Has your math class celebrated Pi Day by pie-ing each other in the face? Or the holidays with White Elephant? The Interactive Math Program (IMP) celebrates both—in addition to teaching math.
IMP is an honors-level math program, offered to sophomores, juniors and seniors. IMP is unique to other math programs because of its focus on more thorough understanding of content, community and real-life applications. Though in prior years the program has struggled to fill classes for varying reasons, this year’s students said IMP’s distinctive aspects make math class a more positive experience.
In IMP, students gain an in-depth understanding of math topics. IMP teacher Danielle Rabina said the homework in IMP helps students work on applying themselves to more unfamiliar math problems, rather than just being a high volume of practice problems each night. To stretch understanding, students have to write portfolios and solve weekly “outside of the box” problems.
“It is not uncommon for me to see IMP students be ready to tackle a problem they’ve never seen before, whereas other students may feel a little bit more intimidated by a new-looking problem,” Rabina said.
Eden Morbey is a sophomore in IMP and said the structure of his class has pushed him to understand the material far more than his freshman-year class.
“Something about actually going through [the math] yourself, and then adding onto that, instead of being given everything you need, [it] makes you think more about it and gives you a deeper understanding,” Morbey said.
Rabina said an additional cornerstone to IMP is the exceptional communities. These are achieved for a variety of reasons: there are only two IMP sections per grade, so students tend to know each other well, and the nature of the program heavily relies on group work. Students spend about 90 percent of class time actively working together.
“Students have also reported that in other classes they feel more competitive with the students that are in the room. In IMP, they feel more supported by those students because they’re all working toward that common goal together,” Rabina said.
The group work is strong in IMP because, to be in the program, students had to have both been recommended and then elected to be a part of it. During the freshman-year course selection period, students can choose IMP for their sophomore year. Rabina said many students choose to be in IMP precisely because they want to commit themselves to beneficial group work.
“It doesn’t happen much in IMP where you’re doing group work but you’re annoyed when not everybody pulls their weight. Everyone chose to be there, so they all want to do group work,” Rabina said.
IMP teacher Julia Naimy, who also teaches Geometry Honors, said that in previous years IMP has struggled with having enough students to fill the sections. So, in recent years, Naimy said that when recommending freshmen for math classes, she has encouraged them to visit IMP classes and has helped them go through the IMP textbook. She said that, through that process, she has worked to help them gain a thorough understanding of what the program has to offer. This year, the program has grown.
“We were able to create two sections, and then in both of our sections, we’ve each gotten around two more students as the school year has started,” Naimy said.
With its strong community, IMP has special yearly traditions. Senior Joan Zipursky said there is an annual Pi Day celebration, where students write math-related reports and engage in other celebratory activities.
“This group of students pied each other in the face in the school building, and it was a lot of fun,” Zipursky said. “A bunch of people brought baked goods, and it’s just so nice to have a little community in the mainstream school that feels so comfortable around each other.”
