This module is designed for facilitators to engage teachers in professional learning about fractions. It includes opportunities to learn more about fraction representation, definition, equivalence, and comparison; unpacking students’ ideas and approaches for representing and comparing fractions; exploring practices for representing fractions in classroom teaching; and developing ways to learn from images of their own public spaces like whiteboards and blackboards. More...

This module is designed for facilitators to engage teachers in professional learning about the mathematical practices of reasoning and explanation. It includes opportunities to learn more about making, justifying and evaluating mathematical conjectures; unpacking students’ ways of reasoning and explaining; exploring teaching practices for uncovering and enhancing students’ reasoning; and developing ways to learn from video recordings of their own teaching. More...

This module is designed for facilitators to engage teachers in professional learning about geometric measurement and spatial reasoning. It includes opportunities to enhance knowledge of concepts, methods, and tools used in linear, 2D, and 3D measurement; understand trajectories of children’s reasoning about measurement; use teaching practices that support the use of learning trajectories in assessment and curriculum analysis; and develop ways of using anecdotal notes to study the learning trajectories of one’s own students. More...

About the materials

Developing Teaching Expertise (DTE) @ Mathematics is a materials development project at the University of Michigan School of Education. The multidisciplinary team builds practice-focused professional development modules for elementary mathematics teachers using multimedia materials. The project's goal is to create opportunities for professional development groups and professional learning communities to learn from leading mathematics teacher educators about key topics in elementary mathematics education. Additional information about the NSF-funded project and materials can be found on the University of Michigan project website: http://sites.soe.umich.edu/devteam/

About the project

Although there is considerable demand for skilled professional development facilitation—few opportunities exist for facilitators to develop the knowledge and skills needed for this work. Developing Teaching Expertise (DTE) aims to address this need by creating professional development materials that increase access to expert teacher educators, while also increasing the capacity of individual facilitators.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1118745. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.