PreK-2 Teachers and NCTM
A few weeks ago I had the great honor of going to the NCTM Headquarters in Virginia to attend the Program Committee Meeting because I get to help plan the NCTM 2015 Regional Conference in Nashville. It was interesting to me for lots of reasons, but two of them are still bouncing around in my head so I’m going to air my thoughts here:
I am going to save #2 for another day and just focus on #1 tonight, because it is getting late.
Lack of PreK-2 attendance
I am stealing this image from Robert Kaplinsky’s blog. He is on the Nashville Committee as well. I didn’t take a picture of this chart that was shown during our meeting, but once I saw it on his blog I wished I had and decided to steal it (Thanks, Robert!). Ever since I saw it all I can think is, “Why is there such a lack of PreK-2nd attendance? Does the annual conference stats look the same? Does the membership of NCTM look the same?”
Maybe this is too stereotypical, but I know it is true for TOO MANY of the PreK-2 teachers I work with…math is not “their subject.” They are much more inclined to teach reading than math. I’ve had teachers tell me things like, “I’ve always hated math and I dread that part of my day.” Or even, “I went into Kindergarten so I wouldn’t have to teach math.” Tell me if I am way off base here?!?! Is that the main reason? What other reasons do you know of for why PreK-2 teachers don’t attend NCTM Conferences? And how do we encourage more of them to attend? I know cost is always a factor, but some districts/grants pay for teachers to attend. So cost aside, why aren’t they going to NCTM Conferences???? If you are a PreK-2 teacher, what would make you want to attend an NCTM Conference?
Full disclosure here…I am overseeing the PreK-2 portion of the Nashville conference. So when I saw the stats, my heart dropped a bit.
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I’m a K teacher who would LOVE to attend the conference! Where can I find more information about this?
YEAH!! And sorry, Christy, I didn’t even put a link in to NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics). Here is the link to information about their conferences: http://www.nctm.org/conferences/default.aspx?id=52
I am a preschool expert and I once was asked to do a presentation at a state chapter conference for NCTM – and not one person attended my session! I think you should really be asking two questions: Why don’t early ed teachers attend NCTM? AND Why don’t attending math educators express any interest in PreK – 2?? The easy answer to the first question is that there are no math specialists in PreK – 2 – they are all generalists so they can’t afford to go to a conference for each area they cover in their day. If NCTM wants to reach more early ed teachers, they need to collaborate with other organizations like NAEYC and go to where the teachers are. On the other hand, there’s a lot that NCTM could do to encourage elementary and higher ed math people to learn more about the unique learning needs of the little kids and be prepared to support those PreK – 2 teachers!
Karen, I agree. I work with K-12 teachers in my position. My main focus has been K-3rd so when I attend events like NCTM I usually go to sessions for those grades and not the others.
A general stereotype is that teaching preK-2 math is easy breezy. Everyone can teach it without much preparation or support. Therefore, why bother to go to a math conference for it? I know how misleading this is. As a k-12 math instructional specialist, supporting teachers at these grade levels has been my challenge and an area I put in the most effort in the past year. I don’t think general public understands this.
I also think the majority of the sessions focus on grade levels above primary. However, this hunch can only be supported with the data. Do you have the stat for the NCTM regionals by the session grade level focus?
Sunny, I think you are spot on. I posted the question on Twitter and a lot of people have been saying the same thing. As for the session breakdown…the interesting thing is that each grade band (PreK-2, 3-5, 6-8) all have the same number of sessions and 9-12 just has one more session. Which is one of the things I’ve been wondering about…either NCTM needs to adjust the sessions (more 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12) or start working on getting more PreK-2 teachers to attend. I vote for the later.
Personally for me, if I want to go it is all out of pocket so cost is a factor. Sometimes for the ones during the school year, taking time off is difficult. As someone said before, most k-2 teachers are generalists. Losing several days class time for 1 subject can’t always be justified to admins.
The focus is generally on those grades that are tested. However research shows that if more was put into the primary grades and kids had strong foundations they would be better equipped for more challenging math.
What kind of grants are available to help with teachers go to the conference? Where do I go to find this information?
Thank you!
Edit above:
Above it was mentioned that grants are available for teachers to help with funding to be able to participate in a conference. What kind of grants are available to help teachers go to the NCTM conference? It will be in Boston spring of 2015 and I would love to go! How do I go about finding these grants? Thank you!
When I mentioned grants in the original post I was actually referring to local and/or NSF grants that many teachers I know are involved in and within that original grant they build in money to send participants to conferences. However, I did some digging and NCTM does a grant for first-time attendees. Here is the site that details the grant process: http://www.nctm.org/resources/content.aspx?id=1342
I would love to know the process for presenting at the next NCTM? I looked on their web site (although it was directly after a conference) and could not find the information on how to present a proposal.
Terrie,
On http://www.nctm.org, you can click on ‘Conferences’, then on the left side is a menu and there is an option that says ‘Be a Speaker.” Here is the direct link, though: http://www.nctm.org/conferences/content.aspx?id=7866. The process has always been difficult for me to keep on top of because you have to submit a year ahead of time. The annual conference in April 2015 has already closed off submissions (it usually closes in May the year before the actual conference). Right now the only thing open to submit a proposal for is the 2015 Regional Conferences. The deadline to submit for those is Sept. 30, 2014…but the actual conferences are the fall of 2015.
The opening session flash mob in Denver a year ago was a great addition to the conference.
Flash mobs are hardly innovative, but for NCTM, this flash mob was. It’s hard to know what teachers want from a conference. But I don’t really think NCTM has done all that much to get data from teachers about what they might want. So NCTM keeps throwing essentially the same program out there year after year (this year it’s Common Core approved, of course) and hoping for the best. They’ve made some tweaks to scheduling, and such, but it’s the same people doing the same talks over and over. OK, maybe not EXACTLY the same talks, but you get the idea.
And what about technology at an NCTM conference? It’s difficult to find it in a subject area where technology should be at the forefront. You will learn more about math ed tech at an ISTE conference than you will ever learn about it at an NCTM conference. NCTM needs to own this one and fix it.
Ask your NCTM staffers how well the last two annuals did in terms of attendance (I don’t think either one topped 10K, which was break even). NCTM conferences have bugged me for awhile now (can you tell?).
Good luck in Nashville. The local arrangement people there are simply great to work with.
P.S. Ask to be assigned to the Convention Center and not to the hotel – just my 2¢.
I am excited to work the event and see from the inside how it all works and see what kinds of suggestions I think might help NCTM and I appreciate yours. NCTM leadership seems open to ideas. Thanks for the advice on working the CC versus the hotel, that is good to know.