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06/15/2016 08:30 AMKate Madura is a math interventionist and coach for grades K-5 at Clinton Public Schools. Last month, she approached the Chamber of Commerce about having the Abraham Pierson School’s entire 4th-grade class help plan the second annual Clinton Summer Fest and Fireworks.
This is a teacher’s version of hiding veggies in a smoothie.
The project, which has excited students measuring, mapping out, and assigning locations for all the festival’s vendors (there are 45 so far), is actually a complex math exercise. To introduce Pierson’s 4th-graders to their mission, Kate filmed a video of Chamber of Commerce representatives asking for their help with the event. (Watch the video at https://www.facebook.com/clintonctfireworks.)
“This is by far one of the best projects I have seen, where students are working hands-on and interfacing with community members to help plan a real community event,” says the Chamber’s executive director, Lauren Sposato. “Kate is giving the kids at Pierson a real sense of pride in the work they are doing. It’s so great to see.”
Kate is one of two math coaches/interventionists at the elementary-school level in Clinton.
“My position was approved four years ago,” she says, “and then two years ago we added my colleague, Sara Mengel. The two of us work at both Joel and Pierson schools, traveling back and forth. We also are supported by three amazing para-educators—Maggie Monty, Christine West, and Nancylynn Maselli—who work at the two schools as well, delivering intervention and supporting classroom instruction. Our roles are split in that we support instruction for all kids in math at both schools, and each of us focuses on planning, overseeing, and delivering intervention in math for kids who are having difficulty. We have opportunities to work directly with teachers by delivering professional development during our PD days, but also through instructional coaching throughout the school year. We will often go into a classroom and model a lesson or a strategy, observe one of our colleagues, or plan for instruction. We meet with grade-level teams frequently to plan out units of study or review assessment data. It’s different every day and keeps me on my toes!”
Kate has worked for Clinton Public Schools for the past 14 years. Before taking on her current position, she taught integrated-day 4th and 5th grades at Pierson.
“I’ve always tried to find ways to get students involved with our community or involved in projects where they had to collaborate with one another,” she says. “Funny enough, I actually grew up in Clinton, going to the same schools I teach in, and in some cases having some of the teachers I now call my colleagues. I feel fortunate to have gone though our wonderful school system and worked side-by-side with those same amazing educators.”
The idea for the Clinton Fireworks project sprung up one day as she and her colleagues were brainstorming ways that the 4th-graders, who were going to complete their units of study early (with a few weeks to spare), could synthesize their mathematical growth from the past year. Another school district posted online about a similar project, says Kate, and that sparked the idea.
“Our department has focused a lot this year on learning about ways to encourage students to problem-solve beyond just your typical word problem. We’ve explored different ways to allow all students access to ‘math thinking.’ One of those ways is through what are called ‘three-act problems,’ inspired by Dan Meyer.”
Meyer, a nationally recognized educator, has advocated for better math instruction in TED talks and on CNN, Good Morning America, and Every Day with Rachel Ray. A former math teacher, Meyer says he taught high school math “to students who didn’t like high school math.”
His method, says Kate, typically starts with giving students a visual and asking them what they notice and wonder about it.
“From there, students discuss and generate a wondering that they want to know more about. A second layer of information is given to them, usually enough for them to begin solving the problem, and finally students see the solution and discuss how it compares to their thinking. It has been amazing for us to see how they respond to this process. We’ve seen much more active engagement and students beginning to think outside the textbook.”
She admits, “It’s been a challenge for us to step back and encourage productive struggle, letting students take charge of their thinking. We knew we had to find a way to go out with a bang this year.”
It started with a phone call to the Chamber of Commerce to see if 4th-graders could help organize the Clinton Summer Fest and Fireworks.
“We envisioned that kids might be able to calculate the area and perimeter of the Town Hall parking lot. Little did we know the project would grow and evolve as it has. After several meetings with some of the Chamber’s board members, plus way too much time editing video clips on iMovie, and lots of planning, we now have a comprehensive project.”
All of Pierson’s 4th-graders, with support from their teachers, are working through planning one of the three festival sites: their school, the Town Hall, and the beach.
After watching the video she produced with Chamber representatives, says Kate, students began Meyer’s process of noticing and wondering, with comments like, “I wonder how much space we have to work with,” and “I wonder how big the vendor tents are.” After some discussion about how they would determine the amount of space they had to work with, students were given maps of each site.
“We purposely printed out both a Google 2D map and a satellite map in hopes that kids would realize they need the satellite map to accurately calculate the area and perimeter of each site,” says Kate.
From there, they began a scaled-up, hand-drawn version of the map on large grid paper, which will facilitate planning the vendor tents. Some of the event’s vendors, including Clinton Art Gallery artists and Frank Andrew’s Mobile Kitchen, sent videos to the students explaining their specific needs—for example, room for a pizza oven—so that they can take those into consideration as they plan.
Kate plans to continue working over the summer with interested students and have them present their project on the day of the festival as one of the tents on the Pierson lawn.
“This project is a great way to show students that math does matter and that it’s used every single day in the real world,” Kate says. “We hope it will also show all of our town members just how amazing our kids and teachers are.”
Kate, who grew up in Clinton with her younger brother, comes from a family of educators.
“Both of my parents were teachers. I was one of the oldest in a neighborhood of about 40 other kids, so I was slated to be a teacher from the very beginning!”
Kate’s mother was a special education teacher in Clinton, and her father taught social studies at Daniel Hand High School, in Madison.
“I was very lucky to have my parents off in the summers, and we were able to spend a lot of time together. My parents instilled in me and my brother the value of getting an education. I actually thought, as I got older, that I didn’t want to be an educator in the typical sense. I wanted to travel the world and study people and cultures. I went to Wesleyan University and studied French literature and had some opportunities to travel abroad, to France and Cameroon. Halfway through my college career, I realized that being a teacher was really what I wanted to do.”
After graduating, she went on to earn her master’s degree in education at Lesley University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“I soon realized that teaching is kind of like traveling to remote parts of the world. Every year, you’re working with a different group of students. You have to figure out what they value, what motivates them, and how they think. It’s really an adventure every single day.”
Years ago, Kate taught 5th grade in what she describes as a very low-performing school in Boston—an experience that she says made her greatly appreciate the resources she’d had as a child.
Eventually she and her husband, Matt, whom she met when they were both students at The Morgan School, moved back to Connecticut, and she began working at Abraham Pierson School.
Matt and Kate have two children—Aidan, age 11, and Gwen, 6.
“It truly has been a gift to work in the same school system that they attend,” says Kate. “I have gotten to see them passing in the hallways, talk to their teachers whenever I need to, and be an active part of their education.”
Kate has also had many opportunities to travel and to learn something unexpected from her journeys.
“When I was living in Cameroon, I got to live in a mud hut with no electricity or running water. I thought it could never get any better than that. I was convinced that everywhere else in the world was more interesting and exciting than home. I’ve come to realize, though, that this little town of ours is a pretty great place. We have some amazing people leading our schools, and I have gotten to know so many parents who are dedicated to their own children as well as their children’s peers.”
In addition to living in a close-knit community, she says, “we are so lucky to be surrounded by a beautiful landscape and a rich history.”
Follow Kate’s progress on the 2016 Clinton Summer Fest and Fireworks at facebook.com/clintonctfireworks.