Imagine you’re headed to an orchard for a classic fall afternoon of apple picking. You invite a friend to join you, but their home is in a different town. Can you plot out how you will get to the orchard, and how your friend will get there? What will be different about your journeys and what will be the same?

These are the questions that Fairport educators Susan Reindel and Cindy Rubenstein will present to their peers later this month at an Association of Math Teachers of New York State conference in Rochester. Reindel and Rubenstein are both math support providers and interventionists at Brooks Hill Elementary School who work with students from kindergarten to fifth grade. 

The two educators sat in child-sized chairs at a tiny classroom table earlier this month to talk through the presentation they will deliver together. It’s called “Mapping Out Math: Everyone Can Enjoy The Trip Toward Math Success,” and it begins with an analogy about…apple picking.

“Students that come into our classes are not all coming from the same place,” says Reindel. 

She and Rubenstein use the apple orchard example as a reminder to educators that each student arrives to class with their own experiences and feelings, and those can have a large impact on learning, especially for students in younger grades.

“As teachers, there’s a certain amount of content and skills that you are being charged with teaching kids to master…so rather than [teachers] being discouraged, our whole purpose is to help map this out,” says Reindel.

Together, Reindel and Rubenstein will co-present “Mapping Out Math,” and Reindel will present “Where’s The Math? AKA: Problem Solving From Our Students’ World.”

In “Where’s The Math?,” Reindel outlines methods for teachers to highlight the presence of math in real-life situations that are relevant to students. By grounding math in the real world, Reindel says students are more engaged in extended problems and become active participants in a dialogue around those problems.

“If [problem-solving] doesn’t involve thinking and discourse, then it wasn’t a rich experience. If there is only one quick, easy, answer, it wasn’t a rich task for students,” says Rubenstein.

“It was no surprise to hear that Susan Reindel and Cindy Rubenstein would be representing Brooks Hill and Fairport at the upcoming Fall 2022 AMTNYS Annual Conference,” says Brooks Hill Principal Meredith Klus. “Both teachers share their passion for math and learning with their students each day. Being chosen as primary presenters for the conference is a special recognition they both deserve.”

The Brooks Hill teachers will present to their peers on October 28 and 29.