"Everyone is really working hard and this program has been fantastic. I have never seen so much focused collaboration and discussion as we have had this year and we are all learning together. Thank you and thank you to all that are making this happen for us." - IMPACTS High School Teacher
"It's exciting to watch teachers get passionate and energized as they dig into learning that's meaningful, contextualized, and directly linked to their work with students. I can only imagine the impacts that we'll see at the end of the year." - IMPACTS High School Teacher
Weekend Workshops
IMPACTS High School Events for 2026-2027
***Teachers from partner districts and schools are invited to apply at no cost. Others may register for $60. Payment is due at the beginning of the session. Checks may be written to The University of Arizona CRR and MUST be mailed and received BEFORE the workshop. This is not considered a tax-deductible donation since it is a payment for services rendered. The mailing address is 617 N. Santa Rita Ave Tucson, AZ 85721-0089.
2026-2027 Workshops
Description: Explore instructional routines, representations, manipulatives, and rich mathematical tasks that help high school students make their thinking visible.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, and Corinne Tresvik
Time: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Description: Explore how students can build and defend mathematical arguments by making claims, using evidence, and justifying reasoning across high school topics.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Corinne Tresvik, and Elliot Beck
Time: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Description: Explore how multiple representations help students see structure, connect ideas, and build conceptual understanding across high school mathematics.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Corinne Tresvik, and Megan Bladine
Time: 8:30am - 12:30pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Description: IN-PERSON ONLY in Vail, AZ. Explore 2 powerful strategies that help students make sense of problems, strengthen reasoning, & build shared mathematical understanding.
Presenters: Shanna Gray, Patricia O'Rourke, and Corinne Tresvik
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Description: Join us for this high school–focused workshop, where we’ll explore both content and pedagogy to strengthen teaching and learning across all high school mathematics classrooms. More details coming soon.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Corinne Tresvik, and Patricia O'Rourke
Time: 8:30am - 12:30pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Description: Join us for this high school–focused workshop, where we’ll explore both content and pedagogy to strengthen teaching and learning across all high school mathematics classrooms. More details coming soon.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Corinne Tresvik, and Elliot Beck
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Location: In-Person at Coyote Trail Elementary
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Description: Join us for this high school–focused workshop, where we’ll explore both content and pedagogy to strengthen teaching and learning across all high school mathematics classrooms. More details coming soon.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Corinne Tresvik, and Megan Bladine
Time: 8:30am - 12:30pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Description: Join us for this high school–focused workshop, where we’ll explore both content and pedagogy to strengthen teaching and learning across all high school mathematics classrooms. More details coming soon.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Corinne Tresvik, Megan Bladine, Elliot Beck, and Patricia O'Rourke
Time: 8:30am - 12:30pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 6 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
**NOTE: Participants will be expected to take a task back to their classrooms, collect and analyze student work, and share their reflections with the CRR.
Register Here
Previous Workshops
September 2025
September 6th, 2025 - Think, Reason, Repeat: Strengthening Mathematical Minds (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: This workshop is all about shifting math from doing to thinking. Together, we’ll explore how to help students explain the “why” behind the “what” and see that reasoning is the real answer. Our goal is to build confident thinkers one step at a time—because in math, making sense matters more than memorizing steps.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray
November 2025
November 15th, 2025 - From Add-itude to Multi-tude: Polynomial Power Moves into Proportion (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Take students on a mathematical growth spurt! This workshop uses polynomials as the bridge to move learners from simple additive reasoning into the richer worlds of multiplicative and proportional thinking. Through hands-on activities and real-world problems, participants will see how each “power move” raises the degree of reasoning and builds lasting algebraic understanding.
