FARMINGTON — Fifth-grade teacher and math specialist Angela Lake stood on the green at the University of Maine at Farmington this week, held a yardstick upright in front of her outstretched arm and showed a group of fellow educators how it can be used to measure the height of a nearby tree.

“You create a right triangle with your body,” she said.

Once children master the activity that also includes learning “pacing” and using a tape measure, they can have fun measuring their house or a flagpole, Lake said.

The outdoor activity teaches about measurement and quietly slips in a geometry lesson, said Lake, who teaches at Livermore Falls Elementary School.

“We are trying to get kids to think outside the box and away from the textbooks, communicate with each other, do some problem solving and use math to make real world connections,” she said.

The hands-on session given by Lake was one of many offered each day this week by six teacher/trainers at the first Math Academy, put on by the Western Maine Education Collaborative. More than 70 educators in grades kindergarten to five from 17 schools in 10 districts in Western Maine attended.

The nonprofit organization provides professional development opportunities for educators.

“Education has changed, Leanne Condon, director of curriculum at Mt. Blue Regional School District, said. She was involved in planning the academy.

“Many of us remember sitting in rows, listening to the same lesson, and memorizing exact lists and facts. That is not the classroom of today,” she said.

Now, teachers can introduce a unit to the whole class and then provide specific, guided practice to small groups and individual students based on their needs.

Teachers are also expected to know and use technology, have a plethora of intervention strategies to support struggling students, analyze data, and meet in professional learning communities to determine students’ needs and progress, she said.

“We still teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and other concepts that are familiar. But the way we teach is vastly different, the way we plan to teach is very different, and the needs of students are immensely different from the memory of our halcyon days,” she said.

Teachers need time for professional development to keep current with best practices. And to have 73 teachers spend six hours a day for five days in August learning new ways to teach math says a lot, Condon said.

She noted teachers who complete the academy will receive $250 to spend on materials and supplies but will not receive any additional stipend for their time. They also receive continuing education credits.

The idea for the academy came up as western Maine administrators, working together through the collaborative, recognized the need for professional development in math, Condon said.

Teachers have had access to courses that teach reading but there is only one methods course available in mathematics, she said.

The Math Academy is a two-year project that will provide ongoing support for teachers on planning instruction, strategies and activities in the classroom, and opportunities for teachers to learn from one another.

And by the end of the week, each participant will have created an action plan for the upcoming school year. A second academy will be held next summer.

Cindy Stevens, a second-grade, veteran teacher at the W.G. Mallett School in Farmington, said during a break that she welcomed new ideas on teaching math since that was her most troublesome subject when she was in school.

“And you don’t want to pass that on,” she said.

She also is looking for ways to explain the new methods to parents, who get frustrated when they don’t understand the work their children bring home.

“They are used to doing it the way they learned in school,” she said. “Methods have changed a lot over the past 30 years.”

The Academy is also training teachers to be math leaders in their own districts, teacher/trainer Marilyn Curtis, a longtime teacher at the Lisbon Community School and a member of the academy’s planning committee, said.

“The money for professional development has decreased due to the economy, yet expectations for teachers have increased,” she said. “Elementary teachers are responsible for all content areas, so time is a factor for professional development.”

“We have the talent in our own systems, so let’s use it and spread it throughout the state,” she said.

The collaborative’s coordinator, Mona Baker, said the Academy has been two years in the planning. Funding is from a patchwork of grants, some federal stimulus funds, and generous support from the university and vendors.

“The response to the Academy from educators has blown me away. I would have expected half this number to participate,” she said. “And the teachers are really motivated.”

Baker and the collaborative’s board of directors developed a leadership committee to plan the Academy that had input from math consultants, administrators, the Maine Department of Education, and the Maine Math and Science Alliance.

The Math Academy’s teacher/trainers also include Kendra O’Connell from Lisbon Community School; Vicky Cohen and Bethany Cote from Mt. Blue Regional School District; and Sarah Caban from Regional School Unit 38 in Maranacook.

Member districts are Jay School Department, Lisbon School Department, AOS 97 (Western Kennebec County Schools), RSU 9 (Farmington), RSU 10 (Rumford/Mexico), RSU 36 (Livermore Falls/Livermore), RSU 38 (Readfield),  RSU 44 (Bethel), RSU 74 (Anson),  RSU 78 (Rangeley)  and SAD 58 (Strong) .