Institutes Stress

Math Reasoning

For a team from Delta Elementary School in Delta Junction, Alaska, it's too good a deal to pass up: a three-day, all-expenses-paid mathematics institute this summer sponsored by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Kindergarten teacher Janet Reiter is looking forward to "being inspired, learning new techniques, and seeing what other teachers use." She also hopes to get credits toward renewing her teacher certificate.

Reiter isn't alone. Altogether, 200 educators will attend institutes in five states, conducted by the Laboratory's Northwest Eisenhower Regional Consortium (NWERC). The sessions—targeting kindergarten through second-grade teachers, principals, and paraprofessionals—will focus on how children develop number sense and algebraic reasoning and what instructional strategies support that development. "We've worked a lot with fifth and sixth grades, and it's become more apparent that the earlier you start the thinking process in math, the better it is," says Claire Gates, who is taking the lead role in organizing the sessions. "Reforming how math is taught needs to start at the very beginning because that's when children form their initial ideas about the subject."

What's new in teaching math is an emphasis on how to solve a problem rather than just coming up with the correct answer. Teachers are encouraged to present a problem, allow students to figure it out on their own, and then ask them to describe how they arrived at the answer. By sharing different approaches, children are exposed to different ways of thinking about math. The teacher can then guide them in finding which strategies are more efficient or easier than others.

The summer institutes will be followed by a two-day session during the school year. While all the spots in the institutes have been spoken for, information about related programs and resources can be found at www.nwrel.org/msec/nwerc/index.html, the consortium's Web site.

For Reiter, attending the institute as part of Delta's six-member delegation will mean picking up fresh ways to look at math. "I can bring back valuable information for preschool through kindergarten students while others (on my team) may see possibilities for older primary grades," she says.