Jennifer Bay-Williams, University of Louisville

Redefining Help: How to Support Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Fluency

What does it mean to help a child understand place value? Know basic facts from memory? Understand and select efficient ways to multiply fractions? We will look to the research and see how we can best support conceptual understanding and procedural fluency—in other words, explore what we really need to do to help each student become mathematically proficient.

Max Ray-Riek, The Math Forum

The Thinking Teachers Do So That Students Do All the Thinking

Throughout the Institute, teachers have been in the role of learners, encountering new and powerful strategies, representations, and conceptual understandings. When we go back to our classrooms, we are in the role of teachers again, and our learners need to be the ones doing the hard work of building their understanding and trying out new strategies and representations. How do we plan for instruction, structure math discussions, and take the role of facilitator so that our students are the ones making sense and building connections? In this session, we will practice specific teaching practices (selecting student work to share, sequencing share-outs, and planning prompts and questions to support sense-making and connections). At the end of the session, participants will work with colleagues to produce a proposal for building time into each week to plan instruction around student thinking. Participants will also reflect on the Institute as a whole and make commitments to implement what they are taking away.

Supporting Students Who Struggle: Number and Algebraic Reasoning

Barbara Dougherty, University of Missouri-Columbia

Mathematics in the early grades forms a significant foundation for students. When students struggle, they develop gaps in their understanding. This session focuses on common misconceptions and errors that young students have. Mathematical tasks that can bridge these gaps and associated instructional strategies will be shared.

Kathryn Chval, University of Missouri

Every student and teacher brings a wealth of strengths to the mathematics classroom. Teachers can build on these strengths by embracing and infusing their students' and their own cultures and interests into their mathematics teaching and classroom practices. Learn how to establish equitable learning environments and enhance curriculum, instruction, and assessment to support students' mathematics learning.

Anne Collins, Lesley University