MathCamp: About Us

Welcome to MathCamp!
We are a classroom-focused mathematics resource for teachers on the elementary, middle and high school levels. Our Mission is to help make math interesting, relevant and fun for both you and your students. In a way, our mission is yours. We want to build a math community dedicated to building and sharing proven quality mathematics instruction. We believe in activity-based mathematics education, and offer a number of resources to help you become a proponent of this strategy.

The MathCamp Philosophy
The drive towards standards has hit every classroom, particularly in the teaching of mathematics. Inevitably, teachers are being asked to do more. How do you get teachers to think differently about teaching mathematics? Simply asking them to do more or learn a new curriculum may not solve your children's mathematics needs. Change is never easy, whether it is corporate America, or education. But it is particularly true when addressing mathematics, because, of all areas, people get comfortable with procedures and follow lock-step approaches despite the introduction of new programs or new standards. Change requires time, energy, an understanding of discomfort, support and reward. We should never forget that there was safety in those procedures. We need both the human experience to address these issues in a shared manner, as well as the technical support in the delivery of interesting mathematics to achieve change.

About the Workshop
Dr. Garrity leads energy-filled, highly interactive workshops that investigate the mathematics found in today's innovative math programs such as TERC (Investigations), Connected Mathematics, Mathland and Everyday Math. We focus on the mathematics you need to fully enjoy these exploratory math programs, and employ applications, teaching tips and technology to build your confidence as well as your competence. This activity based workshop approach helps you better engage students in math investigations by the fact that you do them with us. All training can be delivered on site to your district or through your local educational consortium. As well, this collaborative learning model also fosters collaboration with your faculty to help them work together to bring "best practices" to their classrooms.

Your Curricular Goals
We can work with teachers in your district on the specific math topics they need addressed. We can focus on the math content for an entire grade level or develop a topic, or topics, across grade levels. We can offer a day in geometry, a day on probability and statistics, one or two days in arithmetic and number theory. We can couple all of the days with Excel training in quantitative and qualitative investigations.

However you need it, we can deliver. Material will be presented in our all day MathCamp format to help instill a shared-learning experience, which will facilitate sharing amongst your teachers. In addition, we can model activities used in our training sessions in their classrooms for your teachers to observe. In the important follow-up phase we can observe their mathematics presentations and activities to provide beneficial feedback on their understanding of the mathematics.

Technology Integration
Technology is playing a more important role both in society as well as in our classrooms. Our classrooms must employ the same tools that business and institutions expect of their employees or students. Dr. Garrity has developed a series of workshops that employ calculators and Excel to perform both qualitative and quantitative studies. His training program begins with a module that teaches the fundamentals of Excel for educators, and then progresses into studies that are typical of those you will find in today's innovative curricula. All the while you are learning spreadsheet technology but through the eyes of a teacher working with his/her students. As a result you will be able to guide your students in data gathering, analysis, and presentation, all of which are address today's standards in probability and data analysis.

The Math Classroom Library
The Math Classroom Library consists of classroom-ready mathematics-based activities (technically called "documents") that you can access, review, download and use. All this done easily and quickly from your Internet accessible computer; just print the document, use your copy machine and distribute to your kids. Easy to use and ready to go. Many of these activities are used in our workshops, and new activities are added to the library weekly. All workshop attendees automatically have access to the library. And, if you enhance an activity for a specific population, you can submit the revised document for use in the library where we will reference your name and your school.

Take the Next Step!
So, now it's up to you. These resources, in any combination, are available to you to help change how mathematics is being taught in your schools. They are about having fun with mathematics, feeling better about it, exploring its potential, recognizing opportunities from those insightful student questions and becoming a proponent of activity-based mathematics. It's up to you to become a member of our math community. Can we help?

If you are a member of MathCamp you can continue to the Math Classroom Library.

If you would like to contact us about becoming a member, go to the Home Page and click on Contact Us. Send a message to Peter Garrity with your district phone number and he will follow up with you.

Click here to return to the home page.