Wellness & Support at Sterne

Malia Lytle and Eli Murrie are applying their passion for Math and learning toward enhancing Math Curriculum and Intervention at Sterne. Their Math Fluency Project is being funded and supported through the Strengths and Leadership program at Sterne. 

Tell us about the essence of your Math project.
We are working to enhance and expand upon the intervention strategies for our Math Curriculum at Sterne. Our plan is to create a Math Intervention program that is as robust as our Tattum Reading (for literacy/phonics.) 

We started by conducting an audit of our in-house resources and what we currently use for math instruction/intervention. From there we attended the California Math Council Conference which was a meeting of math departments in both public and private schools across the state. There were well over sixty different workshops offered and we divided and conquered while at the conference. Many of the workshops focused on “how to incorporate equitable math programs” and “why we do these specific math activities." The resources at this math conference were incredibly helpful. We immediately incorporated some of the strategies into our Math classes/Math learning support. 

Can you share an example of a tool or strategy you're now using?

Malia: I am using MATH FACT for math fluency. This was one program that came up in our research for math intervention. 

Eli: I’m incorporating tools/strategies into all-class lessons. One of my goals is to find ways for students to actually enjoy math. I’m retooling my teaching style based on math research so that students feel more empowered in their learning of math. I’m currently writing my Master’s thesis on gamifying math in classrooms.

Anything else you'd like to share?

Allocating time, resources, and bandwidth to our Math Intervention program has the potential to address gaps in learning that some students face in their Math class. We want to be able to offer a bunch of tools for our students and teachers to improve student engagement with math. We also want to establish a language around what a Math Intervention program looks like at our school. This is really exciting work for us personally and also for Sterne as an institution.