Atrium Summer Math Institute
Making Math Meaningful
Postponed until Summer 2027.
The Atrium Summer Math Institute is a three-day, in-person program that provides teachers, coaches, and administrators space to learn together, inspiring curricular shifts at their schools.
We are offering two workshops:
Designing Projects that Challenge and Contextualize, for Middle School educators (Grades 5–9)
From Curious Inquiry to Confident Fluency, for Elementary educators (Kindergarten – Grade 5)
In addition to the two main workshops, we will spend time with the entire cohort of math educators, participating in math teachers' circles and collegial time over great meals, as well as whole-group sharing opportunities. The Summer Math Institute takes place over three fun and worthwhile days at the Atrium School on the Watertown/Cambridge line.
Who You Are: A teacher, aspiring teacher, administrator, learning specialist, or coach (at a public, charter, independent, or parochial school, or after-school program, etc.) committed to evolving your practice and refining your pedagogy. You’re seeking new resources and a collegial environment of like-minded faculty for collaboration and community. You’re looking for both inspiration and practicality, broad theory and useful pedagogy you can use next year.
What You Will Learn: Atrium School’s Summer Math Institute is a three-day, in-person workshop series and professional learning community where you will have the opportunity to connect with educators from different grade levels and curricular backgrounds. Each day, we will break out into specialized workshops with educators from similar grade-level strands (Elementary or Middle School). We’ll also do math all together, experiencing moments of productive struggle, just as we ask our students to do.
Learn more about the core workshop strands below.
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What do students learn from projects that they cannot learn from quizzes? What do we as teachers learn about our students by offering different forms of assessment? How do we create structures for open-ended exploration that allow students to dig deep and develop more complex levels of understanding? Explore how projects can be used within a unit to motivate engagement and content development, or at the end of a unit to extend and apply math concepts across disciplines and in a variety of real-world contexts. Particular attention will be paid to cultivating inspirational resources for projects, designing student-facing tasks, and creating rubrics and checklists for more streamlined assessment. Participants should come with a few topics in mind that they’d like to design a project around. They will work in grade-level cohorts to create projects, share ideas, and give feedback. Expect to leave with a project you can implement next year, as well as tons of resources to keep designing!
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This workshop is designed to deepen teachers’ understanding of operational fluency within an inquiry-based mathematics classroom. Grounded in best practices for elementary instruction, the session explores how fluency extends beyond speed and accuracy to include conceptual understanding, flexibility, and strategic thinking. The workshop will introduce practical strategies, purposeful questioning techniques, and differentiated activities that support both intervention and enrichment. Teachers will explore the effective use of manipulatives to strengthen conceptual understanding and help students make meaningful mathematical connections. Ready-to-implement activities will be shared to promote number sense, encourage discourse, and challenge learners at varying levels of readiness. A central focus of the workshop is creating a safe, supportive classroom environment where mathematical thinking is valued and mistakes are viewed as opportunities for growth. Participants will examine ways to foster productive struggle, encourage student voice, and build confidence through collaborative problem-solving and respectful discussion. By cultivating a culture of curiosity and risk-taking, teachers can help students develop both operational fluency and a strong mathematical identity. By the end of the session, educators will leave with actionable tools, enrichment ideas, and a clearer framework for nurturing confident, capable mathematicians in an inquiry-based setting.
Who We Are: Come work with two innovative K–8 educators with over 40 years of combined teaching and professional development experience.
Liz Caffrey (she/her)
Liz Caffrey is Atrium’s Middle School math teacher and the founder of the Atrium Summer Math Institute. Liz has presented around the US and beyond, most recently at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Regional Conference 2024 and at the Playful Schools Conference in Denmark 2023. She is also a Desmos Fellow. With 25 years in Grade 6–12 teaching, Liz’s educational passions include differentiating instruction for a heterogeneous (non-tracked) math classroom, empowering all students to see themselves as mathematicians, and designing interdisciplinary projects that advance justice and justice through math.
Fallon Katz (she/her)
Fallon Katz is the Lower School Math Specialist and Instructional Coach at The Rashi School. She has presented for peers locally and nationally, most recently at EduCon 2025 in Philadelphia. Fallon supports K–5 students across a range of learning needs, designing both intervention and enrichment opportunities to ensure all learners are challenged and supported. Fallon also works closely with teachers to analyze student data, differentiate instruction, and strengthen conceptual understanding, problem-solving, and mathematical discourse. She is passionate about fostering a growth mindset and inspiring a love of mathematics in both students and educators.
Questions? Email us at institute@atrium.org.
Testimonials:
“I loved being around people who are enthusiastic about teaching math. [The presenters] were so generous in sharing their practices and resources with the group – I also liked the variety in each session, so we were always engaged.”
“It's already my second time! The openness of the presenters and people attending is fabulous. I leave with so many ideas!”
“It’s brought my passion for math back to the surface…I enjoyed relearning how to work with others when it comes to problem-solving.”
“Every math teacher needs to be inspired and encouraged to engage in lifelong learning activities, and this experience was well worth it!”
“Having it as a ‘working conference’ definitely made it awesome...I didn't just walk away with a bunch of links and PowerPoint presentations; I have the experience of creating something that I can actually use. It was the practical aspect that really got me.”
“I loved feeling like a student again – to empathize with the kids, see from their point of view.”