Presenters: Patti O'Rourke, Lily Munoz, Elliot Beck
December 2025
December 6th, 2025 - Shift Happens: Transforming and Modeling Functions with Purpose (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Too often, transformation work begins with quadratics or other nonlinear functions, leaving students without a strong foundation. This workshop takes a different approach by starting with linear models and using a modified point-slope form as an anchor. We’ll explore transformations not just graphically, but also through context and tables of values, helping students see functions as dynamic models rather than isolated equations. Participants will examine how building transformations step by step supports mastery and consider whether multiple transformation paths can lead to the same function—and why that makes sense in context. From linear models, we’ll extend into exponential functions and then revisit nonlinear functions highlighting multiple ways students can construct and understand functions. The goal is to provide strategies that unify learning across function types and empower students to make meaningful connections through transformations.
Presenters: Megan Bladine, Alyssa Keri
January 2026
January 31st, 2026 - Reasoning: The Hidden Superpower Behind Shapes, Sequences, & Graphs (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Proportional reasoning is often taught in pieces—ratios in one unit, similar triangles in another, functions somewhere else. In this session, we’ll reframe proportional reasoning (and its close companion, functional reasoning) as a hidden superpower that shows up everywhere in secondary mathematics. We’ll start with similarity in geometry, where students reason about scale and invariance, then trace that same thinking through sequences and functions, and finally into interpreting and creating graphs. Along the way, we’ll highlight how functional reasoning—focusing on co-variation, dependency, and rate of change—helps students transfer understanding across representations instead of relearning ideas in isolation. Participants will leave with concrete examples, reasoning-focused tasks, and a clearer vision for helping students see mathematics as a connected system built on relationships.
Presenters: Elliot Beck, Patti O'Rourke
February 2026
February 14th, 2026 - Log It Like It's Hot: Discovering Patterns in Logs (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Logarithms can feel abstract and rule-heavy for students until they see them as natural extensions of the exponential ideas they already understand. In this session, we’ll help teachers build that bridge with high-yield instructional routines and BTC-aligned tasks that surface powerful patterns. Teachers will leave with ready-to-use tasks, clear pedagogical progressions, and strategies to help students understand logarithms as meaningful, intuitive, and connected, not mysterious symbols to memorize.
Presenters: Megan Bladine, Alyssa Keri
March 2026
March 28th, 2026 - Function Over Formula: Growing Functional Reasoning Over Time (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: In this in-person only culminating session of our year-long Developing Mathematical Reasoning arc, we focus on how students’ functional reasoning should evolve across high school mathematics. Rather than centering formulas and procedures, we will explore how reasoning about relationships, covariation, and structure grows from Algebra I through Geometry, Algebra II, and beyond.
Participants will engage in functional reasoning tasks specific to each course, analyze how the complexity of functions increases over time, and consider how to intentionally build on students’ prior understanding instead of reteaching ideas in isolation. Together, we will examine what it means to truly prioritize function over formula.
Teachers will deepen their own functional reasoning while walking away with classroom-ready tasks and strategies that emphasize sense-making, connection, and coherence across grade levels.
Presenters: Gretchen Stickney, Shanna Gray, Alyssa Keri, Megan Bladine, Elliot Beck, Patti O'Rourke, Lily Munoz
September 2024
September 7th, 2025 - Problem Solving and BTC Toolkit 1: Systems of Equations (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Are you looking for ways to help your learners become more independent with problem solving? Are you looking for ways to engage learners in noticing structure and patterns within problem types and within mathematical concepts? Thin slicing is a way to support students success with increasingly complex puzzles and problems. We will use thin slicing to uncover the structure inherent in solving systems of linear equations. Come and explore ONE of multiple tools to support effective problem solving and puzzling. We will explore this through the first toolkit found in Building Thinking Classrooms. This training is specific to High School classrooms and students.
Presenters: Melissa Hosten
September 28th, 2025 - Intensifying & Unfinished Learning in HS Grades 9-12 (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Do your students have unfinished learning resulting from disrupted learning the past few years? Are you running out of ideas that will help learners finish and consolidate that learning while progressing successfully with grade level content? Come and explore ways to intensify and finish learning while exploring on-level content like Rational Functions in engaging and novel ways. We will explore this through the second toolkit found in Building Thinking Classrooms. This training is specific to High School classrooms and students.
