Math Leaders Professional Development
Facilitating a Professional Learning Course with Teachers in a School or District
PLC - Grades 6-8 Ratio and Proportional Relationships
Overview
This professional development explores six math leadership modules that focus on supporting mathematics teachers so that they get the most out of an EMC Professional Learning Course. The sequence of modules will explore the grades 6-8 progression for ratio and proportional relationships and examine the components of a Professional Learning Course, including PLC Videos, Questions and Prompts, Application Pages, and Reflection Questions.
Objectives
Math leaders will explore how to help teachers:
Build an understanding of the representations, strategies, and concepts in a multigrade instructional progression.
Apply what they have learned with a small group or classroom of students.
Reflect on and outline what they have learned in a professional learning notebook.
Coordinate instructional goals across multiple grade levels.
Review, apply, and refine what they have leaned in future school years.
Math Leadership Modules
These modules introduce tools that math leaders can implement to increase the instructional impact of professional learning opportunities. A topic from the grade 6-8 progression for ratio and proportional relationships will be the content foundation for each module.
Module 1 — Explore Stages of a Learning Progression
This module will introduce the intuitive, transitional, and formal stages of the learning progression by exploring representations, strategies, and concepts from grade 6 ratios. This learning progression will be a common theme throughout the modules in this professional development.
Module 2 — Facilitate Math Content Discussions between Teachers at a Grade Level
This module will explore how Questions and Prompts for pause points in professional learning videos challenge teachers to develop an in-depth understanding of the representations, strategies, and concepts explored in the videos. They also prompt teachers to discuss questioning strategies that deepen student understanding. The math content for this module demonstrates how grade 6 progressions for rates and percents mirror the progression for ratios.
Module 3 — Support Teachers’ Use of Application Pages with a Small Group or Class of Students
This module will explore how teachers implement Application Pages with a small group or classroom of students. These easy-to-implement Application Pages ensure that teachers experience how their students solve problems involving representations, strategies, and concepts introduced in each professional learning video. The math content for this module explores how grade 7 students apply grade 6 representation and strategies to solve multistep problems proportional problems.
Module 4 — Structure Teacher Refection to Extend the Impact of PL to Future School Years
This module will explore how math leaders can help teachers reflect on and document their professional learning. The goal is for teachers to collect their reflections in a notebook and to outline key concepts and instructional strategies to be reviewed and applied in future school years. The math content for this module explores how equivalent ratios and rates from grade 6 are identified as a proportional relationship and represented as algebraic equations, tables, and graphs.
Module 5 — Facilitate Multi-Grade Discussions of the Instructional Progression
This module will explore how math leaders can facilitate discussions between grades 6-8 teachers to coordinate the implementation of multigrade instructional progression of representations, strategies, and concepts. The math content for this module explores how two types of ratio multipliers, explored in grades 6 and 7, are applied to understand equivalent ratio relationships in similar figures.
Module 6 — Structure Practical PL Review Opportunities in Future School Years
This module will explore how math leaders can plan and facilitate professional learning review opportunities in future school years, where teachers build on the reflections and progression outlines documented in their PLC Notebooks. The math content for this module explores how equivalent ratio relationships for similar right triangles justify slope calculations for proportional and non-proportional linear relationships.