ICTM Fall 2024 Conference

Computational fluency is much more than basic facts and algorithms. It is complex and teaching it well is challenging. To find success, we must know and leverage 10 big ideas about. This session unpacks those big ideas arming participants with practical know- how for advancing their students’ fluency. Learning will be complemented with ready-to-use classroom resources.

Fluency is built on a foundation of understanding and skill within a range of concepts. This session unpacks those essentials helping participants recognize how they build toward greater fluency. It is perfect for the elementary teacher or anyone designing interventions for students in later grades. A collection of classroom resources will be provided.

We have seen that far too many students are not experiencing success in math. We can’t just blame the kids. There are steps we can take to address this. Let's begin by examining the impact of structures, practices, and policies we have in place, and how we can create new structures, and implement effective teaching practices to engage students to succeed in math.

Supporting productive struggle involves utilizing rich mathematical tasks that engage students in solving and discussing. Manipulatives can be utilized as a representation to help each and every student with such tasks by providing an entry point. Additional strategies to support productive struggle will be shared.

Mathematics class often descends into a predictable pattern where mathematical objects are presented and then students are asked to identify and describe their properties. In this session, we will explore tasks that do the exact opposite: they give a set of identifying properties and ask
students to build mathematical objects to these specifications. Using examples from a variety of topics across the middle and secondary grades, we will unpack the power of asking students to be mathematical designers and not simply mathematical describers.