*Food and beverages will be available at 4:30pm*
The Western Region of the New York State Master Teacher Program is excited to offer our sequence of courses in the mathematical landscapes of learning series that focuses on the big ideas, strategies, and models related to the development of geometric thinking and spatial reasoning across the elementary and middle school grades. The content will be situated within a landscape of learning framework that is based on the premise that student’s mathematical thinking develops in a multitude of ways beginning with contexts or concrete tasks followed by pictorial representations and culminating in abstract perspectives.
In this minicourse we will explore fundamental ideas related to the classification of 2-D and 3-D shapes, spatial orientation, and geometric reasoning. The landscape of learning related to the classification of shapes progresses from children’s early visual-based categorizations to an increased focus on attributes and properties within categories of shapes and culminates in an understanding of the hierarchical relationships among different classes of shapes. Within this progression are important ideas related to the role of definition, and the nature and need for proof. A second area of focus will be on the landscape that maps the development of spatial reasoning and positional awareness. Content involving shape composition and decomposition, development of angle as a rotation, the relative position of shapes (transformations) and the specification of location using coordinate grids. Our discussions will focus on sharing classroom practices that foster students’ growth across the landscape and take advantage of the range of grade level perspectives that will be represented. Concrete tools for thinking including tiles, blocks, sketches and drawings, shape sets, and geoboards, as well as apps and computer graphics, will be an integrated into course activities. Discussion of NYS Next Generation Learning Standards across the grade levels will provide opportunities for participants to share their grade level expertise and to enhance their understanding of the coherent development of topics along the K – 8 spectrum. Dry-erase boards (24x32) will be used for small group work presentations during the minicourse and will be available for participants to take home. Each participant will be eligible to receive a CTLE certificate for 12 hours of professional development.
