Facilitator: Nicole Garcia 

Discourse-rich classrooms where children share their mathematical thinking, grapple with the ideas of others, and build collective understanding require more than talk alone. They require carefully constructed records of children’s thinking that utilize appropriate mathematical representations, make visible deep mathematical thinking, and document community decisions and understandings. Together we will explore the ways in which teachers can plan for and develop such records, including in-the-moment public records, teacher-built public records, and children’s personal records. We will:  

• try out the work required for building in-the-moment public records, including focusing on careful listening to young children’s ideas; 
• practice creating teacher-built after-the-fact public records; 
• examine supports for student-created personal records; and  
• consider typical problems of practice for using public records. 

You will leave this session with strategies you can use in your own classroom to support a discourse-rich environment.

Facilitator: Emily Kimmey

How can we leverage the first few weeks of school to set the stage for learning for the year? As a teacher, you work to get to know your new students, to determine what they already know and can do, and to introduce and establish norms and routines for discourse and work. This session will provide you with an opportunity to consider: 

• the purposes of a student/teacher contract and how to use it as a foundational, living resource for building relationships and classroom culture; 
• productive norms and routines for mathematical discourse and work and how to deliberately implement them early in the year;
• strategies for encouraging students to share in whole group and acknowledging competence; and 
• ways to learn what students know and can do without over-assessing.

You will leave the session with practical considerations to guide your planning and strategies for building a productive, inclusive mathematics community in your own classroom in the first few weeks of school.  

Facilitator: Simona Goldin 

Learn methods for observing and giving feedback on particular high-leverage practices, including strategies and protocols for productive dialogue around teaching practice, with a particular focus on issues of equity and access. Together, we will practice elements of the work including: 

• taking an inquiry stance in observation; 
• observing instruction through the lens of high-leverage teaching practices; and 
• focusing feedback on practice.

You will leave the session with strategies that you can use as you work with teachers in your own setting. While the content focus is mathematics, the elements of this work are applicable across content areas and grade levels. 

Facilitator: Nicole Farach 

How can teachers support children to share their mathematical thinking? What teaching practices enable all students to participate equitably in discussions? How can teachers encourage students to build a collective understanding of mathematics content? These and other questions related to productive discussions will be explored through observation and analysis of the laboratory classes. In addition, we will practice elements of the work ourselves to prepare you to apply key strategies and practices in your own classroom, including: 

• designing an effective launch to your discussion;
• supporting students to listen to and use other’s ideas; and
• recording students’ ideas to support learning from others.

You will leave the session with strategies you can use inside and outside of discussions and having rehearsed this work with colleagues. While the content focus is mathematics, the elements of discussion-leading are applicable across content areas. 

Facilitator: Heather Beasley 

This workshop will support teachers to acknowledge students’ competence as an approach to disrupt status hierarchies and patterns of injustice in classrooms, and to advance robust conceptions of competence in specific content areas. Participants will develop significant skill and fluency in:

• broadening conceptions of competence in mathematics;
• practicing specific ways to acknowledge students’ competence; and
• using this set of practices to disrupt patterns of marginalization in the classroom.

While the focal area is mathematics, this work can be generalized to all content areas.  

Facilitator: Michaela Krug O’Neill 

How can we support all students to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them? In this session, we will learn about and try out a range of strategies for making mathematics tasks and word problems found in your own curriculum materials more accessible and engaging for students. We will consider how each of the following may either enhance or impede student problem-solving: 

• Problem context and language 
• Scaffolds and supports built into the curriculum 
• Strategies for making sense of a word problem 
• Adaptations to the problem
  

You will leave the session having revised a number of your own word problems and having rehearsed with colleagues a range of productive strategies that you can use regularly in your classroom to support student problem-solving. 

You will spend a large portion of each day co-planning, observing, and discussing the teaching of elementary students. The remainder of each day will be spent in an interactive facilitated learning session.

A laptop or tablet is required to access digital resources. No other supplies are required.

Anyone interested in education, education advocacy, or exploring the close study of teaching practice is welcome to attend the Elementary Mathematics Laboratory, including teachers, teacher educators, education leaders, policymakers, and researchers.

TeachingWorks reserves the right to cancel in-person, virtual, or hybrid training or workshops before the start. TeachingWorks staff will notify participants of cancellation via email. Participants will be eligible for a full refund of their registration fee. TeachingWorks will not be held responsible for any expenses incurred due to the cancellation of an event, training, or workshop.

For a full refund (100%), participants must submit a written request to cancel or withdraw 30 days prior to the first day of the event (in-person or virtual). Fifty percent (50%) will be refunded for requests received 15 days prior. No refunds will be issued for requests received within seven (7) business days of the first day of the event or failure to submit the required documentation required for participation.

Business casual.