Our History

CBMP began in the summer of 2009 with a group of middle school math teachers from Philadelphia and graduate students and faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. After finding that the contexts used in the existing math curriculum were not familiar to the youth living in this urban community, we redesigned them to include settings and situations that were more relevant to the middle school students. The initial goal of the project was to develop materials that were engaging for students, relevant to their urban community, aligned to state standards, and infused with social justice goals.

Founding members included teachers Kelley Collings and Suzanne Reimann, and graduate students Nina Hoe, Vivian Lim, Emily Magee, and Luke Reinke.

Over time, the project became a professional learning community. Participants work together to adapt math lessons for the classroom, share their experiences and questions, and develop new lessons based on local contexts and their students' lived experiences. In addition to the lessons, we have presented and written about our work in several conferences and publications.