Although we have operated in a competency-based world for over a decade and there is strong evidence that student-centered instruction and competency-based education are mutually reinforcing, convincing teachers, administrators, parents, and students to move away from the instructional status quo can be difficult. Mathematics classrooms are notorious for being less student-centered than other subjects. For change to occur, we believe that not only teachers but also administrators and the educational community at large need to recognize what effective student-centered instruction looks like.
In this hands-on session, activities designed to stimulate mathematical thinking, reasoning, and discourse will be shared. The instructional approaches support the 8 mathematical teaching practices and will be presented in the context of a mathematics classroom but are appropriate for all subjects. The strategies may also be effectively implemented regardless of where a district, school, or teacher is regarding implementation of competency-based education.
Participants will leave the session with a better understanding of what teachers do, what students do, and the characteristics of quality tasks in a student-centered math classroom. Techniques will be modeled that facilitate meaningful discourse and advance students’ ability to make sense of important mathematical ideas and relationships.
