1. The overall workshop:

Summary ratings:

Should MATC be talking to 3-7th grade teachers?  They are teaching the basic skills.
Only touched 2 of the 4 goals (common understanding and networking).
I would have liked more dialogue about curriculum.
Conversations like this help everyone to get better.
I expect the workshop to gain purpose and direction as it continues to be held.  A very good idea!
Thanks for inviting us.
"What can we do to help all entering students @ MATC be properly prepared…" – for me, the bulk of time today was spent away from this issue.  I'm not sure/clear of the connection to the question of most of what we did.  I am at a loss for the number of participants who just wanted to be told what they needed to do different or what MATC was looking for.  "Don't involve me just tell me." I guess it just seems we as a profession seem to talk a lot about change but it doesn't happen, or at least very slowly.  I'm becoming more and more frustrated with the pace of change and resistance to it as well as my inability to facilitate change.
Well organized and good variety/good food.
Great comments abut transition to technical college.
Lunch/food in general/excellent.
Communicating was helpful, knowing others' expectations and ideas.
Need more of.
Made me think about many good math issues and instructional issues.  Food was great.
Did we work with remediation models?
We need more dialogue – this is a great start.
Thank you very much!!
Good ideas to help students who need the most help.
Do this again with another set of teachers.  Very informative.
Would like this broken into two separate day sessions instead of one –
1) How does a "seamless curriculum" come out of today's agenda?  How can "seamlessness" be achieved if there is a break in continuing in education?  If the majority of the students MATC has have been out of school at least three years, how can there be a "seamless curriculum?"  How does high school relate to this issue?  Is the suggestion to push graduating seniors into school? Why is the large majority of MATC students taking so much time off?
2) Many teaching professionals do not teach with the standards in mind.  Also many school/educational systems differ in terms of how the school system is set up (block). With a block schedule there is the chance of a student being finished with needed math credits by the end of freshman year.  Some schools teach with performance based curriculums and some don't.  There are so many different factors that come into play just in the Madison area.  How do all of these affect the effectiveness of MATC or UW?

2. Keynote Address:

Summary ratings:

Enlightening, entertaining, energetic.
Always enjoy Billie's perspectives.
Sparks is a great speaker – motivating and makes you think.
Lots of good things to think about.
Well done!
What a great role model!
He was thought provoking.
Billie Sparks was excellent.
Entertaining.
I've heard Billie before – but others who have not heard him will benefit.
I enjoyed having Billie's input throughout the day.  He was a great facilitator and it was nice that he came from the UW system.  I also enjoyed his real (student) examples.
Some great reasons for using non-traditional instructional methods in math ed.  I loved the Eric Hoffer quote.
Good perspective of some students who get overlooked.
All teachers should hear this!
Wish more time had been given to this instead of break.
Thought provoking talk.

3. Panel Presentation – "Mathematics at MATC"

Summary ratings:

I would have liked to receive "real world" applications that MATC staff use. This would help me.
I would like to do more of this.
Very discouraging from math dept. – hands tied by UW!  Excellent from other areas.
Interesting to hear MATC's perspective.
Really good to know what MATC is up to.  Didn’t know that much before.
This was sensational!!! I hope it's just the start!
I learned about the many offerings I didn't know existed – and would like to learn more.
Expectations are defined to me better.
It will help me to guide students – also was enlightening to see all the courses available.
I have a better idea of the sequences of classes.
Important in advising and understanding what courses are offered.
Should have mailed course maps/descriptions so we could ask more questions regarding K-12-college relationships.
MATC needs to have staff "agree" – it felt as though each teacher has their own philosophy.
I wish this session was longer. It would have been nice to be able to have more dialogue/question/answer time.
Comments reinforced the reasons for attending MATC.  This is a wonderful place for learners.  MATC meets the needs of students as they mature and experience more motivation.
Gave me perspective of how a 2-year school works.
We need to bring MATC teachers into our high school to talk to students.
Seemed as though was struggling to produce answers – concerned that there was not a straight answer to how content of classes decided.

