Numeracy Committee Meeting Minutes for December 17th, 2009

Six Nations District Numeracy Committee Meeting Agenda

Thursday, December 17^th, 2009

JC Hill (2:30 – 4:00)

Agenda Items	Present: Carrie Froman, Judy McNaughton, Luanne Martin, Alice Anderson, Joe Restoule General Absent: Sandy Hill, Janis Thomas
Review minutes from last meeting	Approved
Math Assessment Tools	Numeracy Nets: All schools now have a complete set of every grade available from Pearson (grades 3 to 8). The committee discussed how to roll these out. General consensus was to get them into teacher’s hands ASAP, with follow up PD to ‘officially’ implement them. Joe has already met with ECG and arranged visits with OMSK and ILT for the new year to provide a brief overview and offer to support teachers with their use of the Numeracy Nets. PD planning for Numeracy Nets: Pearson is available to give PD for the Numeracy Committee, who will in turn share that PD with their respective schools. They gave the option of either a Pearson rep to come in person or conduct a webinar. The committee agreed that both options could be used, with preference to having someone come in person. The committee agreed that the sooner the PD can be conducted, the better. ONAP (Ontario Numeracy Assessment Package): All schools now have a complete set of every grade available from Nelson (grades 4 to 8). The committee discussed the overabundance of new resources and how it could become overwhelming for teachers. After much discussion and variance in opinion, it was decided that some teachers may want to look at the ONAP books and use these right away, so we would make them available immediately, with plans to offer PD in term 3, while focusing on the Numeracy Nets in term 2. Joe will deliver these to the schools on December 18th. The Super Source K-8 CD ROMs are on back order and will be delivered once they are back in stock.
CAT/Insight Testing Opportunity	Follow up on participation: There was only one school that seemed to have discussed this with their staff, though some committee members said they may have not attended a staff meeting when it was discussed. Joe had sent an e-mail requesting for participation numbers from each school previously in November and a follow up just prior to the Numeracy Committee meeting. Granted, due to the insanity that ensues before Christmas, it was expected that schools would look at this in the new year. The Numeracy committee unanimously supports this opportunity. The testing would contribute to ALL four focus areas of the District Numeracy Plan, at zero cost to the District. It would result in the gathering of student data that could be used to help plan and develop programs to enhance student success. Furthermore, we would be able to try another form of assessment, which was originally passed over due to exorbitant costs, free of charge. The only possible drawback that the committee could foresee was the feeling of overdoing the testing of our students, and the extra work load that would be put upon the teachers in the short term.
Math contest (Caribou)	Upcoming dates/Classes involved: The Brock University Caribou Math Contest continues in 2010. See dates at www.brocku.ca/caribou. It was reported that one of the grade 3 students in our district participated in the grade 3/4 test and performed quite well. The positive and enthusiastic reaction from the students involved has been a great sign and nice progress towards an item from Focus Area 4 in the District Numeracy plan regarding celebrating student success in Numeracy. More participation in future tests is encouraged. Judy McNaughton’s class has already registered for the January test. She hopes that a computer lab is in place at OMSK before that date. The other grade 5/6 students that tried the test before will hopefully enter again. Joe and Mike Hickey will be assisting teachers on January 20th with logging on and navigating the contest. Individual teachers need to register in advance and have their passwords ready for the day of the test. Registration is available at the address above.
Math Survey on Curriculum Reform/Review	Please encourage others on staff to complete the survey. It takes about 2 minutes (one open ended question). Some teachers at OMSK had already done the survey.
ILT Literacy/Math Night on November 26th	Report on how it went: No Numeracy Committee rep from ILT was present to report. Joe was at the event and said it was fun and a good time for teachers, parents and students. He said that Kathy Hill seemed quite happy with the turnout.
ECG Math Night	No news to share on this upcoming event.
Explore Learning Teacher Passwords	All grade 7 and 8 teachers have accounts and passwords set up with the Explore Learning website. The committee viewed some of the website’s resources. Teachers are able to use this license until August 2010, as part of our agreement with OSAPAC. There are plenty of amazing resources and visual demonstrations and interactive components to enhance student learning and understanding. Joe to follow up with the Explore Learning people (Stephen Lippa) to get some PD for teachers on how to best utilize this resource.
Mathville 1 Teacher and Student Login and Access	The district also has a license to use the Mathville website resource. This is best suited for primary classrooms. The username and password was shared with Numeracy reps to share with their school staff.
Report Card Inserts	The Numeracy committee shared some parent comments regarding the report card inserts that were sent home on December 4th. Some parents from Jamieson school expressed interest in a math night based on the pamphlets that they were given.
Review 3 Year Plan in Final Draft Form	The committee was asked for any comments from their respective staff concerning the Final Draft of the Three Year Numeracy Plan. Principals were given copies at the November PAC meeting to share with their staff for input. Some schools had yet to see the latest draft. Joe sent out electronic copies to all Numeracy committee members, though the appendix still needs to be formatted electronically. We still welcome staff input but will operate as though the draft is indeed final and being put into action. We are pleased with how initiatives in the schools are progressing towards achieving the focus areas of the plan.
Numeracy Committee Goals for 2009-2010	The committee laid out some goals and ideas in addition/conjunction to implementation of the District Numeracy plan. One goal is to survey Six Nations staff for their Numeracy needs, as well as skills they can offer to share with others. This is already being talked about through the PD committee. Another idea is to ask staff to compile a “wish list” of items in advance of a possible year end budget call for purchasing. Thirdly, the committee recognizes a need for PD and development for Six Nations staff on Rich Tasks/Problem Solving as well as Math lesson planning (long term/short term). We talked about how although Math Makes Sense is somewhat close to the ideal of providing some lessons with rich tasks and problem solving opportunities, the text does tend to invert the process of learning, teaching explicit skills in advance of an eventual culminating rich task. Students would benefit from developing those skills in problem solving situations from the start of a unit. The committee then discussed how best to provide this PD. Some suggestions were the current avenues already in place; through PD Days, divisional meetings, and similar activities. The effectiveness and appropriateness of after school PD sessions were questioned. We spoke about how the ideal PD would occur in PLC sessions during the aforementioned times, as that environment provides for deeper learning through a teacher guided/focused approach.
Concerns about meeting times and scheduling	There is an ongoing concern about attendance and teacher coverage for Numeracy Committee meetings. The committee requested that Joe ask to put this on the PAC meeting agenda.
Future Meetings with Guest presenters and PD possibilities	The next meeting will take place in Ms. Ireland’s classroom at JC Hill school on Thursday, January 21st. Guest presenter Rudy Neufeld will present on his software resource entitled Understanding Math. Joe installed the preview version of this software on every computer at ECG, and most junior/intermediate classrooms in all the schools. Though the meeting starts at 2:30, teachers interested in seeing Rudy Neufeld’s presentation are invited to attend. An invitation and info notice will be sent out in the new year. Pearson PD will occur at the February 25th meeting. Joe is to finalize and confirm this.