Three workshops on Learning Progressions in Mathematics, which participants can choose to attend individually or as a package (at a discounted rate), are being offered by VaSCL this fall. These workshops will focus on how to build pathways for mathematical understanding for ALL students. All children follow natural developmental progressions in learning. Curriculum research has revealed sequences of activities that are effective in guiding learners through these levels of thinking. These developmental paths are the basis for math learning trajectories. The three workshops will address the following questions: How do students learn a topic?; What do equitable teaching practices look like?; How can we teach with visual tools within a learning progression?; What does math modeling look like at my grade level?; and, How can we systematically use evidence from formative assessment to monitor progress and guide instruction? The goal of these workshops is to help educators teach the way in which students learn, which will ensure that their programs offer equitable mathematics instructional practices. Participants will explore various hands-on activities for how to teach using visual tools, as well as learn how to develop a targeted learning sequence that differentiates learning for all students. Participants will also consider how to improve their use of formative assessment so that they can systematically employ evidence from student work to monitor progress toward mastery of the building blocks in a progression. There will be Break-Out Sessions during each workshop based on grade level. All three Math Progressions sessions are designed to guide the instruction of individual teachers or teams of teachers, as well as for coaches or instructional leaders to use when coaching teachers. Participants at each workshop will create a vertical action plan to bring back to their own classroom, school, or division. All participants in these three workshops will also receive all digital activities and videos aligned to the Virginia SOL, Grades 3-8, to use in their classrooms and schools this year.

During MLP Workshop I, presenters will engage teachers and coaches in mapping the learning progressions in number systems and operations using an instructional routine called the Math VAULT, which helps unpack the learning trajectories using rich mathematical tasks. We will use mathematical modeling tasks that encourage strategic thinking and flexibility in the computational methods, while reinforcing number sense. The goal of MLP Workshop I will be to map the curricular progression with the instructional sequence and conceptual strategies to better assess and understand the levels of sophistication in students’ thinking around number systems and operations to develop number sense and to build fluency.