Note: Module content is available to professional development facilitators, without fees, for use with professional learning communities in accordance with the use agreement.

Processes and practices are foundational to doing mathematics: they are crucial in how mathematical knowledge is leveraged to address problems and provide mechanisms for developing new mathematical knowledge. Mathematical practices are consistently included in standards for student learning (CCSS, NCTM, etc.). There is great potential for integrating such practices across the teaching of various strands of mathematics content and teachers are asked to find ways of meaningfully and consistently doing so. This module focuses on developing the knowledge and skills teachers need to understand and engage their students in using the mathematical practice of reasoning and explanation.

Featured mathematics teacher educator

Deborah Loewenberg Ball is the William H. Payne Collegiate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and the founding director of TeachingWorks.

Audience

Learning objectives

• Mathematics: using mathematical reasoning, explanations, and language
• Student thinking: supporting mathematical practices in the classroom
• Teaching practices: examining ways students make sense of and explain mathematics
• Learning from practice: studying the teaching and learning of mathematical practices through video workshops

Work on these elements is integrated across the ten sessions. Working simultaneously on the four core elements is important because elementary mathematics teaching requires integrated attention to these elements in practice.

The sessions can be used with classroom teachers as 90-minute sessions that provide participants with opportunities to practice, build on, and extend ideas over time.