Secondary Workshops
Facilitators:
- William DeLeeuw, Arizona State University
- Fred Dillon, Ideastream/PBS
- Michael Steele, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Session 1
Connecting Discourse to Other Teaching Practices: Selecting and Implementing Tasks That Promote Reasoning and Problem Solving
"Not all tasks are created equal." What makes a good mathematical learning goal? We will look at key questions to consider when creating goals, then use those goals to select tasks based on cognitive demand, multiple entry points, and other criteria. The session will model different discourse moves and include discussion on goals and tasks.
Session 2
Discourse through the Lens of Your Classroom: Setting Goals and Selecting and Implementing Tasks
Investigating patterns and describing them are important components that build throughout the mathematics curriculum. In middle school, students look at patterns and write descriptions (verbal, symbolic, and more). Describing patterns helps lead to the concept of function in high school courses. In this session, participants will work on finding and describing patterns; discuss possible ways to sequence student work based on learning goals; and reflect on the role of goals and tasks in developing meaningful classroom discourse.
Session 3
Connecting Discourse to Other Teaching Practices: Using and Connecting Mathematical Representations
Discourse is a critical component in helping students create connections among mathematical representations that, in turn, leads to deeper understanding of mathematics concepts and procedures. In this session, participants will engage in a cognitively demanding task that encourages the use of representations. The implementation of the task will allow participants to model different aspects of using discourse to help make connects among representations.
Session 4
Connecting Discourse to Other Teaching Practices: Posing Purposeful Questions
There are different types of questions, and each one has a particular purpose during mathematical discourse. We will look at Initiate–Respond–Evaluate models, assessing and advancing questions, and the Principles to Actions question framework to classify questions and to determine which were used (and how they were used) to facilitate discourse with our task.
Session 5
Taking Action in Your Classroom: Routines for Mathematical Discourse
What was your best moment of discourse in your mathematics classroom? Imagine if you could get that to happen every day. Collaborate with your peers to leverage strengths in classroom discourse to design classroom routines that you can take back to your own classroom.
Session 6
Discourse through the Lens of Your Classroom: Multiple Representations and Posing Purposeful Questions
Meaningful discourse in the mathematics classroom does not happen from simply having a cognitively demanding mathematical task. Participants in this session will engage in a mathematical task and consider the ways in which multiple mathematical representations and purposeful questions can support discourse and progress toward mathematical goals.