Presenters: Melissa Hosten
October 2024
October 26th, 2024 - Developing Healthy Co-Teaching Partnerships Grades 6-12 (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Calling all math teachers and special education teachers that co-teach, AKA Co-Teaching Partnerships. Calling all math and special education teachers that want to or hope to forge a healthy co-teaching partnership in the future. What are the healthy and productive co-teaching structures? Which structures are unhealthy for co-teaching? Which structures do not satisfy the intent or regulations surrounding special education services? Come and explore Co-Teaching Partnerships: The Full Inclusion Model for Special Education and Regular Education in the grades 6-12.
Presenters: Patricia O'Rourke, Melissa Hosten
November 2024
November 2nd, 2024 - Thick & Thin Slicing Quadratics and Evaluating Thinking Grades 9-12 (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Are you implementing Building Thinking Classrooms and struggling to help your learners capture and package their learning? Are your high school students struggling to know what is “important” when taking notes? Come and experience a thick slides task and a thin sliced task series with consolidation and notes, and feel this method through a learner’s and teacher’s lens. We will explore this through the third and fourth toolkit found in Building Thinking Classrooms. This training is specific to High School classrooms and students.
Presenters: Patricia O'Rourke, Melissa Hosten
November 16th, 2024 - Questions We Answer and BTC Toolkit 2: Proof Blocks in Geometry Grades 9-12 (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: Why are proofs difficult for student in Geometry? How can we help students develop an understanding of theorems, postulates, and definitions in terms of inputs and outputs. Come and explore a concrete-representational tool for developing proofs in Geometry that supports emerging multilingual students and students that struggle with formal proofs. We will explore this through the second toolkit found in Building Thinking Classrooms. This training is specific to High School classrooms and students.
Presenters: Melissa Hosten
February 2025
February 1st, 2025 - Putting it All Together: Exponential Relationships Grades 9-12 (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: How can we make sense of exponential relationships and exponential functions in a way that engages learners in making connections from past learning to future learning? How can learners find agency and autonomy in making sense of these ideas? How can they evaluate their learning make decisions based on that learning? How do we decide what to “grade” and what not to? Come and explore these ideas as we put the toolkits from Building Thinking Classrooms together in our final high school workshop of the year. This training is specific to High School classrooms and students.
Presenters: Melissa Hosten
April 2025
April 5th, 2025 - Geometry, DESMOS, and BTC, Oh My! Grades 9-12 (IMPACTS-HS)
Description: How can we make sense of exponential relationships and exponential functions in a way that engages learners in making connections from past learning to future learning? How can learners find agency and autonomy in making sense of these ideas? How can they evaluate their learning make decisions based on that learning? How do we decide what to “grade” and what not to? Come and explore these ideas as we put the toolkits from Building Thinking Classrooms together in our final high school workshop of the year. This training is specific to High School classrooms and students.
Presenters: Patricia O'Rourke, Melissa Hosten
3-year Department Level Focused Support:
School, District, and CRR partnership commitment for 3 years
Department Focused Support
Quarterly 1 Hour Department Level Professional Development Workshop
On-site and catered to that school’s specific needs.
Lesson Cycles are Available to Support Teachers Needing Extra Guidance and Growth
Team-plan a lesson together, co-facilitate the lesson in multiple classrooms & other teachers observe when possible. Then, debrief with all who co-facilitated or observed.
Semester Curriculum Planning Support
Half-day Guest Teacher/Substitute Teachers are provided so that entire course level teams can meet for a half-day to tackle challenges posed by a disconnect between the written curricular resource and enacting a student-centered sense-making lesson.
Just-In-Time Coaching Support
Individual teachers, teams of teachers, or administrators responsible for evaluating the mathematics department.
The IMPACTS High School Program is made possible by the generosity of the Armstrong McDonald Foundation and the United Way of Tucson & Southern Arizona.
The CRR and the many teachers served by the IMPACTS High School Program are very grateful for the investment these foundations have made.
Please Note: Teachers from out of Arizona may attend workshops, but they will incur a fee related to the number of hours for the workshop.
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