College Preparatory Math (CPM)
Core Connections Overview and Course-Specific Sessions
May 17-18 & 20-21, 2013
Seoul International School
With Chris Mikles and Bruce Melhorn
Workshop Description:
CPM is an educational non-profit consortium of university mathematics professors and secondary teachers dedicated to improving mathematics instruction. They have developed their own curriculum that fosters a collaborative, problem-based classroom environment. CPM utilizes standards-based and research-supported tasks to advance the mathematical skills of students of varying ability levels. The program is based on the following principles:
• Students learn best when engaged in inquiry that leads to deep conceptual understanding of the underlying mathematics. Exploiting each other’s insights, and using distributed learning increases retention and transfer of knowledge.
• Basic skills and procedures should be integrated with conceptual understanding. Students of all ability levels need to be encouraged to understand ideas, find relationships between them, and apply mathematical principles to complex problems.
• Students must be held responsible for high academic rigor, analysis, and critical thinking, while communicating their mathematical findings in a clear and convincing manner.
About the Presenters:
Chris Mikles has been the Director for Teacher Education for CPM since 1995. She oversees all training, and has worked directly with Hong Kong International School and the International School of Doha. She started teaching CPM in 1992 and was one of the piloters of the original Algebra 2 book and of Geometry Connections. She has taught grades 6-7 and 9-12 using CPM and is a contributing author of several Making Connections and Core Connections books. She has spoken at many regional and national conferences and next November will speak at NESA.
Bruce Melhorn is a veteran middle school math teacher and has been a CPM Teacher-Leader for more than 12 years. He has trained middle school math teachers in California, Washington, Oregon, Florida, New York and Hong Kong (HKIS), presented at the Northwest Math Conference, and is a contributing writer of CPM’s Making Connections and Core Connections math series. Bruce has taught in Indonesia, Austria, Singapore, and the Bahamas and currently teaches middle school math at the International School Bangkok, Thailand (ISB).
Registration Fee
The course-specific sessions on May 20-21 can be added for an additional $25/day.