Join MMSLN, the PD provider for OpenSciEd middle school curriculum materials, for more information about OpenSciEd. Learn about development, field tests, adoption, hands-on materials, and the essential professional learning you need!
We will have four awareness sessions:
July 7 at 9 a.m.
July 15 at 12 p.m.
July 23 at 3 p.m.
July 28 at 7 p.m.
You can choose any or all of these sessions! Register, now!
Mary Starr, PhD
Executive Director, MMSLN
Gain first-hand experience and fluency with the IM 6-8 or 9-12 curricula this summer. Attend an IM Learning™ Instructional Academy.
Want to take your knowledge of the IM Math curriculum to the next level this summer? Attend an IM 6-8 Math™ or IM 9-12 Math™ Academy and gain first-hand experience and confidence with the IM curricula while learning from an IM Certified facilitator.
IM 6-12 Math™ Academies offer a two-day introduction to the curriculum in a collaborative, virtual setting. Academy participants explore the problem-based lesson structure of the curriculum and learn to leverage both the 5 Practices framework and instructional routines to foster student discourse.
[IM Math Academy content is the equivalent of IM Professional Learning “Teaching and Learning with IM Math™“]
Join our IM Virtual Unit Overviews for ongoing support around making effective instructional decisions as you move through each unit.
Visit: https://mimathandscience.org/im-academy/ for more information.
Angela Calabrese-Barton and Edna Tan are the MMSLN’s next and final Science Chat leaders for this spring/summer. They have recently published an essay regarding equity and rightful presence in STEM education, in Ed. Researcher. It is amazing, powerful and important for our work.
This Science Chat will be appropriate for both formal and informal STEM educators – so if you know someone who would like this announcement, please pass it on.
June 26 3-4 p.m. – on Zoom! Register here
Beyond Equity as Inclusion: A Framework of “Rightful Presence” for Guiding Justice-Oriented Studies in Teaching and Learning
Angela Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan
Educational Researcher, Vol. XX No. X, pp. 1–8
DOI: 10.3102/0013189X20927363
Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions © 2020 AERA. http://er.aera.net
This is a Southern Regional Education Board (SREB.org) Policy Brief May 2020
Science tends to be viewed as a completely separate subject area from reading and math. This is the case even in elementary school, where academic content may be more intertwined than in later years. But scientific thinking and processes are valuable across all areas of learning and for career success. Waiting until the middle grades to give science an equal place among the academic subjects not only handicaps students’ performance in reading – background knowledge is necessary for comprehension – it means they have less time to develop important thinking skills that will benefit them in all subjects.
https://www.sreb.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/sciencebrief_may2020.pdf?1589398782
sciencebrief_may2020.pdf
June 1, 2020
As president and past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), we are committed to a position of social justice that challenges the roles of power, privilege, and oppression. We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the loved ones of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. As a mathematics education community, we must not tolerate acts of racism, hate, bias, or violence.
Many of you, your students, and colleagues watched the events in Minneapolis, Louisville, and Brunswick, Georgia, unfold on television and social media and have been affected by those incidents and the public reaction to them. The trauma of these developments has an impact on the social and emotional well-being of students and teachers in daily life and in classroom learning. Our colleague Matt Larson reminds us that We Teach More Than Mathematics. As mathematics educators, we must engage in anti-racist and trauma-informed education in our daily practices as processes of learning and adjustments.
Anti-racist and trauma-informed education not only raises our awareness of racism and trauma experienced by Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and all marginalized peoples, but it also recognizes that we must be purposeful in addressing racism and trauma. In August 2017 Larson and Berry made several calls to the mathematics education community in their response to the unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia. In this message we renew these calls. As educators, teachers of mathematics, and a Council, we reiterate our position:
As NCTM’s Catalyzing Change series advocates, we need to engage in critical conversations that urge educators to create structures where each and every student can be fully engaged in our democratic society. We owe this not only to our students but also to the society we wish to inhabit both now and in the future.
One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism. (Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, p. 9)
Trena L. Wilkerson
NCTM President
@trenawilkerson
Robert Q. Berry III
NCTM Past President
@robertqberry
OpenSciEd stands with the millions of people across our country who seek justice for the Black lives lost to racialized violence.
