Teaching Practices that Support Student Understanding and Learning of Mathematics (Opening Session)(Taking Action)
Presented by
Margaret (Peg) Smith
Taking Action: Bringing the Effective Teaching Practices to Life in your Classroom Webinar Series
In the nearly three decades since the release of the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991), much has been learned about the teaching practices that support students’ understanding and learning of mathematics. In Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All (NCTM, 2014), this accumulated knowledge and empirical evidence has been codified into a core set of eight effective mathematics teaching practices that represent essential teaching skills necessary to promote learning mathematics with understanding. In this session, participants will learn about the practices and how they can support student learning.
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<i>Taking Action: Bringing the Effective Teaching Practices to Life in your Classroom</i> Webinar Series
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<p>In this session, we use artifacts from elementary school classrooms to examine children’s mathematical thinking and dive into two of the teaching practices—mathematical representations and purposeful questions. First, we will examine what it means to develop representational competence by supporting connections among visual, physical, contextual, verbal, and symbolic representations. Second, we will examine each question as a key strategic tool to not only probe and assess children’s mathematical understanding but to surface mathematical ideas and make them visible for discussion. We will also consider implications for both in-person and virtual learning environments. Placing greater focus on representations and purposeful questions in elementary classrooms are core teaching practices for empowering children as mathematical doers, knowers, and sense-makers.</p>