Three experienced teachers share strategies for making equity both intentional and a regular part of every class, throughout a class. Time will be included for small group discussion of how to apply strategies to their classes and to share ideas with others.
Join us for an inspiring and practical session designed specifically for educators passionate about fostering a love for mathematics in all students, including those with disabilities. This presentation will provide you with strategies to: • Identify accessible entry points into grade-level math content for students with diverse learning needs. • Facilitate meaningful math discourse that includes and values the contributions of students with disabilities alongside their non-disabled peers. • Create classroom environments where students with disabilities are empowered as active doers and thinkers of mathematics. Through interactive discussions, real-world examples, and hands-on activities, you will gain valuable insights and tools to support your students in reaching their full mathematical potential. Let's work together to build inclusive classrooms where every student can thrive and shine in mathematics. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your teaching practice and make a lasting impact on your students' mathematical journeys.
The first 5–10 minutes of class are crucial for setting the tone, and engaging students immediately is essential. Rather than relying on standard warmups, I design starters that spark interest and get students talking and thinking mathematically right away. These activities often focus on warming up their brains with creative problem-solving, rather than directly tying to the day's content, ensuring participation at all levels. For example, I might use a zombie apocalypse scenario to encourage pattern recognition and problem-solving. Students can start by creating a table, writing an equation, or even just writing a list of numbers looking for patterns. I would love to model this specific example and share my strategies with other educators.
We will share a conceptualization of teachable moments in mathematics classrooms that provides guidance in recognizing which student contributions during whole-class discussion might be worth taking up as a focus for joint sense-making. We will then share a conceptualization of the teaching practice of building—the practices teachers can enact that take advantage of these moments. Through the workshop, teachers will engage with the presenters and with each other as they consider these conceptualizations and the implications they have for their classroom practice. We will share some concrete ways that teachers can begin to enact this practice in their own classrooms.
This session is for all educators working with students with identified exceptionalities. Participants will develop strategies to broaden student access to problem solving and support productive struggle. Participants will also consider best practices around co-teaching math lessons and explore IEP goals as a way to become agents of change.
Let's put ourselves in spaces that we ask of our students: engaging and collaborating on a math task, productive struggle, and making connections. In this session, attendees will experience the many virtues we hope to cultivate for our students: visualization, structure, deep investigation, persistence, abstraction, etc.
Assessments are an integral part of every student's higher math education journey to becoming a secondary school math teacher. Students, whether they like it or not, are required to complete this assessment (mostly a culminating exam) in order to get a good score on their course. Giving students opportunities to develop, connect, and build their assessment according to their fieldwork experiences helps create a sense of belonging in math and values students' experiences. Tools used in this presentation will be unit plan templates. Group discussion and brainstorming ideas will be the most used strategies in this session. Participants will think about the format and process of unit plans they use in their math methods courses and how these formats and processes help future math teachers in their math teaching journey.
There are many myths out there about what great math teaching looks and feels like. Let's explore how to make powerful moments in your class tomorrow! Warning: This is a high energy presentaion, so be prepared for laughter and lots of learning.
