When student thinking is visible, instruction becomes more responsive, discussion becomes richer, and learning goes deeper. Explore five practical moves for surfacing student ideas, strengthening engagement, and supporting meaningful learning. Teachers, coaches, and leaders will gain concrete strategies for making thinking more visible in ways that support understanding, engagement, and responsive instructional decisions.
“Be curious, not judgmental” is often treated like a mindset, but in coaching, it’s a discipline. Most leaders enter conversations with answers already in mind and use questions to guide teachers there. In this session, ELA and Math leaders will examine how judgment shapes coaching and how to interrupt it in real time. Participants will learn how to ask questions that actually open thinking and lead to meaningful instructional change.
Do rational functions make your students irrational? This interactive session will explore strategies to help students move beyond rote memorization of rules and develop a deeper conceptual understanding of the behavior of rational functions by connecting representations. We will share lessons and instructional resources from the newly released Precalculus materials that are designed to promote sense-making so that rational functions are less daunting and more accessible for all learners.
This session will guide educators through the Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) progression and how it supports mathematical thinking over time. Participants will explore how to scaffold learning from concrete experiences to visual models and, ultimately, to abstract mathematical concepts. Through collaborative activities and practical examples, educators will examine how models can deepen understanding, support stronger reasoning, and help students make meaningful connections in mathematics.
Problem-based learning becomes most powerful when strong tasks are paired with clear instructional routines. In this session, educators will explore how demonstrations and modeled routines can help bring problem-based learning to life in K–8 math. Participants will examine key features of problem-based instruction and leave with practical strategies for supporting student thinking, engagement, and meaningful mathematical learning.
Most classrooms are filled with activity. The question is whether children are doing the thinking that leads to real learning. When children are not doing the thinking, they are not doing the learning. This session explores practical strategies that shift instruction from compliance to thinking, amplify learner voice, and create classrooms where children analyze, justify, and communicate their ideas. Participants will leave with strategies they can apply immediately.
Rich discourse in mathematics classrooms is most likely realized through intentional teacher planning, anticipation of future classroom interactions supported by quality instructional frameworks and supports.The 5 Practice Charts in Open Up High School Mathematics are the tool for supporting teachers in planning, anticipation and implementation of discourse that promotes deep understanding. This session will focus on the charts, what they are, how to use them to best support student learning.
Students bring a wide range of experiences, assets, and strengths to math classrooms. In this session, participants will explore how embedded assessments and instructional supports can be used to design responsive instruction at the lesson level. Educators will examine how small, intentional adjustments to tasks, representations, and structures can support diverse learners while maintaining shared learning goals. Participants will leave with practical strategies for planning differentiated math lessons that create multiple pathways for students to engage, make sense of ideas, and contribute to the classroom community.
Mathematical discourse is about more than talking. It is about creating opportunities for students to reason, make sense of problems, and feel that they belong in the work of mathematics. In this session, participants will explore how Math Language Routines (MLRs) support meaningful discourse and interaction while strengthening mathematical understanding. Whether you are new to MLRs or already using them, you will leave with practical strategies for implementing these routines across grades and in a variety of instructional contexts.
Can students really prove properties of angles, lines, and figures by using flips, slides, and turns? What am I, and my students, missing if we are not engaging with geometric proofs using transformations? This session will use student video to explore how geometric proofs by transformation are mathematically rigorous and accessible to students.
In this presentation, educators will have the opportunity to: *Dive into an Open Up High School Math lesson that is facilitated with the "Building Thinking Classrooms" approach. *See and live instructional and real time strategies that elicit student identity and creativity to bring about conceptual mastery for the features of functions. *Learn about Math Language Routines that foster academic language development.
All children, including multilinguals, have mathematical strengths that we want to uncover, but traditional assessment does not always fully capture these understandings. Let’s reimagine assessment! Together, we’ll learn how formative and summative assessments can be used creatively and multimodally with linguistically diverse students to provide us with better data and next steps. We’ll also discuss specific ways to involve & leverage families in the assessment and intervention process.
Synthesis is a powerful instructional practice that helps students make sense of mathematics together. In this session, participants will explore what strong synthesis looks like in lessons, analyze student work to select and connect strategies, and examine how synthesis builds collective understanding and classroom community. Educators will leave with concrete tools for planning and facilitating synthesis in ways that deepen understanding, strengthen belonging, and position every student as a valued mathematical thinker.
North Carolina educators will share practical ways to move from the NC Math Standards to assessment with greater clarity and purpose. Participants will explore simple strategies for strengthening alignment and clarifying what students should know and be able to do. Expect concrete ideas, useful examples, and actionable takeaways you can use right away.
