MEC recognizes that all learners have mathematical ideas worth listening to and, guided by our Principles of Design, we strive to create learning environments where all learners feel safe sharing their ideas.

Student Agency

Participants in MEC events are immersed in a classroom culture in which mathematical agency is kindled through meaningful mathematical inquiry and student-to-student discourse. This discourse is driven by sense-making, mathematically convincing arguments and questioning that seeks to understand, rather than change, the thinking of others.

Big Mathematical Ideas

Content workshops and courses allow participants across the K- 20 continuum to experience robust units of study in which ‘big’ mathematical ideas are confronted and investigated. A menu structure and expandable tasks encourage collaborative and independent problem solving and provide for student choice and equitable differentiated instruction without labeling learners.

Mindset

In these learning environments, divergent thinking is valued and encouraged, cognitive dissonance is recognized as necessary to learning, and mistakes are embraced as sites for new understandings.