Kristen LoPrell

“Where in the world is Team Five?” is what you might hear in the first few moments of
class on the first day of school, as students work as partners on a virtual escape room
in Kristin Lo Prell’s math class. Her non-traditional math classes prioritize community
building through solving math puzzles early on, in order to foster trust and collaboration
before diving into deep mathematical thinking.

To watch Kristen LoPrell in action is a real treat. She is incredibly welcoming to her
students and knows them all by name, even early in the school year. Her classroom is
set up to work in collaborative groups, and students know the routine of getting into
groups to work. When a student was sheepishly holding back, she encouraged them to
share out and asked their group to support them. It was very clear that her students felt
seen and heard. The calculus lesson she introduced was challenging and engaging
because it came, not from a workbook, but from Kristen’s own creative mind. The
resulting conversation was both spirited and full of mathematical thinking. Additionally,
her principal enthusiastically discussed Ms. LoPrell’s positive influence, both on her
department and the school, in terms of empowering students to embrace mathematics
and challenge themselves to achieve at high levels.

School was always Kristin’s safe space while growing up, and she explains, “I was
always enamored with the complexities of math and the satisfaction of proving a pattern
to be true.” She recognized the math anxiety in her peers and was drawn to the
challenge of teaching math and undoing years of negative math experiences in her
students. Although many students enter her class with a sense of dread for math, most
leave with a belief that they ARE a “math person!”