Teachers Meet held in GMS to encourage students love Math

On February 24, 2016, a teacher’s meet was held at the Galvin Middle School to encourage students to learn math beyond what is needed for the school curriculum. All the teachers stressed the importance of Math in daily life. Opening the meet, Shourik Choudhury explained the activities of team E=MC2, which is trying to encourage interest of students in mathematics in both the curriculum and the community as a part of the Canton Community Future Problem Solving project.

Mr. Fuller, who teaches Computer Programming and math at GMS, explained why he liked math and how he used math in his prior jobs in the finance and medical fields. He also mentioned that it is also used in plumbing and mechanical fields. The computer programming class he teaches is solely based on incorporating algebra into coding.

Mrs. Dobbins, head of math department, said that in early student days, she was not interested in math, but science. She mentioned that the more she taught math, the more she liked it. She also mentioned that all math concepts are interlinked and pointed out how even in a geometry class, students use algebra.

7th grade math teacher Mrs. Griffin said that she always planned on teaching but not math. She mentioned that most of the time, students are told that there is one way of solving the problem. But in reality, there are multiple ways to solve a problem and she encouraged students to use different techniques to solve the problems. She also mentioned that students initially find math difficult but after practice they understand how to solve problems more easily.

Dr. Conard, GMS principal who spoke at the occasion, also mentioned that in early student days he struggled with math but later came to appreciate it because of its logic and problem solving techniques. He stressed the fact that it is not what we are is important but we want to be and encouraged students to pursue math with renewed interest. He told the students a personal story on how his own daughter worked hard at math as a student and is now pursuing higher studies in science. He urged students to break the bad image of math and pursue extra math in big numbers.

After their remarks, principal, teachers and the students engaged in a very involved question and answer session, where they discussed their questions, concerns and suggestions about different aspects of learning math.

This session was organized by the Canton Community Problem Solving team E=MC2 members: Shourik Choudhury, Anvitha Addanki, Abinaya Gargy, Connor Leno, Justin Luk, Samuel Walter, Tiffany Ye, Harshitha Valluri.