Why should math teachers do math together?

Math teachers simply taking time to do math together on a regular basis can be a beautiful thing. As I see it math teachers can do two types of mathematics together:

• math that is interesting and informative purely for the teachers’ benefit
• math that is meant to be given to students.

Both types have their benefits and sometimes there can be overlap.

What are some of the benefits of collaborating on math that they might not use in their own classroom with their own students?
There are several reasons for this, so I doubt I will be able to thoroughly touch on all of them. For teachers to experience again (and again) what it is to learn something fresh allows them to reflect on what helps them on their process and what actually helped them learn and grow. This in turn can help them in a pedagogical level. Doing it together can allow more insights and the opportunity to share different strategies for solving a problem. Doing math together can also help teachers bond over the joy of why they possibly went into math education in the first place. Sometimes it can seem easy for a teacher to fall into a monotonous cycle of teaching the same material the same way year after year and forgetting the beauty of what they teach. Experiencing the process of trying different things and learning something interesting together can bring joy and frankly who would not like a little more joy in their life? Also, doing math together can help teachers have a deeper understanding of the math they teach beyond just the bare bones essentials. It can help to foster bigger connections mathematically and a deeper understanding of how different concepts they teach fit together and hopefully indirectly help with pedagogy.

What are some of the benefits of teachers doing math together that they will later share with their students?
Teachers can help each other anticipate what students might do well with and also what they will likely struggle with and what common misconceptions will likely arise and what responses, questions, or responses might help those students. Also, it’s a litmus test of sorts. If a problem is not appealing, enlightening, or illuminating somehow for teachers of the subject why would the same problem be worth doing for kids?

What are some of the challenges to doing math together?
Yes there are structures to make it most effective for anticipating student misconceptions, different strategies and other things and those are great. Sometimes though it’s nice for a colleague to just share a cool problem they discovered or made up or wonder about at a teacher Friday happy hour. A math problem or cool pattern or something you try to figure out together over a drink with a colleague can be a great thing. I’ve shared problems with people who are not even math teachers and yet I still have many friends of all types, interests, and backgrounds. Yes, they all know I am a nerd. My job is in math education so why pretend it’s not?