Session Title: AP students make math real & The Bob Moses Research Center/FIU
Speakers: Joan Wynne, Daniel Gohl, Pierre Agledor, Anne C, Roldoph Charles, Jada Carrera
Description: Bob Moses consistently reminded us that, “Young people finding their voice instead of being spoken for is a crucial part of the process. . . We believe the systemic change necessary to prepare our young people for the demands of the 21st century requires young people to take the lead in changing it.” That philosophy is the center piece of the Bob Moses Research Center—a Center dedicated to researching, documenting, and disseminating practices that raise the math achievement of the most disenfranchised students, amplifying their voices and stories and their demands for quality education. We do this because the nation has a problem. Its public schools fail 33% of its students in mathematics, specifically Algebra 1, resulting in their one in five chance to graduate from high school. Only 13% of Black 8th graders are proficient in math. And fifty percent of all college students fail freshman math. Yet, math literacy is essential for economic survival and full citizenship in the 21st century.
To explain the Moses Center as a counter-narrative to this problem, Dan Gohl & Joan Wynne, advisors to the Center, will open this session. The presentation, however, will focus primarily on three Algebra Project (AP) students, connected to the Center’s work, who will share their expertise in teaching an algebra concept the AP way. Their math teacher at Boyd Anderson H.S., in the Broward County Public School System, the 6th largest district in the nation, will facilitate the students’ participatory session.