Do your students struggle with word problems? Do they guess at operations based on key words? Do they think the bigger number in a problem is always “the whole?” Do you find yourself repeatedly asking kids to read the entire problem and to try to make sense of the story?

Join us as we use part-whole models and tape diagrams (bar models) to make sense of all 15 types of addition and subtraction word problems. We will put problem types in a sensible order, and build skills systematically so kids naturally learn to solve more challenging start unknown problems, comparison problems, and two-step problems.

To develop our kids' conceptual understanding, we will explore numberless problems, questionless problems, problems with errors, and rigorous problems that require greater reasoning skills, not more arithmetic. We’ll see how word problems can be a powerful tool for developing mathematical thinking.

The skills of telling time and counting money can be challenging for today’s students who have less exposure to analog clocks and fewer opportunities to pay for items with coins. Gather fun and effective ways for building students’ skills with these measurement concepts, including number routines, discussion starters, and interactive practice tasks that focus on critical number patterns. Discover literature connections that set a context for time and money investigations and discover problem-solving tasks that blend basic money skills with critical addition and subtraction concepts.

Do you have students who struggle with their basic addition facts? Have poor number sense? Have trouble with place value, regrouping, missing addend, or comparison problems?

Join us as we take a “less is more” approach to teaching critical concepts and skills, including proven progressions of concrete, pictorial, and abstract models (C-P-A) that give kids a deeper, more connected understanding of number, operations, and word problems.

We will also address perhaps the biggest challenge we face when doing intervention. How do we help students with their current grade level understanding and skills when it is clear they are 1 or more years behind? Is it possible to teach current skills while at the same time filling in pre-requisite skills and gaps in knowledge? Join us and see why the surprising answer is “yes!”

Although the take-away meaning of subtraction remains important, it is only one of the meanings we want students to relate to subtraction and we need to make sure that we do not overemphasize subtraction as take-away.

Students need to learn how to both model and figure out why, e.g. 30 – 18 also asks how much more 30 is than 18 or how much to add to 18 to get 30. Students need to see that regrouping problems are not always harder: For example, 20 – 19 might actually be easier than 28 – 15 for lots of students.

We will explore interesting problems involving subtraction that K-2 students can handle.

For example:

• Is it possible to subtract a number and end up with the number you subtracted? How does that happen?
• What would you subtract to have only 10 left (or only 1 left)?
• When you subtract a 2-digit number from a 2-digit number, how many digits could your answer have?
• is it possible to subtract a number and end up with EXACTLY 10 less than if you had added the number instead? How does that happen?

Do your students understand fractions as numbers? Can they explain what a numerator and denominator represent, model the same fraction in different ways, or compare fractions using varied strategies that attest to their understanding? Discover ways to build students’ fraction sense through investigations with models and lots of math talk. Discover literature connections, critical questions, and engaging practice tasks that prompt deep thinking about foundational fraction concepts.

Do your students struggle with word problems? Do they guess at operations based on key words? When they read “3 times as many” do they multiply whatever number they see by 3? When they read “1/2 as many” do they automatically divide a number by 2? Do you find yourself repeatedly asking them to read carefully and try to make sense of the story?

Join us as we use tape diagrams (bar models) to visualize and model challenging, multistep addition and subtraction word problems with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals. We will then apply them more generally to solve multiplication and division problems with remainders, and multiplicative comparison problems with both whole numbers and fractions.

Throughout the session, we will solve problems in a strategic order as we build skills systematically and sensibly. You will come away with a better understanding of the many types of multiplication and division word problems, how to model and teach them more effectively, and how to develop the proportional reasoning skills kids need for higher math.

Place value is one of the cornerstones of our mathematical system, and yet, student have such a tough time learning this critical concept. We will start with understanding various other systems of assigning value so we understand why place value, though the most powerful of the systems, is the also the most difficult to learn. You will also participate in an activity that help you feel the difficultly students have in learning place value. Then you will be empowered with tasks to take back to your classroom that will help students make sense of place value.

Do you have students who struggle with their multiplication and division facts? Have poor number sense? Have trouble with rounding and operations with fractions and decimals?

Join us as we take a “less is more” approach to teaching critical concepts and skills. We will explore proven progressions of concrete, pictorial, and abstract models (C-P-A) that give kids a deeper, more connected understanding of number, operations, and word problems.

We will also address perhaps the biggest challenge we face when doing intervention. How do we help students with their current grade level understanding and skills when it is clear they are 1, 2 or 3 or more years behind? Is it possible to teach current skills while at the same time filling in pre-requisite skills and gaps in knowledge? Join us and see why the surprising answer is “yes!”

What are the Important Ideas When Working with Ratio and Percent and How do I Bring Them Out?

The focus of the session will be on helping students interpret what ratios and percents mean so students can effectively make sense of and estimate solutions to problems involving ratio and percent.

For example, we want students to be able to answer:
• 150% of ____ is more than 100% of ____.
• 80% of ____ is a little less than 40% of _____.
• If I only pay 25% of a price that was already reduced by 50%,
  then I am only paying ____% of the original price.

