Minutes of ISMAW meeting, October 9, 2003, at Maret

In attendance were: Nancy Wright, Washington Episcopal School; Beth Cole, St. Patrick’s; Clay Kaufman, Field; Cindy Goldman, Sidwell Friends; Karen Dee Michalowicz, Langley; Sue Harris, Queen Anne; Kathleen Glines, Edmund Burke; Harriet Scheuermann and Karen Rose, National Cathedral School; Betty King, Maret; Betsy Bennett, St. Albans; Margaret Coffey, Bishop Ireton; Paul Penniman, private tutor; Margot Calcut, Holy Child; Doug Adams, St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes; Syamala Chenulu, Capitol Hill Day School; Ayana Touval, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School; Alessandra King, Green Hedges; and Dorothy Prats, St. Andrew’s.

(This year’s officers: Co-Presidents Ayana Touval and Syamala Chenulu; Treasurer Nancy Wright, and Virtual Secretary Paul Penniman)

In spite of Isabel we had a good attendance and the meeting started with
self-introductions. Nancy Wright read the Treasurer' report which was passed
unanimously. We have a decent balance in our account. The Upper School meets
and the Middle School meets will have the same people continuing to make the
questions.

Schedule changes:
1.  Upper School Math Meet - The venue continues to be Jewish Day School and
the date scheduled is Thursday, November 13, 2003 (4:15 for this meet only).
2.  The ISMAW meeting at Jewish Day School will be on Thursday, February 19,
2003 instead of February 26 (4:15 for this meeting only).

Math experiences during the summer:

Some members went in for a much needed relaxing summer, but there were others present who worked for short periods of time on renewing mathematical experiences. Nancy brushed up on Algebra 2 by tutoring a student. Karen visited the British Museum to see some old mathematical ventures and has been busy making posters on African American women mathematicians for the Benjamin Banneker Museum, especially Mary Dickson Kies. Kathleen attended a workshop that she said did not come to her expectations. Betty attended a workshop conducted by the Service Learning Institute which 15 other teachers also attended. This will be an ongoing service by Maret students who will be mentoring students of a charter school in Adams Morgan. More information will be given at the next meeting so that other interested schools may be able to use this as a resource. Betsy attended the Taft workshop of teaching with technology which she liked very much. The teacher was Gary S. Luck, and the topic was graphing calculator (at many levels). Next year’s workshop will hopefully be the SMARTBoard. Gary’s email is gsluck@ameritech.net

There were several suggestions for good reading: "Prime Obsession" by John Derbyshire that starts with the number theory and goes on to calculus using mystery as the basis. One of the meeting' participants found it exhilarating and feels that many of her students enjoyed reading it. Another book of interest that was suggested was "Conned Again" by Conan Bruce. Margaret attended the AP Statistics conference at Exeter and found it very exciting. Syamala gave a short introduction with a one day workshop on The Geometer's Sketchpad at her old school, Aditi International, during her trip to India. Ayana went to Fort Collins, C0 as an AP Calculus Reader. She found the presentation of problem solving before the reading very interesting and useful. She also attended the Pre-AP workshop at Skokie, Illinois where they talked about the vertical team concept of teaching a single concept through out 6-12.

NCTM has come out with a new series of books at the Middle School level with assessment tests with commentary how to use them.

In view of the much-publicized SAT cheating story, we talked briefly about ethics. Doug talked about the importance of "goodness" being stressed and whether anyone else was doing the same. Syamala reiterated the importance of rules and guidelines and how her school was reading books every month (the same book for Pre-K-8) to inculcate values, respect and "goodness". These books would be brought in at a future meeting when we will be discussing this issue further.

Topics for further meetings

GDS Monday, November 3, 2003    Sequencing of algebra 1, algebra 2, geometry (or the other way) discussion

NCS Tuesday, December 2, 2003   TIMMS assessment details and discussion of international teaching methods

Jewish Day School, Thursday, February 19, 2004  Multiple Intelligence and learning styles, including sex differences (see www.singlesexschools.org/differences.htm to bone up)--tentatively hoping for Uri Treisman of the University of Texas to come
and lead the discussion.

St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes, April 28, 2004 Nuts and bolts but also readers from AP statistics and calculus

The meeting ended with a note of thanks to the Maret School for the wonderful reception to the members.

--Paul Penniman (with a big assist to Syamala Chenulu)