TOT
YPP emerged out of a rich historical and cultural legacy that stems from the Civil Rights Movement. The ideal of grassroots participation in community building is a central component of this legacy, facilitated by the idea of the meeting as a key tool that enables individual and community empowerment. It is in this vein that the YPP training can be viewed as a type of meeting, a setting in which knowledge and skills are imparted to the participants, and perhaps more importantly, a setting that enables participants to access and express their individual and collective leadership.
TOT Trainings 2005 - present:
Summer 2006: Kansas City, MO
Summer 2007: New Orleans, LA
| "It’s about giving the leaders of the organization the
tools they need to improve each individual branch of
YPP. It’s about hearing the concerns of the
organization and coming up with ways to fix problems.
It is also about getting ideas from other areas of YPP
and sharing them in efforts to make different sites
run smoother. It is also about developing leaders to
become better leaders."
- TOT '07 Participant |
YPP uses a cascading training program model which is operationalized through the recruitment of high school students who are trained typically by college students, to be Math Literacy Workers (MLWs). The college students are called College Math Literacy Workers (CMLWs). The model also relies on Instructors who are older college students or graduates who train the CMLWs. The essential goal for all YPP trainings are the same, that participants will leave the training with a deeper sense of the way in which their personal and collective gifts can be used to enhance learning for others. (see table 1)
The primary work of MLWS and CMLWs is to “organize” and “facilitate” math workshops for younger school-aged students (typically 3rd to 6th grade students) in their communities. The term “organize” and “facilitate” hold very focused meanings, it is through the act of organizing and facilitating math workshops that high schools students build confidence in their own capabilities, realize how they can make a difference in the lives of younger students, and learn some of the basic skill sets that will help them lead and organize in their communities.
YPP Training Structure
YPP is the recipient of a 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation to "Build Demand for Math Literacy". This had provided funding for the development of a Network of Trainers, a Network of Research Mathematicians and Math Educators, Multimedia Content (link to info about multimedia) and Evaluation Tools (link to overview of evaluation and sample materials).
|
"I believe that TOT is a chance for us to develop
ourselves, because we as people never stop developing.
TOT is very important part of our work because it
makes us aware of our strengths in helping and
developing people, but most importantly our weakness
and finding ways to make them stronger."
- TOT '07 Participant |
Trainer Network Development
The trainer network provides a structure and a forum to encourage and facilitate the evolution of YPP trainers into a professional network of practitioners. As individual trainers and teams of trainers emerge, having developed various expertise, materials, and strategies for training and developing high schools students as math literacy workers, we are providing space and opportunity for them to share their work with each other, and to have it tested and validated by their peers. We have begun to create an online community of practitioners who share implementation strategies and experiences, material and activity modification, and math content development.
| "....it is a space where we can speak
openly about problems that may have arisen during the
year and get feedback on how to correct them for next
year. This way our program is constantly improving
for the participants. The people who attend TOT leave
with not only a better sense of the organization, what
its goals are, and what they must do to attain them,
but also a better sense of themselves as people who
are dedicated to helping other people." - TOT '07 Participant |
Research Mathematicians and Math Educators Network Development
As we are now beginning to experience, research mathematicians and math educators have an important role to play in supporting YPP’s work and evolution. In particular mathematicians are beginning to play a role in enhancing the development of the math content knowledge of trainers and math literacy workers and generally serving as a resource. This is happening informally at two YPP sites (Greater Boston and Chicago). In Chicago mathematicians John Baldwin and Janet Beissinger both of the University of Illinois have reviewed Flagway™ materials and provided feedback to YPP curriculum developer Naama Lewis; have observed YPP meetings/events and given feedback based on their observations; are planning to hold meetings/workshops with YPP trainers and math literacy workers focused on topics that appeared as conceptual challenges during their observations. In Boston mathematician Pete Gilmore of Northeastern University has provided workshops for local trainers and college students. It is our goal to identify 1 or 2 mathematicians at each YPP site who are interested in building an ongoing relationship with the site and trainers, and who will work with the local site and the training program to develop a work plan that is in line with their interests and the needs of the local site.
In a similar way we are involving math educators in supporting the development and certification of trainers, as well as enhancing the development of the math literacy workers locally.
| "TOT program is a way for all of the key
trainers/staff/workers to get together to borrow from
each others knowledge, skills, and expertise so that
all programs run effectively. Here we get to see what
works well for other sites and adopt those
characteristics. " - TOT '07 Participant |
If interested in learning more about our training opportunities or about our training program please contact Liberty Rashad at lrashad@typp.org.
