bey are going to Albany on April 7th to discuss the situation regarding the Math A and Math B Regents exams being offered at the same time.  Many schools will not be able to provide sufficient calculators for students since there will be so many students taking a math Regents exam at one time. 

            Danny urged schools to send students to NYU’s C-Splash event that will take place on March 25th. 

            The roll out for the new math curriculum for math 9 is still undecided.  The latest news is that the Regents exam will begin in June 2009, and most likely there will be some overlap with the Math A Regents.

            Ron Schwarz discussed the fact that many students in grade 8 are already learning the new Math curriculum and that the grade 8 assessment is almost all algebra (including factoring of trinomials).  It is important that schools be aware of this since many level 3 and 4 students will come to high school with these skills, and we should not spend time re-teaching topics that they already know. 

            Sharon Hoosak volunteered to chair a committee that will write new curriculum for Math A that will take the new standards into consideration. 

            Fran Bellows from TI discussed various training programs that TI is offering at several campuses.  The salmon packet that was distributed discusses these courses and the prices.  Teachers who participate will receive a variety of valuable instructional material that will help them in the classroom.  She also discussed the EZ spot TI-84+ graphing calculator.  The calculator has a yellow cover and is only sold to schools.  This will make it more difficult for students to steal calculators.

            Vince Doty from TI concluded the meeting with a workshop on the TI-Navigator. 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

John Wolfe

Recording Secretary