OpenSciEd’s Statement on Racial Inequities, Black Lives, and the Protests across the Nation
OpenSciEd stands with the millions of people across our country who seek justice for the Black lives lost to racialized violence and with those who demand and pursue the reforms necessary to root out systemic racism, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy. We stand firmly in the belief that Black lives matter. We mourn and honor the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the many other Black lives who have been interrupted and disrupted.
As an organization, OpenSciEd remains committed to acknowledging and taking on systemic racism in education. We recognize that the education system has often been a tool of oppression against people of color, specifically Black people, recreating power hierarchies and inequities. As science educators, we endeavor to develop science instructional materials and professional learning resources that provide equitable learning opportunities for historically disenfranchised students, with the goal to support their long-term self-determination. Our development process seeks to surface and address inequities in the engagement and participation of Black and Brown students in science learning, as well as other students who have been seen through a deficit lens rather than as knowledge builders in classrooms. Part of our work towards equity and justice involves recognizing the insidious ways racism has operated in science and rooting it out of science education; we see this in the way COVID-19 has affected Black and Brown communities, the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, and the violation of Henrietta Lacks, to name a few. Therefore, we strive to implement approaches that de-settle inequitable systems, routines, and assumptions that are in place in too many science learning environments and educational institutions.
We call on all curriculum developers to provide materials that bring forward and value all students’ voices and surface the critical conversations that will empower students to own their education and their futures.
Our work as educators is central to the elimination of racism, Anti-Blackness, and white supremacy in science education and we dedicate our organization to advocate for and work toward a more just society.
Sincerely,
OpenSciEd
Grab a drink, a comfy chair, and your computer or other device and join us for two upcoming Science Chats!
June 12 – 3 pm. – 4 p.m
Gather with Science Leaders to join Carla Zembal-Saul, Penn State University, and learn more about supporting teachers as they grapple with sensemaking in their classrooms! Can’t wait to see you there!
All upcoming events – MMSLNwebsite
Tuesday, May 26, 9:00 PM EDT
This presentation will describe means to attend to equity in the era of a pandemic. We will describe factors that can impact equitable learning outcomes, and identify strategies that can address equity when teaching remotely.
Recommended Grade Level: K – 12
When: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 · 09:00:00 PM · Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Duration: 1 hour
Language: English
Who can attend? Everyone
Dial-in available? (listen only): No
Are you a math educator in Michigan? The MMSLN wants to provide connection opportunities that are supportive of our mathematics leaders. We invite you to join in the next MMSLN Math Chat. FREE. No charge and no membership required.
In these difficult times, connection with our colleagues is more important than ever. Come connect and engage virtually with mathematics leaders from across the state. As the school year comes to an end, we will chat and take stock of how things have gone. What has worked for us? What have we seen working in our contexts? We will also continue our conversations about getting ready for the fall and being specific about the messages we want to send no matter the context of our return to school. Join us and keep the conversation going!
Register and share our event via Eventbrite or Facebook.
MMSLN Math Chat
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
3-4:30 PM
The Equity Learning Institute, the virtual learning portal of the Equity Literacy Institute, is excited to offer three new, self-paced mini-courses in Equity Literacy. The first two are FREE.
Course 1: Understanding Equity and Inequity
What the heck is equity? In this 90-minute course hosted by Paul Gorski, we answer that. We explore common definitions and offer one of our own based on our transformative equity approach. We also discuss the good and bad of common equity approaches.
Course 2: Learning to Be a Threat to Inequity: An Introduction to the Equity Literacy Framework (2 hours)
In this approximately 2-hour mini-course led by Paul Gorski, you will learn about the primary aspects of the equity literacy framework, including the dimensions, abilities, and principles of equity literacy.
Course 3 ($4.99): Ditching Deficit Ideology: The First Step Toward Cultivating an Equity Commitment
Equity cannot live where deficit ideology lives. In this mini-course (1.5-2 hours), we explore what deficit ideology is, how it thwarts equity efforts, and how to cultivate a more equitable way of interpreting educational disparities.
