Developing Student Mathematical Expertise
Today’s content standards for mathematics require teachers to help their students to develop the mathematical expertise, or “habits of mind”, that will allow them to work with challenging tasks across mathematics domains.
One way of developing this mathematical expertise is through the use of cognitively demanding tasks as a central lesson focus. Cognitively demanding tasks require students to think deeply, make sense of problems, productively struggle to create a solution, and then communicate their thinking and understanding in a public way.
The Developing Mathematical Expertise course brings together the expertise of mathematics education leaders to discover and examine the teaching and learning benefits of focusing on a central challenging problem or set of problems within a classroom lesson. Problem-based lessons must be taught in a risk-taking supportive environment which challenges students to apply their mathematical understandings in a variety of situations.
By participating in the course, you will learn how to plan these types of lessons and examine the instructional strategies that need to be implemented for maximum benefits to be gained.