IMPACTS High School
"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
Department Focused Support
Summer Institute Intensive
Weekend Workshops
Every teacher is welcome to learn more about teaching practices that are especially effective with high school students! There is a menu of offerings. 2024-2025 offerings included:
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.
Speakers: Patricia O'Rourke, Melissa Hosten
Time: 1:00pm-5:00pm
Location: Hybrid: In-person at UArizona Tucson Campus. Remote via Zoom.
Earn: Up to 5 hours of professional development credit for recertification.
Previous Workshops
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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speakers: 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.
Speakers: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speakers: Patricia O'Rourke, Melissa Hosten
Department Focused Support
3-year Department Level Focused Support:
School, District, and CRR partnership commitment for 3 years
Quarterly 1 hour Department level Professional Development Workshop on-site and catered to that school’s specific needs.
Quarterly Lesson Study Coaching Cycles
Team-plan a lesson together, co-facilitate the lesson in multiple classrooms (other teachers observe when possible), 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 for individual teachers, teams of teachers, or administrators responsible for evaluating the mathematics department.
Summer Institute Intensive
4 day intensive summer institute open to all high school mathematics teachers
*Special Education Co-Teachers and long-term substitute teachers are strongly encouraged to attend
Professional Learning book and/or articles
Mathematics content focus (Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, PreCalculus, Statistics, etc.) through the lens of Data Science alongside a student-centered pedagogy focus
Breakfast and lunch is provided as part of our community-building approach to professional learning