This presentation will describe the process my district went through to develop a 3-year plan to change instructional practice in elementary mathematics. We focused on how to support teachers in implementing the 8 effective mathematics teaching practices to develop mathematical thinkers and problem solvers in elementary classrooms.
Solving mathematics tasks can be challenging for children when contexts are unfamiliar. In this workshop, participants will explore the importance of posing problems with familiar and relevant contexts to children. Participants will collaborate with colleagues to consider the lived experiences of students in their classrooms and leverage that to create meaningful and engaging mathematics problems.
Students come to school with valuable experiences and immense potential. To meet this potential, teachers need to attend to relationships with students and their mathematical thinking as a basis for instructional change to not only work with and from students’ thinking but support their growth and connections over time. In this session, we will unpack three core practices and ideas to create asset-based learning environments to support students’ mathematical brilliance. Specifically, we will discuss listening, centering, and building as foundational, high-leverage teaching practices. We will offer practical ways that teachers can enact these practices within both the whole class and small learning environments.
Are you passionate about academic discourse? Join us for a chance to collaborate with educators across the state in sharing great strategies to get our mathematicians talking! We will dive into video examples of student talk structures in the classroom and reflect on opportunities to deepen our practice through microteaching.
This session will unpack how to use low floor, high ceiling tasks to engage students in mathematical sense making around fundamental math topics. So often, students can be reluctant to engage in genuine conceptual sense making for fear of being wrong. This session will provide attendees with practical strategies and content for breaking down these barriers to student centered sense making.
Many of the things we (sometimes unintentionally) do as a teacher can be demotivating for our students, and just might be the root cause of why we are bombarded with statements like "I hate math!", "Why are we even doing this?" or "This is pointless!" In this interactive session, we will explore some classroom experiences that demonstrate how our students arrive at these statements, and learn how to avoid practices that bring frustration to both learners and teachers.
