1. Hosting A Family Math Night ‘Inspiring Your Child to Learn and Love Math’
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Clarke Road Secondary School

4. Our Time Together … We will explore:
How mathematics has and has not changed
Proficiency in mathematics
The role of sense-making and rule-following
Important ways you can help
Connect to skills of a 21st Century learner
Look at the Parent Tool Kit

5. Link to Parent Resource Kit -PDF

6. Parent Partnerships are Important
“When parents are engaged and involved, everyone benefits, and our schools become increasingly rich and positive places to teach, learn and grow.”
(Supporting the Ontario Leadership Strategy, 2012, p. 1)

7. “Schools have an important role in helping parents learn the language of schooling so that the parents can provide every possible assistance to their children in terms of developing the child’s learning and love of learning and in creating the highest possible shared expectations for learning.”
(Hattie, 2009, p. 33)

8. Inspiring Your Child to Love and Learn Math

9. What has not changed in math
Numeration remains a focus
Right answers are still important
Practice still matters

10. Math in the 21st Century
“When students understand mathematics, they are equipped with knowledge they can bring to every aspect of their lives. Math is an essential skill in today’s society” (CODE, Inspiring Your Child to Learn and Love Math, 2016).

11. 5 Attributes = Success in Mathematics
Procedural Fluency
Skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately
Conceptual Understanding
Comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations
Strategic Competence
Ability to formulate, represent, and solve mathematical problems
Productive Disposition
Habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy
Adaptive Reasoning
Capacity for logical thought, reflection, explanation, and justification
Chris
The NCR inquired as to what it is to be proficient in mathematics …it is much more than knowing our facts, which is important but not nearly enough
The National Council of Research has identified 5 attributes associated w/ success in math.
Conceptual understanding involves modelling and making connections to big ideas
Procedural fluency involves computing and performing math skills like using a protractor with comfort
Strategic competence involves students comfort processing a problem and attacking it
Adaptive reasoning involves students facing challenging work to build persistence and increase flexibility
Adaptive reasoning “refers to the capacity to think logically about the relationships among concepts and situations.” (p.129) (Adding it Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics, 2001)
Productive disposition involves promoting the student as a mathematician and the work as useful (attitude)

12. What has changed in math
Increased use of math tools and virtual models
Decreased emphasis on speed (unimportant and damaging)
Increased emphasis on processes (thinking, communicating, representing, problem solving)

13. What has changed in math
Increasing recognition of different ways of thinking
Increasing emphasis on understanding rather than on procedures or rote memory
More focus on DOING than WATCHING
Recognition that flexibility is important

14. Example of Thinking & Applying
See where Ontario children struggle …

15. Our collective disposition
Ontario children in significant numbers indicate that
a) they do not like mathematics; and
B) they do not believe they are good at it
We must continue to celebrate different ways to solve problems and make math meaningful in ‘everyday life’ for kids.
Linda Colgan, Professor of Math Education at Queen’s suggests that before we see an upswing in mathematics achievement in Ontario, we will need to witness an upswing in these dispositions toward seeing the subject as useful and feeling stronger self-efficacy in the subject

16. What can we do?
Value the study and use of mathematics at school and in the world
Support your child’s sense-making and invented strategies
Praise effort and risk-taking rather than performance …intelligence is cultivated
Boaler (2009); Schoenfeld (2002), Ross (2012) have added to the mound of evidence around the efficacy of having students do more math and watch less …no major study shows student achievement is greater in a traditional mathematics classroom than a student-centred one in which students are exploring regularly and consolidating learning.

17. What can we do?
Support your child’s teacher in his/her efforts to use math tools, value different ways of thinking, and the DOING of math
Wonder aloud (“What would our answer look like if the rectangle was twice as wide?”)
Look for connections (“how is this like …?)

18. What Can We Do?

19. Skills Our Children Need
Perseverance, Collaboration, Communication, Innovation …why do they matter?
shares 2 slides on Tony Wagner’s Play, Passion, Purpose message

20. Parent Tool Kit CODE (Council of Ontario Directors of Education)
have created this excellent resource and each
school in Thames Valley has received 6 kits.

21. What is in the kit? Link to Scavenger Hunt
Link to Scavenger Hunt Answers

22. Scavenger Hunt
Working in groups, please use the kits to answer the Scavenger Hunt questions. Answers will be provided at the end.

23. Running a Math Night
The workshops require no prior knowledge of mathematics or specialized content-they can be implemented by anyone who has an interest in learning and sharing.
School administrators and school teachers can assist with the specialized content.
And be sure to have snacks!

24. “The mathematics that people need is not the sort of math learned in most classrooms. People do not need to regurgitate hundreds of standard methods. They need to reason and problem solve, flexibly applying methods in new situations” (Jo Boaler, What’s Math Got to Do With It?, p. 7).

25. A Great Resource!

26. You Are Important!
You play a highly valuable role in supporting your children’s learning. Thank you so much for coming out today to connect with other parents and learn about ways in which you can work with your parent community to support the learning in your schools.

27. Thank You!
Above all, communicate positive messages about mathematics and enjoy Inspiring Your Child to Learn and Love Math!