In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue the season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Elicit and Use Evidence of Student Thinking.”

In Principles to Actions, NCTM describes this teaching practice in this way:

Effective teaching of mathematics uses evidence of student thinking to assess progress toward mathematical understanding and to adjust instruction continually in ways that support and extend learning.

This meaty description provides the fodder for today’s conversation. Our hosts consider what is meant by “effective teaching,” “assessing progress,” and “adjusting instruction continually,” and tie these ideas back to the important work of classroom educators.

Additional referenced content includes:

· NCTM’s Principles to Actions

· NCTM’s Taking Action series for grades K-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12

· Want more ideas for eliciting student thinking in your classroom? Check these out:

o Descriptors of teacher and student behaviors for this practice

o Thoughts and linked resources from the Colorado Department of Education

o A classroom observation tool focused on this practice from the Minnesota Department of Education

Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing roomtogrowmath@gmail.com . Be sure to connect with your hosts on X and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue the season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Use and connect mathematical representations.” Our hosts describe the five representations outlined in Principles to Actions, which include visual, symbolic, verbal, contextual, and physical descriptions of mathematics, but emphasize that the representations are not meant to be a check list to be covered during instruction. Rather, the different representations provide a framework for explore important mathematical concepts through different lenses, allowing students to build and deepen their understanding as they consider these ways of engaging.

In addition to deep understanding, teachers’ attending to different representations will allow different students in the class to be elevated, as their unique strengths and preferences will have the opportunity to come out and be showcased.

Additional referenced content includes:

· NCTM’s Principles to Actions

· NCTM’s Taking Action series for grades K-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12

· Making Connections Explicit​ (NCTM requires subscription)

· Supporting Understanding Using Representations​ (NCTM requires subscription)

· Three Ways to Enhance Tasks for Multilingual Learners​ (NCTM requires subscription)

· Interpreting Distance-Time Graphs – lesson referred to in this episode

Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing roomtogrowmath@gmail.com . Be sure to connect with your hosts on X and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue the season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Implement Tasks that Promote Reasoning and Problem Solving.” Our hosts being by expounding on the difference between selecting a task and implementing it, and that selecting a good task does not guarantee good implementation. They bust the idea that the only way to engage students in reasoning and problem solving is with a rich task, by considering how educators can weave together procedural learning with conceptual understanding.

Next, they connect reasoning and problem solving to the Standards of Mathematical Practice, particularly practices 7: Attend to and make use of structure and 8: Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. Capitalizing on students’ natural noticing and shining the light on the underlying mathematics leads to stronger connections and increasing students’ ability to generalize their understanding.

By building a foundation of reasoning and sense-making, and helping students understand that this is a resource for them tap into, that allows for the learning and engagement beyond rote classroom experiences.

Additional referenced content includes:

· NCTM’s Principles to Actions

· NCTM’s Taking Action series for grades K-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12

· Selecting and Creating Mathematical Tasks article from Smith and Stein

· A Teacher’s Guide to Reasoning and Sense-Making from NCTM

Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing roomtogrowmath@gmail.com . Be sure to connect with your hosts on X and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.