Wellesley has been introduced to Russian Math through outfits such as the Russian School of Mathematics on Washington Street, and this past week Tenacre Country Day School hosted a confab for independent schools in New England to learn about Singapore Math.The workshop, presented by Tenacre Math Coordinator Kevin Mahoney (shown here) to more than 4 dozen participants from as far away as Toronto, covered theory and research behind Singapore Math, which is a highly visual instruction method heavy on pictures and diagrams. He also covered how the program has been implemented in schools across the United States wowed by Singapore students’ consistently high ranking in math. Tenacre says about 2,000 schools in the U.S. (including Tenacre itself) use the Singapore Math method now (here’s what one NJ teacher wrote about the program on CNN.com recently.) Tenacre started its Singapore Math research in 2008 and implemented the program in September of 2009.
New Wellesley Public Schools Superintendent David Lussier is said to be taking a hard look at the science and math programs in the town school system in an effort to boost learning. Wellesley public school teachers last year took part in a program on Singapore Math presented by Tenacre’s Mahoney to see what what they could take away from the teaching method, though at least at that point, there were no plans to switch to the method entirely.