The second hardest word in the new 21st century standards is ‘statistics,’ the hardest being ‘all.’ This means that we need to teach statistics to all students at all secondary grade levels. As the new standards where being developed, the business community begged for more statistics in the curriculum due to the ever-growing existence of big data in the current economy. So let’s be sure we know these standards and how to teach them. We will take a journey from graphic displays, inference and linear regressions.

Explore the progression of skills from measuring items by lining objects end-to-end to using rulers to find linear measurement to applying measurement skills to solve math problems. Discover engaging tasks, literature links, and discussion questions that focus on measurement skills and relate those skills to problem tasks. Explore the connections between measurement standards and students’ explorations with addition and subtraction.

Math Running Records is a way to assess the overall basic fact fluency of the elementary student. It is a 3-step interview assessment that looks at accuracy, flexibility, efficiency and automaticity. The first part of the assessment is a quick overview of where students are with basic facts and how they are thinking about numbers. The second part of the assessment takes a deeper dive into finding out what student strategy levels are and how they are using various strategies to solve facts. The third part of the assessment looks at the mathematical disposition of the student and how that informs their effort in learning their basic facts. Taken together this gives the teacher an overall basic math fact profile to inform instruction. This evidence-based system is being used around the U.S., Japan, Qatar and Mexico. Come learn how to do them!

Math Workstations is an exciting, engaging, instructional strategy. Everybody wants to do it, but how? In this engaging, educational and resource-filled institute, teachers will learn how to do it! They will see how to create standards-based math workstations that rock, workshop management strategies that work, and assessment tools that inform instruction! Dr. Nicki will teach about planning for, creating and assessing productive leveled math workstations! We will discuss matching activities to students, incorporating the 4 must have workstations and using technology throughout the workstations.

Understanding and recalling the basic facts to 20 is critical for our students leaving second grade. This requires careful scaffolding of lessons in grades K, 1, and 2. In this session we will focus on the strategies for teaching these critical concepts from manipulative to mental math.

Rather than too quickly moving to rules, we need students to make sense of what addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions mean.

We will focus on helping students estimate answers before calculating them and how students can use visual tools, particularly grids (even for addition and subtraction), but also fraction strips, to operate with fractions.

We will also explore questions like these:
• You added two fractions and the answer was just a tiny bit more than 1. What might you have added?
• You subtracted two fractions and the denominator was 15. What might you have subtracted?
• You multiplied two fractions and the answer was a LOT less than the second one. What might you have multiplied?

When your students take the state assessments, are there certain topics they struggle with year after year? Do elapsed time problems give them trouble? Do they struggle to put fractions and decimals on a number line? Do they have trouble rounding numbers? Do they confuse line plots with pictographs? Do they have difficulty plotting and interpreting points on the coordinate plane?

In this session, we will explore why number lines are so confusing for kids and how we might teach them better. They are the key to visualizing elapsed time problems, helpful for understanding, identifying, and comparing fractions, decimals and negative numbers, and a key component of both line plots and the coordinate plane.

Of all the content areas, Measurement & Data might be the most overlooked. Ironically, understanding data and statistics is becoming increasingly important in everyday life. Join us and see student understanding go up, engagement go up, and test scores go up.

In this hands-on session we will look closely at the beauty of this real-world domain by constructing geometric designs, measuring angles using paper and manipulatives, and applying the hierarchy of shapes. If possible, please bring a pair of scissors, if not, scissors will be supplied.

Gather ideas for helping students construct fraction number lines, plot data on the number lines, analyze and describe sets of data, and solve problems about the data. Discuss the challenges at each step in the process from construction to problem solving. Discover children’s books and real world data that set a context for exploring line plots, and examine questions that prompt students’ thinking about both the data and the process.

Are there any really, really important math concepts kids might not understand well but if they did, math would be so much more enjoyable and helpful? In this session, we will cover two that immediately come to mind.

The first is the idea that relationships can be multiplicative rather than additive. The second is that while we start by thinking about part-whole relationships when we are young, we need to shift to making comparisons as we get older.

What if many kids never learn to think multiplicatively and never learn to shift from part-whole thinking to comparing? Will they struggle with fractions, ratios, unit rates and slope?

Join us as we solve a carefully constructed progression of problems that encourages kids – and teachers too – to make these two fundamental shifts in their thinking. Developing proportional reasoning skills is the first step. Understanding rate of change is the second!

Some of our time together will focus on the importance of observation and conversation, as opposed to only tests and quizzes, as important pieces in assessment of learning.

Some of our time together will focus on the critical importance of formative assessment with lots of examples of what it could look like.

The rest of our time together will focus on what we assess. I am advocating that it’s about standards for practice and not just content. But even in the realm of content, I think it should be less procedure and more understanding and problem solving. My experience is that we rarely ask understanding type questions and we need to do a lot more of this.

Here are a couple of examples of the difference between procedural and understanding questions:
• What is 35% of 58? Vs.
• WITHOUT GETTING AN ANSWER, how do you know that 35% of 58 should be about 20?
OR
• Solve 100 x + 6 = 87x + 2. Vs.
• WITHOUT SOLVING, how do you know that the solution to the equation 100x + 6 = 87x + 2 has to be negative?