Dr Deborah Schifter

Fundamental to students understanding mathematics is the expectation that they should make sense of problems and persist in solving them. Using video footage from elementary classrooms, we will examine students’ reasoning, discuss the connections they make, and consider how they engage with mathematical content. We will then discuss the classroom culture that supports such engagement and analyze teacher moves that contribute to that culture.

Dr Seto Cynthia and Miss Theresa Heng, Academy of School Teachers, Singapore

Making connections within mathematics involves building new concepts from students' prior knowledge, recognizing connections among mathematical ideas, and how mathematical ideas interconnect to produce a coherent whole. The types of questions that teachers ask will influence the ways that students learn mathematics. Asking questions is fundamental for students to acquire mathematics knowledge and apply what they have learnt to new contexts. In line with the call for teaching towards big ideas in mathematics in the new syllabus, this workshop will discuss the use of questions to teach towards the big ideas about Equivalence and Proportionality in the topics on Fractions, Ratio and Percentage. There will be a hands-on session for participants to frame questions to engage students with the content, connect learning, and encourage participation in their mathematics lessons.

Prof Choy Ban Heng

A common way to think about enhancing learning experiences is to design a so-called rich task for students. However, such tasks are challenging to source, to design, modify, and implement. What else can teachers use to enhance the learning experiences of students? One possible way is to use typical problems, which are standard examination questions or textbook-type problems, frequently used in classrooms for developing procedural skills. Despite their omnipresence, the affordances of typical problems to develop conceptual understanding are largely untapped. By considering the mathematical potential of typical problems, teachers can begin to think about new ways of using such problems to provide more opportunities for students to engage with mathematically-rich learning experiences on a day-to-day basis. In this workshop, we will explore the potential of using such typical problems, examine some principles of task design, and apply these principles to select, modify, and use typical problems to develop conceptual understanding, besides procedural fluency.

Dr Yeo Kai Kow Joseph

Storytelling is retelling a tale to one or more listeners through voice and gestures (Utley, 2012). Storytelling is a powerful communication and instructional tool which can be used to: emotionally connect with your students instantly; reduce resistance to learn; and structure stories to effectively deliver mathematical concepts. By connecting a mathematical concept to primary students through storytelling, it is possible to foster joy in learning mathematics and to help them understand the power of the mathematical ideas being explored. Numerous studies had shown that using storytelling strategy in teaching mathematics increased students’ ability to solve non-routine problems. This workshop will share two approaches to tell good mathematics stories. The workshop will also discuss the effectiveness of storytelling as a medium for teaching mathematics.

Emeritus Associate Professor Barry Kissane

Mathematics is often interpreted as a ‘useful’ activity, with limited attention paid to its potential to be significant for other reasons. While utility is of course important, it is of diminished significance if students are not engaged with, interested in or attracted to mathematics. Many mathematicians and others over time have drawn attention to the beauty of mathematics and its deep aesthetic qualities, and mathematics is connected richly to our collective cultural heritage. One of the three aims of the Singapore Primary Mathematics Syllabus is to “enable all students to build confidence and foster interest in mathematics”, yet it is hard to see how this aim is addressed explicitly in the official documents. In this workshop, we will first consider a range of ways in which mathematics is connected to a wider world beyond its practical applications. We will explore a range of branches of mathematics and their connections with aesthetic features, cultural features, historical features and other ways in which the immense appeal of the discipline might be made available to students. Attention will then turn to experiences that might be used to help students appreciate some of these connections and to develop a lasting interest in mathematics.

Prof Padmanabhan Seshaiyer (USA)

In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to learn how to engage students in primary grades using mathematical modeling. In particular, the session will provide resources and opportunities for participants to not only engage students through mathematical tools to represent, understand, and solve real world problems but also engage them in using mathematical tools to make a decision, prediction, or solution about a real-world problem. Participants will learn about the cyclic nature of mathematical modeling, its reliance on open-ended problem posing, and a focus on problems without a single correct answer that helps to provide a rich learning environment for students in the primary grades. Examples of sample projects and references that have been very effective across the globe will be shared.

Dr Eric Chan

One critical role of the teacher is to help children make sense of the mathematics they are learning. Sense making comes about through developing an understanding of a situation, context or concept by making links with one’s current/prior knowledge. With reasoning and sense-making, children can go deeper in the learning of mathematics. This workshop aims to engage teachers with activities that elicit reasoning and sense-making towards making connections of mathematical ideas.

Mr Matt Skoss

We all carry a range of classroom images in our heads, reminding ourselves of a wide range of lessons. Just what is it that makes a mathematics lesson ‘hum?’ You know...those lessons when kids are challenged, excited, happy, on-task, …, and, behaving like mathematicians. No lesson happens by accident. How do we capture the subtle complexities and critical decisions that teachers make, minute-by-minute, in creating a rich and balanced mathematics lesson? How do we capture and codify this wisdom, and share it with the wider teaching community? Using a selection of rich and engaging mathematical tasks tailored for a primary setting, we will scrutinise lessons through a range of lenses, and attempt to identify these critical moments.