RME 2017 Research to Practice Conference

Conceptual understanding is built by comparing and contrasting various representations of an idea.  In this session, participants will work through a purposeful sequence of questions about fractions that encourages students to compare and contrast multiple representations of their thinking and leads to the conceptual understanding upon which they can build number sense and procedural fluency.

Coaching is not as simple as A, B, C or 1, 2, 3!  In this session, we will explore the complexities of change and the coach’s role in being a change agent.  We will discuss the research supporting instructional coaching and share a process for coaching teachers as they plan and deliver lessons that begin with conceptual understanding and end with procedural fluency.   Tools will be shared to help instructional coaches with this challenging work. 

When you think about math teaching you think about math problems (or “tasks").  But, there’s actually quite a bit of variety in mathematical tasks and that variety has a big impact on what students learn.  In this session we will break down different types of mathematical tasks to investigate whether they offer opportunities for students to develop conceptual understanding. You will leave with a tool for assessing mathematical tasks and a list of resources containing rich mathematical tasks.