Mixed Intermediary Numeracy Teams (MINT)
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Read about the process!
Experience the visit through video and pictures!
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Emerging from the February 2008 AHSI Math/Quantitative Reasoning mini-convening was a desired result of: Developing a culture of numeracy in our high schools (with a focus on): interdisciplinary/cross-curricular approaches, social/emotional development, and school environment. Identified strategies to be employed included: writing a concept paper to capture our collective voice, establishing a set of Guiding Principles, and the development of mixed-intermediary numeracy teams to serve as critical friends – identifying evidence of the stated guiding principles in our schools as well as providing guidance on rich numeracy opportunities that may warrant further exploration.
The primary purpose of the School Numeracy Enhancement Initiative (SNEI) is to generate relevant information, conduct collaborative analysis of this information, and develop a strategy for improvement around enhancement of numeracy within each school. More specifically, the initiative is designed to develop and utilize Mixed-Intermediary Numeracy Teams (MINT) to conduct School Numeracy Enhancement site visits to improve numeracy in the lives of our students. By providing a personal opportunity for observation and conversations with specific focus around the numeracy guiding principles during pre-scheduled site visits, AHSI intermediary representatives will be able to serve as critical friends and provide focused and meaningful feedback to our hosts and help determine, by listening to the collective conversations, areas of support most needed in their school. We acknowledge that this is one step in the growth process and that it will be the responsibility of the host school/organization to use the feedback provided to create and follow through on a self-improvement plan. Additional follow up support may be requested by the host school/organization and provided by this team of visitors.
As a direct outcome of this process, it is our hope that AHSI intermediary participants/leaders will be armed with the understanding and helpful tools to create numeracy team initiatives in their own schools. Conducting and evaluating the practice at one school serves as a starting point to further strengthen and reflect on numeracy team development and practice in their own learning communities.
SNEI Goals Include:
- To provide a structured opportunity for the host school’s staff to self-assess their progress towards numeracy goals
- To increase the visibility of numeracy and its various manifestations, implications, and possibilities in the classrooms and programs at the host high school
- To build a replicable, collaborative process for enhancing the quality of numeracy experiences across schools
- To identify, gather, organize, validate, and analyze tangible evidence of the degree of implementation of numeracy principles and use this information to provide specific guidance on how to enhance the implementation of these principles
- To assess specific needs and share instructional resources and strategies enabling the host school to chart and attain specific, measurable growth in the area of numeracy
- To develop the capacity for numeracy team participants to serve as catalysts for creating plans to improve numeracy in their own communities