April 2025 CCTM Newsletter
Message from the Board:This month our board message comes to you from CCTM Secretary, Manpreet Sandhu. In her message, Manpreet reflects on the powerful professional learning from last summer’s CCTM Institute, featuring NCTM President Kevin Dykema and inspires us to look forward to the 2025 CCTM Summer Institute featuring Joleigh Honey and Julianne Foxworthy Gonzalez. She highlights the value of coming together as a statewide community of math educators—a space where collaboration, shared experiences, and collective growth continue to strengthen our teaching and support student learning across Colorado. Click Here to Read the Welcome Message Upcoming Events, Celebrations, Happenings, and Opportunities (ECHO)Click here to view upcoming math events and happenings, including:
Click HERE to view other math celebrations and opportunities, as well as to view additional information regarding the above CCTM learning opportunities. Teacher Voice: CDE - Intervention ToolkitsEach newsletter we will highlight the voice of educators within Colorado to share some of their amazing work and ideas. In this issue, we highlight the new CDE Online Intervention Toolkits! Practical Practices- Happy Birthday Principles to Action!
~ Amber Gardner, Region 3 Representative In our Practical Practices section of the newsletter, we highlight practices that you can incorporate in your classrooms, including curated links to outside resources to build your knowledge of that practice. For this school year CCTM has been elevating the High Leverage Teaching Practices and resources to support that practice in the classroom within each newsletter. This month we focus on the last two practices in flow of planning for and implementing high quality math learning experiences for each student:
Spotlighting Colorado Mathematics Educators and Teams:In this section of our newsletter, we celebrate the outstanding work of mathematics teams, educators, and leaders across our community. This month, we're excited to spotlight a group of 18 dedicated educators who collaborated to develop the new CDE Online Math Intervention Toolkits—a valuable resource designed to support student learning and instructional success statewide!
Please click here to find out about their amazing work . If you want to nominate an educator, leader, or team, please use this link to nominate an individual or a team! Trivia - A History of MathematicsEach newsletter will have a trivia question. From those that answer correctly, five winners will be drawn and receive a CCTM Promotional Product. THIS MONTH’s TRIVIA QUESTION: As we honor the importance of mental well-being, we would like to highlight this mathematician who brought awareness and hope to many. He revolutionized the field of game theory with a concept that analyzes how people make decisions in competitive situations. While achieving academic fame early in life, he also battled schizophrenia for many years. His courageous journey of recovery, return to mathematical research, and eventual Nobel Prize win helped reduce stigma and sparked deeper conversations around mental health—especially in the academic and scientific communities. Who is he? 
CCTM Trivia and Recap Last month, we asked you, the members of CCTM “This NASA mathematician pioneered the use of computer programming for performing complex calculations. They were also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Who is this mathematician?” The answer to this question was: Katherine Johnson Learn more about Katherine Johnson Last month’s winners were: Zachary Weiss, Cheryl Clinger, and Kari Johnson Colorado Math Teacher Journal - Featured ArticleAre you passionate about math education and eager to share your experiences, insights, or questions with a vibrant community of educators? The Colorado Mathematics Teacher (CMT) journal invites YOU—practicing teachers, preservice teachers, researchers, instructional coaches, and anyone excited about math learning—to submit an article for publication! As a peer-reviewed, open access journal published by the Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics (CCTM), CMT is dedicated to fostering community, connection, and conversation in math education across Colorado and beyond. Whether you want to share a classroom innovation, reflect on your teaching practice, highlight equity efforts, or explore new tools and technology, we want to hear your voice. Articles should be 800–1200 words and accessible to a broad audience. Let’s grow together as a professional community, united by our commitment to powerful and equitable math teaching and learning. Questions? Reach out to me, Dennis DeBay, PhD, Editor in Chief, at [email protected]. We can’t wait to read your work! Featured Article: Engaging Students with the Fold-and-Cut Theorem Authors: Amélie Schinck-Mikel , California Polytechnic State University Elsa Medina, California Polytechnic State University Abstract: When students make geometric constructions through paper folding, it allows them to make geometric concepts come to life in their hands. In this article, we discuss a hands-on geometry activity based on the Fold-and-Cut Theorem that can help teachers enhance students’ engagement with geometry and deepen students’ geometric reasoning by paper folding. Get YOUR Word OutWould you like to advertise or elevate an upcoming mathematical opportunity happening around you - in your school, district, region? Do you want to celebrate successes in your mathematical community? Share your happenings in the CCTM’s next newsletter? Click HERE to submit your events, news or celebrations and be included in the next CCTM Newsletter’s ECHO (Events, Celebrations Happenings, and Opportunities) Section. |
Engaging in these teaching practices is grounded in the belief that every student is a powerful mathematical thinker that knows things. When we elicit and build from student ideas, we communicate that each learner is a capable mathematician whose voice matters. This creates a culture that values risk-taking, diversity of thought, and inquiry as essential conditions for authentic math learning.