Math class is often known to frustrate students with seemingly pointless equations. However, the high school’s Interactive Math Program (IMP)’s emphasis on group work and real-world applications can make the class more enjoyable and exciting for students.

The IMP is an alternative honor-level math course for tenth to twelfth-grade students structured around group work and real-world problems that the class spends the quarter solving. The IMP course provides students with a community, unique skill sets and confidence in their mathematical abilities that they may not be able to obtain from a traditional math course.

IMP teacher Daniella Rabina said as a result of there being fewer students in the three-year-long course, students can become very close.

“I love the community. Because there are only two or three sections per year, the kids get to know each other well because they mix only between those sections for three years,” Rabina said.

Senior Maxwell Blaney Petit, who started taking IMP his sophomore year, also said the community in the course is very strong.

“My favorite thing is the community because everybody’s nice in the class and it’s judgment-free. Today, we had a problem and nobody knew how to do it, so we just all worked through it,” Petit said.

IMP also provides students with many skills for their future, such as technical writing, which Rabina said is not taught in the traditional math class.

“We have writing assignments called portfolios. We don’t do as much of that in the traditional curriculum, and so when the students graduate out of IMP, they have a lot of technical writing skills which is a really useful skill in their future,” Rabina said.

IMP teacher Chris Monschauer said the course gives students skills that can help them in college math classes.

“IMP particularly well prepares students for the type of collaboration they might do in math classes in college when you get these big problems right from the get-go. I felt better about my math abilities in college when I learned to work well with other people on these tough, big problems,” Monschauer said.

Rabina said IMP also allows students to better understand where the math they are learning in class is used in real life.

“In IMP, I never hear the question ‘when am I going to need that in life?’ because it’s obvious. It’s very rare that we just look at an algebra equation, oftentimes it’s more of a word problem where it’s in a context that makes it clear why the math is used,” Rabina said.

Rabina said IMP math builds confidence in math students, helping students who do not consider themselves strong at math become secure students.

“I love that a lot of times kids sign up for IMP because they’re not loving how math is taught to them in the traditional curriculum and they don’t necessarily identify themselves as a math student and all of a sudden, they get turned on to the idea of really enjoying the class,” Rabina said.

Overall, Rabina said the IMP course positively impacts many of the students who take the class.

“It changes the lives of so many students who go through it in terms of how boldly they can look at themselves as mathematicians,” Rabina said. “It opens doors to them that they wouldn’t have necessarily opened in the future in terms of pursuing careers that involve math.”