MCTM Foundation Update- September 2025

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Math Bits

MCTM Foundation

September 2025

The members of the foundation were pleased to support the attendees of the 2025 Spring Conference. The foundation was able to support twenty-seven pre-service teachers, three individual teachers and three teams by awarding grants totaling $7810. It was great to see the number of teachers attending both the symposium and the conference. Our book sale, quilt raffle, wood intarsia, and baskets raffles were successful due to your generous support. We raised over $1800 in the two days. Stay turned for what is in store for the conference in the Spring 2026!

The following are just a few of the comments shared by the Spring Conference grantees in their reports to the board.

The keynote speaker was Howie Hua, who gave an inspiring and interactive presentation focused on exploring tricky math problems and how we can all approach them with curiosity and creativity. He led a fun activity where participants walked around the room to find others with the same birthday, forming groups like twins, triplets, quads, quints, and more. This activity helped highlight patterns and connections in a memorable way. Howie emphasized that math is for everyone, and we are all capable of being “math people” when we engage with it in meaningful and joyful ways. His talk was both motivational and practical, showing how math can be approachable and fun.

The session was called “rolling the dice, probability in the k-5 classroom” . This session had us do different probability activities, such as working with vocab words, such as likely, certain, unlikely and impossible and sorting different scenarios. There was a dice rolling game, and we would record what we rolled. There was a similar activity that we did which was drawing unifix cubes out of a bag, and recording the color we drew. These activities were fun to do and also I could see how I would implement these activities into my own classroom. The number line scenarios were also connected to literature and learning how those probability words could be connected to subjects other than math.

Thank you very much for your generous reimbursement of my registration fee for the MCTM Conference. Through my experience at the conference, I learned many different things that I will implement in my future teaching practices. Throughout the conference, I attended sessions regarding the new 2022 MN Mathematics standards, which are changing dramatically from the previous 2007 standards. I had the opportunity to listen to Sarah Van Der Werf regarding the 2022 standards. Through her sessions,I learned the importance of having students discover topics and properties on their own, and formalizing later. The benefits of this strategy include better retention for students and enhanced mathematical reasoning skills.

Upcoming Deadlines for Grants from MCTM & the MCTM Foundation

See all the details at 

https://www.mctm.org/grants-scholarships

Cutler Scholarships for Middle Grade Teachers:  Are you a middle school teacher planning to take a mathematics course this year? Did you know you can get help with tuition – up to $1200!!! Deadline is Oct. 31st.

MCTM Teacher Incentive Grants: MCTM awards up to $1500 to Minnesota PK –16+ mathematics teachers to support educators desiring to implement innovative, standards-based projects in teaching and learning mathematics. Up to $1500 is available for each grant. Deadline is Oct. 31st.

Support the Foundation by Donating On-Line? 

Go the web site:https://www.mctm.org/Donate

There is an on-line Donation Form.

Changes to the Foundation Board

The board would like to publicly thank Chris Sieling and Christine Quisley  for serving on the board; they will be missed. 

Are you interested in joining the Foundation Board?

We have two in-person meetings and two virtual meetings, second Saturday of Oct, first Saturday in Dec and first Saturday in Feb.

About the Foundation Committee

The MCTM Foundation Governing Committee is composed of at least nine members appointed by the MCTM President and Executive Committee to each serve a three year term. The Purpose (Mission):

  • Raise funds to support classroom teacher’s attendance at MCTM conferences, college coursework, and other professional development.
  • Encourage teachers to apply for funds.
  • Maintain effective practices for the financial health of the foundation.