We Need You!

The Greater Birmingham Mathematics Partnership recognizes that the support and involvement of parents and community members are vital for successful implementation of quality mathematics programs.  So we want you to be as informed about our work as possible.  To this end, we offer Community Mathematics Nights (public presentations) each school year at locations (usually schools) throughout Jefferson and Shelby counties. Our Community Mathematics Nights are open to teachers and administrators as well as parents and community members, and are designed to build a common base of experience for all educational stakeholders.  We also hope that, as a result of attending these sessions, parents will come to support the project’s efforts in ways such as volunteering in classrooms and becoming a proponent for mathematics reform in the community.  Please check back here and on our Calendar for listings of coming sessions.

For an even more intensive look at our project's work, we also offer parents the opportunity to take one of our summer training courses for free alongside local teachers.  These 2 week courses are held at a public school in June just after the end of the school year.  Participation in these courses requires no background in mathematics, and you won't get a grade.  What you will get, however, is a truly engaging experience that will demonstrate how approachable and enjoyable mathematics can be.  And we feel confident that our project will get one more important advocate.  

About our Community Mathematics Nights (CMNs)    

Join us for Community Mathematics Night and learn how YOU and your children's teachers can help your kids actually ENJOY and UNDERSTAND MATHEMATICS.  We promise NO TESTING and an evening that will be as FUN as it is POWERFUL!   All community mathematics nights are offered free and are open to all adults. Children 3rd grade and up are also invited to all sessions except session #1. Community Mathematics Nights or "CMNs" are held during the school year at venues throughout the greater Birmingham area. During these sessions, parents and other attendees are engaged in doing middle school mathematics while considering important issues in mathematics education. These evenings are presented by Dr. Ruth Parker of the Mathematics Education Collaborative (MEC) and represent one of MEC’s unique contributions to mathematics education and our project.  Community Mathematics Nights are two hours in length and each focuses on one, two, or three big ideas that parents need to understand in order to recognize, support, and advocate for quality mathematics programs in their schools.   Offerings include:

• Mathematics And Your Child's Future: The Basics and Beyond (Session #1)

• Multiplication: Will Children Know Their Basic Facts? (Session #2)

• How to Help Your Child with Math At Home (Session #3)

• More Ideas for Helping Your Child at Home (Session #4)

• Algebra: Preparation for Success (Session #5)

• Number Talks: Helping Your Child Learn to Reason with Numbers (Session #6)

• Mathematics Common Core State Standards (Session #7)

The first CMN focuses on the importance of numerical reasoning and the need for meaning-based mathematics programs.  The second CMN uses multiplication as a context for examining the importance of a focused curriculum and what it means to teach for an in-depth understanding that results in connections among important mathematical ideas.  The next 2 sessions focus on how parents can help their kids with mathematics at home and what they can do when neither they nor their kids understand the mathematics involved in homework.  These sessions help parents learn how to engage with their children in ways that build a positive mathematical disposition. The fifth session offers a focused look at algebra as taught and assessed for understanding.  The sixth session is on Number Talks, an important part of helping children learn to reason mathematically, and focuses on how you can support your children by engaging with them in numerical reasoning at home to build a foundation for success in algebra.  The seventh, and newest session, introduces the Mathematics Common Core State Standards and will help parents, teachers and administrators understand the kinds of practices that promote mathematical reasoning.  As a result of participating in at least two of the sessions, parents learn that:

• There are often several diverse ways of solving a mathematics problem.  By examining diverse approaches, mathematical understandings are deepened and mathematical connections are made.
• Mathematics is a sense-making process and sense-making must be at the heart of the work children do in mathematics.

• Teaching for understanding involves teaching mathematics in ways that help children understand relationships, not just memorize procedures.

• While arithmetic is important to the doing of mathematics, mathematics is much more than just arithmetic.

• Mathematics is a powerful, useful tool for making sense of information and situations in our lives and in the world around us.

• All children can do important mathematics and all kids deserve a mathematics program that prepares them to be effective and powerful users of mathematics.

Attend a Free Summer Mathematics Course!

Want to learn firsthand about the specialized training GBMP provides to your children's teachers? If so, we encourage you to attend one of our 2-week summer mathematics courses for FREE. You'll never look at mathematics the same way again.  For further details, please contact John Mayer at 934-2154.  

Additional Resources For Parents

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Illuminations

Please visit MEC's website for more parent resources.

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