[ONLINE] - Promoting High-Quality Math and Science Learning in Kindergarten

“Math classrooms should be spaces where children are encouraged to explore, and teachers are masterful at putting the right questions and tasks in front of them to help them to develop a deep understanding of the math they're learning.”

Jessica Tilli of The School District of Philadelphia offered this insight during this week’s GLR Learning Tuesdays session, Promoting High-Quality Math and Science Learning in Kindergarten. She shared her dream that “every classroom would be doing that work and helping children to really find their love of math, so that they can continue forward.” Yet math anxiety is unfortunately “all too common a story for early childhood educators,” and one that Lauren Solarski, Ph.D., of Loyola University Chicago, herself experienced.

Douglas Clements, Ph.D., of the University of Denver provided a research review and pointed toward math as a predictor of later achievement, critical thinking skills, executive functioning and language abilities. Yet without attention to high-quality math and science, more and earlier, students will not believe that they have the power to succeed when it comes to math and science. Solarski said this must be a space where we are working to “eliminate deficit views of children.” And we must “change adult behaviors, practices, as well as the systems that may impede the inclusion of children,” said Chih-Ing Lim, Ph.D., of STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The panelists made a case for:

• Increasing the training and development and changing the practice of educators who teach math and science in the early years.
• Using curricula that are grounded in children’s thinking and learning.
• Investing more quality time during the school day in math and science.

For Cindy Hoisington of the Education Development Center, this means rebalancing and de-siloing what occurs in our classrooms. Hoisington said, “curriculum alone isn't enough. Teachers really need to experience these things for themselves. Experience science, being immersed in science inquiry, experience all the joy of it, and that respect for their own thinking and learning abilities, and kind of replace some of those really negative past experiences they have with science with positive ones.”

This was the fifth webinar in the series Promoting Impactful Teaching and Learning in Kindergarten that the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and New America’s Early & Elementary Education Policy Program have developed to promote impactful teaching and learning in kindergarten.

Watch the full session here.

Panelists:

• Doug Clements, Ph.D., Endowed Chair and Distinguished University Professor University of Denver in Early Math Education and Co-Executive Director, Marsico Institute
• Cindy Hoisington, Project Director, Education Development Center
• Chih-Ing Lim, Ph.D., Co-Director, STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education, Senior Technical Assistance Specialist Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Lauren Solarski, Ph.D., School of Education Part-Time Faculty, Loyola University Chicago
• Jessica Tilli, Ed.D., Math Curriculum Specialist, The School District of Philadelphia
  
  Moderator: Laura Bornfreund, Senior Fellow and Advisor, Early & Elementary Education, New America
  

• 4 Key Findings for Early Childhood Coaching Strategies with Teachers
• A counting intervention promotes fair sharing in preschoolers
• Beyond Answers: Exploring Mathematical Practices with Young Children
• Big Ideas of Early Mathematics: What Teachers of Young Children Need to Know
• Clarifying Coaching: A Mixed Methods Analysis of a Math Content-Focused Model and Its Impact on Teachers' Practice, Content Knowledge, and Dispositions
• Early Math Collaborative
• Effects on Mathematics and Executive Function of a Mathematics and Plan Intervention Versus Mathematics Alone
• Engaging young children in mathematics: Standards for early childhood mathematics education
• Finding Joy in Kindergarten Mathematics
• Foundations for Success: The National Mathematics Advisory Panel
• Intentional Teaching Moments: Supporting Executive Function Development and Early Mathematics Through a Geometry Activity
• Learning and Teaching Early Math: The Learning Trajectories Approach
• Learning executive function and early mathematics: Directions of casual relations
• Mathematics Content Coverage and Student Learning in Kindergarten
• Mathematics in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity
• Precursor Concepts
• Precursor Math Concepts
• Reframing Early Math Learning
• Teaching Students What They Already Know? The (Mis)Alignment Between Mathematics Instructional Content and Student Knowledge in Kindergarten
• The impact of a lack of mathematical education on brain development and future attainment
• Challenging but Achievable Math for Young Children
• TRIAD

• Addressing Common Questions about 21st Century Science Teaching
• A Scientific Age: Now more than ever, we need to prioritize science literacy beginning in students’ earliest years of school
• Embedding STEAM in early childhood education and care
• Guide Addressing STEM Myths
• How to Evaluate Online Science Resources for Early Learners
• Implicit Bias in the STEM Classroom; How to start tackling the biases that hold students back in STEM
• Science and engineering in preschool through elementary grades: The brilliance of children and the strengths of educators
• Science Professional Development for the 21st Century
• STEM Starts Early

• Playful Learning
• Preparing Young Children for School
• School Readiness and Early Achievement
• Why Go To School

• Foundations of Science Literacy
• Learning and teaching early math: The learning trajectories approach (3rd ed.)
• Learning Trajectories
• STEMIIEE
• Young Mathematicians Games

This conversation and the ongoing webinar series draw on New America’s Transforming Kindergarten efforts.
Learn more about that work here.