4. Panel Discussion – "The Business Perspective"

Summary ratings:

Great to hear true applications.
Did panel members have questions?  Some seemed to not address specific questions.
A list of exact skills that are needed or are lacking would help.
Skills they seemed to talk most about are basic skills (taught in 4-7th grade.)
Need connections to business.
It's nice to see how math is used in the workplace.
Now I feel more comfortable contacting a business to say, "Hey! How do you use _____ in your work?"
Bring real problems back to group so we can show students.
Needed examples from companies, apprentice areas:  tests – example problems
Good to see what math they need.
It helps to look at what math is useful and important in their jobs.
Should provide list of people willing to talk to students.
I would love to have examples of the tests these businesses use to assess their employees (to figure out which jobs their workers qualify for or to figure out who needs more skill building to advance.)
We need to hear this more often.  This would be an excellent topic for our staff development inservice days – what do businesses want?
Nice to see/hear things used/expected and real world examples we may not always get a chance to hear about.
We need to bring business people into the high school to talk to students.
Not enough time for each – was this part for MATC benefit? How was the high school involved?  Felt each group talked about employees having gone through a program.

5. Breakout Session – "Roles of Technology and Manual Computation"

Summary ratings:

Great to share ideas – what's going on?
It was good to share ideas.
Would have liked to spend more time on #3 and #4.
I found this a very interesting discussion.  It was refreshing to see how many teachers agree on the balance of using tech in the classroom.
Useful only in that I heard many of the old, and I thought dead, reasons not to use technology. It is always useful to hear from those who oppose change, when life itself is change!
Always good to dialogue with colleagues.
Not sure of connection to "remediation."
Difficult to reach consensus.
Good to hear from other schools.
Mostly a rehash of what we already know.
Good discussions.
I have been talking about the issue of technology (particularly the calculator) and when to implement it since I was an undergraduate.  This is a good get us talking topic, but an hour was too long.
I already feel very comfortable with how I use/don't use calculators in my classroom.  However, the opportunity to talk in a relaxed fashion, with colleagues was extremely worthwhile.
Nice to hear a variety of opinions.
Good discussion.
A discussion that needed to be done.

6. Breakout Session – "Role of Algebra in Today's World"

Summary ratings:

I was glad to hear that others think as I do.
Interesting conversation – I just don't see where topic is going….
I heard no new ideas, rather some very shallow understandings of algebra from a group of algebra teachers.
Not sure of connection to "remediation."
Hard to talk about but good to force thinking on this.
Not useful, because of one person in our group – dominated with his viewpoint.
Good topic – hard to express.
Wonderfully insightful questions, but I did not enjoy the group I was with.  Only spend 1 hour (1/2 hour for each topic) on the breakout sessions and with 1 group so we start to feel comfortable communicating.
We spent half the time on the topic and then moved onto the differences between education in high school and at MATC. This was significantly more interesting and relevant to today's workshop.
Nice to talk about changes and what is most important.
Interesting discussion.
Most informative.
 

7. Would it be beneficial to hold another meeting of this nature next year?
Summary ratings:

It's always good to hear new ideas, learn what others are doing, and share.
Only if more specifics are developed for business – tech – high school collaboration.
It would be nice to have more conversation about smooth transition in curriculum.
More people are out there in the schools who need this.
More talking about what specifics we should be teaching, especially MATC-bound students.  Thank you for your work!
More discussion with MATC faculty!  If we repeat this presentation for our colleagues who couldn't make it today, I'd suggest 1) Intro, 2) 2 hours with MATC panel for questions, 3) 1 hour for us to work in small groups answering these questions: A) what will you do differently based on what the panel just said, B) what questions would you still like to ask the panel?  Then, 4) lunch, 5) 2 hours with business panel, 6) 1 hour small groups, same 2 questions.
Add representative from college (4 yr.)
Lots of discussion is needed – maybe 2 meetings next year – then annually after that?
Two meetings, a follow-up for all current participants, a similar meeting for new participants.
A follow-up/changes in business/math guidelines
If we could focus on what specific skills students don't have when they enter MATC.
I think more math teachers should network and discuss what happens at levels above and below each other.  It should happen with universities and high school level as well.  Very enjoyable day for a math teacher.
More discussion on how to prepare kids for math classes past high school – 4-yr. colleges have the same concerns.
It would be nice to get the UW on board.
I would enjoy more dialogue with the MATC staff about how they do things and what we should prepare our students for to be successful here.
One of the best workshops I have attended in a long time.
Always good for you and us to brainstorm improvements and share ideas.
2 meetings – one of them being a repeat of today with "new" teachers and the other being a continuation of this group.  This information needs to be given to "more" teachers "every" year.
Need to have more involvement from younger levels – K to 5 and 6-8.