Connected Educators Webinar: How Educational Leaders Navigate through “Back to Basics” in Mathematics

How Educational Leaders Navigate through “Back to Basics” in Mathematics

With the Premier’s recent statements about “scrapping discovery math” and going “back to the basics,” how should district and school leaders navigate through this context? In this webinar, educational leaders will be given practical strategies on how to communicate to school councils, parent groups, and board members about the fundamentals of “back to the basics.” This webinar will examine: 

• the importance of dynamic practice in a math program 

• operational fluency that is sustainable 

• automatic recall that promotes active thinking 

Participants will review research that demonstrates how math practice is required to support procedural knowledge and fluency, which reduces cognitive load when engaged in complex problem solving. The question remains, what does effective math practice look like? In this webinar, participants will deconstruct teaching strategies for arithmetic skills and deepen their understanding of effective math practice. 

Subject Matter Expert: Dr. Mary Reid, Assistant Professor in Math Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)

Mary brings years of field experience to her academic role as a former classroom teacher, instructional leader, education officer at the Education Quality Accountability Office (EQAO), vice-principal and principal. She is the proud recipient of OISE’s 2018 Teaching Excellence Award for Excellence in Initial Teacher Education.

Teaching prospective teachers to be excellent math teachers is the centerpiece of Mary's work. Her research publications include studies about the math content knowledge of elementary pre-service teachers, math anxiety in the classroom, the gender gap in STEM, and building efficacy for math teaching. Mary was recently awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant, to conduct research on how math content knowledge impacts pre-service teachers’ math knowledge for teaching.

Her research and findings would be of interest to those seeking to enhance math teacher education through building math capacities of pre-service and in-service teachers.