IGC 655: Developing Mathematical Mindsets for Grades K-8

Instructor: Christine Judge

Format: This is an online course with 2 zoom sessions. The zoom sessions will be held on Thursday, November 12th from 4:00 - 7:00 PM and Thursday, December 17th from 4:00 - 7:00 PM. All other coursework is completed asynchronously.

Course Description: All students can be successful in math and math learning can happen for all students with a proper mathematical mindset, rich mathematical tasks, and creative assessments. In her book Mathematical Mindsets, author and Stanford Professor Jo Boaler “distills her years of experience and her powerful wisdom to show teachers exactly how to present math work, structure math problems, guide students though them, and give feedback in a way that helps students toward a ‘growth mindset’ and keeps them there.” This course is designed to immerse students in the ideas of Carol Dweck and the teachings of Jo Boaler with additional readings and videos to give math educators specific ways to educate their students on how the brain learns and the power of mistakes and struggling, create mathematical mindsets, develop rich mathematical tasks, investigate growth mindset grouping within the classroom, and implement diverse assessments to discover your students’ growth. Effective curriculum development and implementation is a dynamic and continuous process through which teachers can plan, implement and evaluate the instructional program in a systematic and logical way. Particular attention is given to designing and organizing curriculum and selecting teaching strategies which effectively create a learning environment that meets the diverse social/emotional needs of students. Candidates cover the major components of the curriculum development process, including developing philosophy and objectives, needs assessment, instructional planning and implementation, assessment and evaluation and curriculum refinement. Emphasis is given to the curriculum areas of Cognitive Development, Receptive and Expressive Language Development, Social Skills and Behavior Development, and instruction of students with disabilities. Candidates will demonstrate curriculum competencies through the development of various curriculum projects which include understanding a variety of teaching strategies, resources, applications and assessments .This class is aligned to the Massachusetts State Frameworks.

Anticipated Textbook Fees: This course requires a textbook, which can be ordered here and typically costs $20. This fee is not included in the course price. Please purchase the textbook prior to the course start date.

Developing Mathematical Mindsets - IGC 655