The Nueva School's Innovative Learning Conference

Come see how a thread of mathematical thinking is developed with students by connecting visual models, numerical expressions, and justification with intriguing problems. Over a three-day mini-unit designed for students to derive the formula for finding the area of quadrilaterals through solving a series of problems and comparing their solutions with several different approaches by their peers, master teacher Dr. Takahashi will lead a middle school class into a deep dive into important mathematical ideas. Each of the lessons is designed for the students to experience communicating their own reasoning to others by expressing their own ways of solving the problems in mathematical expressions. At the same time, students will have opportunities to infer their peers’ ways of thinking by interpreting their mathematical expressions. Throughout, students will be expected to justify the reasonableness of their own and others’ strategies and mathematical expressions. These experiences are expected to foster their skill for developing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others (CCSS-M MP3), while the process of writing and interpreting mathematical expressions helps students develop the ability to reason quantitatively and abstractly.