UA News

The UA-sponsored conference is designed to help southern Arizona mathematics teachers with classroom strategies and networking opportunities.

The University of Arizona's Center for Recruitment and Retention of Mathematics Teachers will host the sixth annual Mathematics Educator Appreciation Day on Saturday, Jan. 30, from 7:15 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Tucson High Magnet School, followed by a luncheon at the Marriott University Park.

The event, the largest in the state, is for more than middle school, high school, community college and future math teachers in southern Arizona. Organizers call it a chance to "recharge, renew and learn something, too."

Teachers who attend can choose from 45 conference sessions throughout the morning. Session topics range from using Smartboards to improve AIMS scores, motivating students to solve difficult problems, using math to run search-and-rescue operations and how to use algebra to make water bottle rockets.

The sessions will be taught by UA math faculty as well as teachers from Pima Community College and area high schools and middle schools.

"Mathematics teacher work very hard every day to educate our students to become mathematically literate and we wish to honor them on this particular day," said Fred Stevenson, a professor of mathematics at the UA and founder of the center. We want teachers to feel rejuvenated for the new semester, take this opportunity to make new contacts and renew old ones, and come away with ideas and strategies they can use in their classrooms."

Randall Charles, a professor emeritus at San Jose State University, will be the conference keynote speaker. Charles is nationally known for his work in training mathematics teachers at all levels on problem solving strategies.

The conference will also honor Stephen S Willoughby, a retired UA mathematics professor. Willoughby, who has taught math from kindergarten through graduate school, in a former president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Publishing companies will also be on hand to display resource materials, calculators and textbooks.

The conference is offered to teachers at no cost.  Conference partners include Pearson Prentice Hall, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Tucson High Magnet School and the Pima Regional Support Center.

The Center of Recruitment and Retention is working in partnership with the Amphitheater, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Marana, Sunnyside, Tanque Verde, Sahuarita, Tucson Unified and Vail school districts.