High school math teachers Mrs. Michelle Krenzler and Ms. Anne O'Regan share a common goal: to make math class collaborative, engaging, and a place students genuinely want to be. With a combined 60 years in education, they understand how students learn best—and even come to enjoy—a subject that many find challenging.

Embracing the thinking classroom model, Ms. Krenzler and Ms. O'Regan offer an interactive learning environment where students are up on their feet and working together. In this approach, teachers act as facilitators rather than traditional lecturers, giving them greater insight into students' thought processes, progress, and understanding. "In math especially, it's important that students are up, involved, and working collaboratively," says Ms. O'Regan. Ms. Krenzler adds, "Inquiry and problem-solving are at the heart of what we do."

"It's all about bringing wonder to math, to learn and problem solve and listen and explain, and that’s all driven by the kids.”

While united in their teaching philosophy, their classrooms told a different story. Instead of flexible, collaborative spaces, both rooms were lined with large, cumbersome desks fixed in rows and hard to move. Despite these less-than-idea setups, the pair made it work.

Ms. Krenzler and Ms. O'Regan persevered to create environments that matched their teaching style. They outfitted their rooms with whiteboards covering every available wall, making space for two key phases of their lessons: "Listen Time," when students learn new concepts, and "Board Time," when they stand up, collaborate, and work through the concepts together. But even with these temporary fixes, the bulky desks remained a constant obstacle—too large and heavy to rearrange easily and increasingly at odds with the fluidity and collaboration of a thinking classroom.

That's where Meadowridge School's Annual Fund stepped in.

Within months, 48 new lightweight desks arrived, transforming the high school math classrooms. Now, Mrs. Krenzler and Ms. O'Regan have spaces designed for a thinking classroom, not ones they must work around. "It's all about bringing wonder to math, to learn and problem solve and listen and explain," the pair explains, "and that’s all driven by the kids.”
 

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