Single Session Workshops

we’ll collaborate to adapt or design lessons for our own classrooms. Throughout, we’ll use protocols to guide our work. Teachers will leave with a toolbox of resources ranging from short lessons to complete units and projects. All teachers are encouraged to bring their favorite Earth-centered activity to share. This workshop is best suited for elementary and middle school teachers who want to instill a love of nature as they celebrate Earth Day or any teacher who leads a Green Team.

Shakira Provasoli is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at P.S. 333 Manhattan School for Children in Manhattan.

Jeanne Salchli is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at P.S. 376 in Brooklyn.

Exploring Conic Sections

Facilitators: MƒA Master Teachers Alexander Lord, Ed.D., and Violetta Pinkhasova

TUESDAY, MAY 23 ONLINE  MATHEMATICS

For over 2,000 years, mathematicians have studied the famous conic sections, circles/ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas. This workshop will explore the profound aspects of conic sections through problem-solving and applications. We will make connections to a wide array of mathematical topics, including concepts of eccentricity, discriminants, matrices/determinants, and polar coordinates. This workshop is best for teachers familiar with the basic properties of conic sections and who wish to work collaboratively to explore their advanced properties.

Dr. Alexander Lord and Violetta Pinkhasova are MƒA Master Teachers and mathematics teachers at Francis Lewis High School in Queens.

Facilitation as Leadership: A Refresher

Facilitator: Alan Cheng, Ed.D.

THURSDAY, APR 27 MƒA

 INQUIRY, PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP

Facilitation plays an important role in supporting teaching communities’ learning and ensuring equity and access for all students. In this workshop, we will practice responsive facilitation, build a toolkit to manage group dynamics, and receive descriptive feedback. We will begin with a refresher on strategies for effective facilitation and common pitfalls. Then teachers will have the opportunity to navigate challenging facilitation dilemmas and give and receive feedback. Thereafter, we’ll reflect on how we can bring these refined facilitation practices into our work at MƒA and our school communities. This course is best suited for any teacher who has previously taken a facilitation or leadership course with Dr. Cheng.

Dr. Alan Cheng is a former MƒA fellow and co-facilitator of the MƒA School Leader Fellowship. Alan is currently a superintendent for NYC high schools in the Consortium after serving as the Principal of City-AsSchool High School for many years.

The Fate of the Universe: From Restless Stars to Expansion

Facilitator: William Coulton, Ph.D. WEDNESDAY, APR 19 MƒA

 SCIENCE

Two revolutionary discoveries in cosmology—that the Universe is expanding and that it is occurring at an ever faster rate—have fueled decades of scientific debate, shifting our view of the eternal Universe in stasis to a dynamic one that began with the hot Big Bang. Join us in this workshop to explore the science behind these two great discoveries. We’ll begin by returning to the 20th century to review the evidence that led to Edwin Hubble’s discovery that the Universe was expanding. In the second half of the session, we’ll jump forward fifty years and explore how a campaign to understand and document distant supernovae, stellar explosions of cosmic proportions, led to scientists discovering that Universe expansion was accelerating. The aim of this workshop is to share a high-level introduction to some key physical concepts in cosmology (including redshift, the expanding Universe, and Type-1a Supernova) and explore how these ideas were combined with careful observations to shake up scientific discourse. This course is best suited for physics teachers, but as the material is largely conceptual any teacher interested in learning more about these revolutionary discoveries is welcome.

Dr. Will Coulton is a cosmologist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Simons Foundation Flatiron Institute. His research focuses on trying to elucidate the properties and processes governing the Universe at large. He explores questions such as how old is the Universe and what happened during the hot Big Bang?

Focus on the Process: Opening Up Questions in the Mathematics Classroom

Facilitators: MƒA Master Teachers Renu Budhraja and Andy Deegan

WEDNESDAY, MAR 15 MƒA  MATHEMATICS

How might we change the language and structure of mathematical tasks to encourage students to analyze the problem-solving process? For example, rather than asking students to “Solve: cos x = 1”, what happens if we instead say, “The cosine of an angle is almost 1. What could the angle be?” Open-middle and openended questions require students to focus on analysis, planning, and process, rather than asking students to memorize procedures. In this workshop, high school mathematics teachers will learn how to modify existing course materials to incorporate these “open questions” that demand students truly understand the entire problem-solving process. Examples of “open questions” can be found at Robert Kaplinsky’s and Nanette Johnson’s website, Open Middle

Renu Budhraja and Andy Deegan are MƒA Master Teachers and mathematics teachers at Millennium Brooklyn HS in Brooklyn.