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=Welcome to Robert T. Freeman's MATC Portfolio=

This portfolio is being submitted Summer Semester 2011.

Dear Reader,

My name is Robert Freeman. I attended Michigan State University, completing a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics in 2006 and earning my teaching certificate in 2007. I was hired that summer at Wayne Memorial High School in Wayne, Michigan.

Wayne Memorial, part of the Wayne-Westland Community School District, is located in metro Detroit. Our district has eleven K-4 buildings, two 5-6 buildings, two 7-8 buildings, two high schools, and a career technical center. We service over 8300 students with approximately 1800 at Wayne Memorial. Our student body is primarily Caucasian, 65%, but with significant numbers of African Americans, 28%. The recent economic downturn has hit the community hard, with 63% of our students eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Our school models ourselves as a professional learning community. Each teacher is assigned to a content team based on the courses they teach. These content teams work to develop common assessments, unpack standards, and share best practice. Using this model, we have seen dramatic increases in student achievement, raising our average composite ACT scores by almost 2 points over the past two years and having over 80% of freshmen reach sophomore standing (as compared to 30% two years ago).

As the leader of the geometry content team, I try to model finding and incorporating best practice into my classroom. I have had between 3 and 4 sections of geometry each year I have taught, with between 30 and 35 students in each class. Next year, two sections of AP Calculus will fill out my schedule. Having these advanced students has really emphasized the need to find ways to engage all students with the subject matter in a way that helps them understand the connections that define it.

Thank you for following me on my journey.

Sincerely,

Robert Freeman

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