Basic Workshop Structure

The EMI workshop typically runs from Monday through Friday of a selected week during the summer vacation period. Monday through Thursday are designed to each have six hours of instructional time, while Friday is typically a shortened day with three to four hours of contact time. Depending on the number of planned participants, EMI will staff the workshop with anywhere from three to six instructors. Each individual school district (or consortium of districts) works with the EMI director during the winter prior to its workshop to determine which content areas will be emphasized. Most workshops offer courses ranging from Algebra I and II, to Geometry, to Advanced Topics in High School Mathematics, as well as others that emphasize the integration of Algebra and Geometry and/or hands-on problem-solving.

In keeping with Exeter’s Harkness pedagogy, the desired student-teacher ratio for each EMI class is 12:1. Each instructor will teach a course that is designed according to the content and area emphasis determined during the previous winter. Participating teachers pre-select their course preferences and are assigned to two courses for the week. The larger the participant pool, the greater the number of instructors, and therefore the more variety in course offerings. Although this is a basic model used for many EMI workshops, EMI remains committed to being flexible and designing a week most helpful to the participants. For instance, there have been workshops in which a course emphasizing topics from pre-calculus and calculus was designed for participants to spend their entire week in that one course.

EMI teacher-participants benefit from workshop attendance in numerous ways. Through the introduction of content and activities, they are able to expose their students to new mathematical problems and new ways of seeing/solving those problems. Through the modeling of Exeter’s Harkness pedagogy, they learn how to get the best from their students, and themselves. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, through attendance at a workshop geared specifically to their needs and interests, participating teachers gain confidence in and enthusiasm for their chosen profession, whether they are veteran instructors or new to the field.

Exeter’s instructors, too, benefit from their work with EMI. As Director Eric Bergofsky notes, “We gain an unbelievable amount of respect for our public school colleagues, some of whom teach well over 200 students per day.” Mr. Bergofsky notes also that many of the problems developed for various EMI workshops have been incorporated into Exeter’s own mathematics curriculum and that working with EMI participants positively influences his and others’ teaching at Exeter.

See sample EMI course descriptions...