TEAMS is hosting a Math Teachers' Social if you're in the Toronto area!

Join us on Friday, December 5 for our first TEAMS Math Social of the year at The Frog: A Firkin Pub (4854 Yonge St., North York)! Expect an upbeat night with a guest speaker, lively games, delicious appetizers, and plenty of chances to connect with math educators from across the GTA and beyond. 

If there's still room on the guest list, the form will still be active and you can register at https://bit.ly/TEAMSsocial. (If the form isn't active, sorry, it's sold out!)

More information at this PDF link. 

This virtual video webinar with Vanessa Vakharia is all about the F-word that's likely holding your students back in math: F-E-A-R. In this OAMEtalks session, David Petro sits down with Vanessa Vakharia, The Math Guru, founder and director of The Math Guru tutoring studio and host of the Math Therapy podcast, to unpack what really drives fear in the math classroom. 

Together, they’ll explore:

• The psychology of fear in math learning and how it shows up as anxiety and avoidance;

• How math anxiety can evolve into math trauma, and what that looks like in real classrooms;

• Evidence-informed, practical strategies you can start using immediately to reduce anxiety, disrupt harmful patterns, and create math experiences that feel safe, engaging, and empowering for every student.

You’ll come away with a deeper, more nuanced understanding of math anxiety — and a toolkit of concrete moves to help all students build a healthier, more confident relationship with mathematics.

Registration for this and all OAMEtalks webinars is at https://oame.on.ca/mcis/ and it's all free for all OAME members. 

Check out the preview audio podcast at OAME Talks - Season 8 .

Consider nominating an educator for a 2026 Prime Minister’s Award! Download your nomination package today. Submit your nomination electronically by January 14, 2026.

Help celebrate those who go above and beyond to create safe spaces for their students, continue to work hard to make learning fun and inspire the next generation to be bold innovators and creators.

“So much of what we do as educators often feels like it goes unnoticed. Nominating fellow hard-working educators, whether they win or not, is an incredible way to tell them they are seen and appreciated.” – Karen Bowater, 2021 regional Recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM

We’re now running on OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT 5.1 engine, and you’re in control of how it thinks and how it teaches.

At the bottom of the chatOAME window you’ll see two sliders:

• Thinking level – from Fast to Deep reasoning

Slide right if you want the AI to spend more time double-checking its work and giving more detailed, multi-step answers.  Deep Reasoning will take longer, so be prepared to wait.

• Pedagogy level – from Brief to Full answer + coaching notes

Slide right if you’d like more explanations, scaffolding, and teacher-style commentary instead of just a quick solution.

We’re still tuning things, but as you increase the Thinking and Pedagogy levels, you’ll notice richer explanations, more depth, and more “teacher voice” in the responses. Have feedback? Send it on to oame.ai@oame.on.ca anytime!

Better math documents, too

We’ve also upgraded how chatOAME produces documents:

You can export a Word document with math written as proper equation editor objects ready to edit, copy, and share.

Or you can create a Google Doc. Just remember: to get nicely formatted math in Google Docs, you’ll need to use a LaTeX plugin/add-on.

All OAME members have free and unlimited access to chatOAME by logging into the OAME website at https://www.oame.on.ca and clicking on Member Links.

Our inaugural Book Club has officially launched, featuring Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Francis Su. The Book Club brings together educators who are passionate about exploring the beauty, purpose, and humanity within mathematics. We had a great discussion last month on the first three chapters. Our next hybrid meeting will take place on January 26th at 7pm, where participants will connect to discuss chapters four through six of this book. The chapters are short, so it's easy to catch up and join us!

Looking ahead, planning for the 2026 ISOMA Annual Conference is well underway! The conference will be held on April 16, 2026, at Appleby College. We’re delighted to share that our keynote speaker Francis will be joining us in-person.

More information? Our chapter rep Cynthia Shi is ready to help!

The OAME 2026 Annual Conference is coming to Fanshawe College in London on April 30 and May 1, 2026—and this year, we’re putting conversation at the centre of math learning with the theme: Let’s Talk Math

This will be a hybrid conference, with both in-person and virtual options so you and your colleagues can join from wherever you are.

For full conference details, visit www.oame2026.ca or email us at inquiries2026@oame.on.ca. Stay connected and get updates by following @oamelearns on Bluesky and Instagram.

Pre-registration is now open! You can pre-register today at oame.on.ca/mcis. Pre-registration lets you:

• Reserve your spot in keynote sessions early;

• Complete your full registration in January, ahead of general registration in February.

You can also click this link for a brief outline of the conference program.

Coming with a group?

We can set up Group Codes for groups of any size.

Group Codes allow a sponsor (for example, a school board) to:

• Cover registration fees for multiple participants, and

• Pay for everyone with one single payment.

To set up a Group Code or learn more, please contact  inquiries2026@oame.on.ca.

explorAItion! has its next evening of sessions TODAY, December 2nd! The virtual conference explores the use of Artificial Intelligence in Ontario education, running from September 2025 through April 2026. You can still register in time to join us! And for all the remaining sessions next year!

Each evening will offer a selection of 30- and 60-minute workshops between 7 – 9 pm. Workshops will be recorded so that registrants can access the entire proceedings during and following the explorAItion! 2.0 series.

Visit https://ecoo.org/exploraition-2-0/ for more information, dates, registration, or to submit a proposal! Use code exai2oame for $30 for all live sessions and/or their recordings - that's half-off registration! 

Proposals are open for the late Winter/early Spring sessions if you have something to share! 

In a nook of Ontario, one chilly school day,

Math teachers were marking in their usual way,

When a whisper went round in soft, excited haze:

“The Gazette and Abacus are coming… in just a few days!”

No stockings or chimneys, no sleigh in the sky,

Just fresh pages of insights and ideas to try.

New tasks, rich problems, and stories to share,

For classrooms and colleagues who love math to spare.

So warm up your cocoa, stack grading aside,

Watch your inbox and oame.on.ca with pride.

Because just when the term feels most busy and gray,

Two brand-new issues are almost on their way!

As we wrap up the December 2025 OAME newsletter, we want to thank you for all the ways you’ve helped mathematics come alive for students across Ontario this year.

From our OAME family to yours, we wish you a peaceful, joyful holiday season filled with rest, connection, and maybe a puzzle or two.

We’re excited to learn, collaborate, and talk math together in 2026 whether it be in classrooms, online spaces, or at OAME events throughout the year.

Warmest wishes for a safe and fun holiday and an inspiring new year!