Single Session Workshops

science fair fostering agency, identity, and engagement in our middle school students. We’ll begin by discussing our previous challenges and then explore a series of practical plans to guide students in conducting and sharing their own rigorous scientific research. Teachers will leave with an array of ready-to-use resources to support authentic investigation, successful group work, differentiation, vertical-alignment, and tested timelines and logistics. This workshop is most suitable for middle school science teachers, but anyone interested is welcome to join.

Devan Aptekar, Alison Cohen, Pamela Flanagan, and James Salazar are MƒA Master Teachers and science teachers at Tompkins Square Middle School in Manhattan.

facilitating professional development on inclusive co-teaching practices and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Additionally, she is an educational coach and workshop facilitator for Roots ConnectED, where she facilitates workshops on inclusive practices focused on highimpact co-teaching models and the theory and practice of UDL.

Millen Tesfaldet is an educator at Community Roots Charter School in Brooklyn, New York, a Roots ConnectED learning site, where she teaches 1st grade and focuses on developing and revising curriculum. Millen has taught in high impact ICT classrooms utilizing various coteaching approaches and the Universal Design for Learning framework to meet the needs of all her students. She has effectively designed and revised units that guide students to explore issues of identity, power, perspective, and access.

Paper Circuit Identity Portraits

Facilitators: MƒA Master Teachers Shiela Lee and Diana Scheck

THURSDAY, MAY 25 MƒA  INQUIRY, PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP

Parking Functions: Choose Your Own Adventure

Facilitator: Pamela Harris, Ph.D.

TUESDAY, MAR 7

ONLINE  MATHEMATICS

Myth of the Average

WEDNESDAY, APR 26 ONLINE  INQUIRY,

Learner

p Facilitators: Ellen Cantrell and Millen Tesfaldet

PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP

We have witnessed far too many classrooms where students are taught to an imaginary “average,” excluding differentiation for any student outside of this “middle.” Achieving equity in our classrooms requires recognizing the variability of learners in our communities. To do this, we must eradicate the myth of the average learner from our mindsets. In this session, we will discover how addressing learning needs is related to equity and justice in our classrooms. Because a central component of our Anti-Bias Framework is inclusion, developing an inclusive mindset is essential in creating anti-biased classrooms and school communities. Teachers will leave with tangible next steps on how to create personal and systemic shifts in understanding around inclusion and anti-bias at their schools.

Ellen Cantrell is an elementary school educator who works in co-taught classrooms at Community Roots Charter School in Brooklyn, New York, a Roots ConnectED learning site. Ellen has been a member of the Inclusive Practices Group (IPG) at Community Roots since its inception,

Affirming student identity is essential in building community in the classroom, getting to know your students, and improving engagement. In this workshop, teachers will make their identity portraits and incorporate circuits to light up the parts of their identities that are most important to them. Join us for a STEAM-filled evening as we discuss using paper circuit identity portraits to extend learning in science and engage students. Teachers will leave with tools to affirm their students’ identities in the classroom and ways to integrate paper circuits within their curricula no matter the grade level. This workshop is open to all teachers.

Shiela Lee is an MƒA Master Teacher and computer science teacher at P.S. 059 Beekman Hill International in Manhattan.

Diana Scheck is an MƒA Master Teacher and mathematics teacher at P.S. 059 Beekman Hill International in Manhattan.

Consider a parking lot consisting of n consecutive parking spots along a one-way street labeled 1 to n Suppose n cars want to park one at a time in the parking lot, and each has a preferred parking spot. Each car entering the lot initially tries to park in its preferred spot. However, if a car’s preferred spot is already occupied, it will proceed forward to the street parking in the next available spot. Since the parking lot is along a one-way street, it is not guaranteed that every car will be able to park before driving past the parking lot. If we let ai denote the preference of car i and all of the cars can park under these conditions, then the preference list (a1 ,a2, ... ,an) is called a parking function (of length n). For example, (1,2,4,2,2) is a parking function, but (1,2,2,5,5) is not (you should convince yourself of this!). In this workshop, we will explore combinatorial problems related to parking functions and consider many new avenues for research stemming from this enumerative question. Come ready to collaborate and wonder about these mathematical objects!

Dr. Pamela E. Harris is a Mexican-American mathematician, award-winning mathematical educator, and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her B.S. from Marquette University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Harris’s research is in algebraic combinatorics and she is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed research articles in internationally recognized journals. She has supervised the research of over 120 undergraduate students, most of whom identify as members of historically excluded groups in higher education. She has served as a research faculty mentor for undergraduate research programs at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics. She is the President and co-founder of Lathisms: Latinx and Hispanics in the Mathematical Sciences, cohosts the podcast Mathematically Uncensored, and is a co-author of the book series about advocating for students of color in mathematics Asked and Answered , Practices and Policies , and Read and Rectify.