As a mathematics leader, do you resonate with these?

  • Over 12+ months, your mathematics teachers adopted a framework allowing them to teach in ways that foster active, rather than passive learning.

  • Your students were confident in their university applications - partly due to their involvement in numerous rich, whole-class mathematical discussions.

  • Students eagerly collaborate, explore the concepts underpinning related procedures, and share their understanding. They demonstrate a high level of agency.

As a mathematics teacher, what if … ?

  • Your passion, enjoyment and sense of empowerment in the classroom have improved through learning to become a skilled facilitator of learning.

  • You now teach in ways that result in students with a high degree of agency. This allows you to deliver your best teaching more often in more lessons.

  • Your career options have been enhanced: the long-form PD empowered you to foster conceptual understanding, communication skills and agency in students.

What if students said this about your teaching ...

Feedback to teacher aligned with this PD


I found my passion for maths return as I actually begin to understand the content in class. I enjoy all of the maths lessons because it is has the perfect balance of group work, independent learning, and teacher guidance. There were never times when I felt bored, as I was continuously challenged and pushed to my potential. Nicole, Year 10



More Student Feedback

Feedback from students of teachers aligned with this PD

“I feel really happy in math class. It feels like this small but very tight-knit community; no one hesitates to help each other, and learning together - discussing and debating over questions, reviewing and going over complicated concepts - makes the lesson really fun and enjoyable:)”

Felicity, Year 10

“Math is indeed a subject that makes me a thinker and a risk-taker. The process of thinking in math is indeed an enjoyment for me and solving a single question for more than an hour and finally solving it is often the highlight of my day.”

Grace, Year 12

“Especially this year, I think there has been quite major shift in the way that we learn Maths, becoming more self-directed and less “formulaic” in comparison to previous years. For example, the answers for the mini-investigations that we do for each topic are often not straight forward, which would be challenging but also rewarding. I feel that another challenging part about this year was the projects, which required a lot of self-directed work. ”

Continued next page ...

“(continued ...) I remember distinctly the conversation we had about the volumes that I was getting for my mountain estimation and how I was worrying about them not matching to the value I found online. What you said about it all being about “the journey, not the destination” made me realise that I was thinking about this from the wrong perspective all along. I started to recognise the importance of the process over the final result, and that was a really valuable realisation for me.”

Cheryl, Year 12

“Presentations and assigned questions for prep/homework encouraged me to communicate my mathematical process with others, and often doing so helped me realize some flaws I had in my strategy that I could simplify.”

Jeremy, Year 12

Course curriculum

    1. 200 True Change Is All About Awareness!

    2. 205 Students Need To Own Their Learning

      FREE PREVIEW
    3. 210 What is Student Agency?

      FREE PREVIEW
    4. 220 Thought Provoker One: Implementing Strategies

    5. 230 Three Typical Classroom Scenarios in International schools

      FREE PREVIEW
    6. 240 Thought Provoker Two: About Poor Student Behaviour

    7. 250 The Teacher Factor - International Schools

    8. 270 Let's Talk About Control!

    9. 275 *Your Control Comment*

    10. 280 Your *Fostering Student Agency Takeaway*

    1. 300 Student Engagement or Student Agency?

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. 305 Thought Provoker Three: Student Agency

    3. 310 The High-Agency Maths Classroom

      FREE PREVIEW
    4. 315 Are You Reading Replies To Your Comments?

    5. 320 *Your Comment: What Constitutes A High-Agency Classroom?*

    6. 330 What Is Your Default Approach ... And Are You Defending It?

    1. 400 The Art of Learning

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. 410 Anyone for Skateboarding?

    3. 430 Thought Provoker Four: Independent, Student-centred, Self-directed learning

    4. 440 Student Centricity Breeds Student Agency!

    5. 440b *Your Student-centric Comment*

    6. 450 What To Do When Students Resist?

    7. 460 *Deal With Students' Objections Before They Arise* (Article)

      FREE PREVIEW
    8. 470 - Sometimes, we need to be the sage to the stage

    9. 475 *Your 'Sage On The Stage' Comment*

    10. 480 Your Implementation Plans

      FREE PREVIEW
    11. 485 *Your Additional Comment?*

    12. 490 Some Past Implementations Reports

      FREE PREVIEW
    13. 495 A couple of reminders

    1. 500 TEAM Announcement

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. 505 The Perils of Rote Learning

    3. 510 Procedures-first Teaching or Understanding-first Teaching?

    4. 515 *Why We Need An Understanding-first, Procedures-second Mindset When Teaching Mathematics* (Article)

      FREE PREVIEW
    5. 520 You Need To Know The Difference Between Trick Teaching and Teaching Shortcuts

    6. 525 *Your Trick-Teaching Comment*

    7. 530 The Perils of Compartmentalisation

    8. 535 Compartmentalisation with integrals

    9. 540 Are We Forcing Students To Play The Memory Game?

    10. 545 *Your Memory Game - Rote Learning - U-1, P-2 Comment*

    11. 550 Let The Strategies Unfold ...

      FREE PREVIEW
    1. 600 Unpacking the Understanding-first, Procedures-second Framework

    2. 605 Some Abbreviations

    3. 610 U-1, P-2 in action (Right Angled Trigonometry Example)

    4. 620 What makes the previous example a U-1, P-2 approach?

    5. 621 *Your Understanding-first Right-angled Trig Comment*

    6. 625 Trigonometry Extended (by Anja)

    7. 626 *Your Trig-extended Takeaway*

    8. 630 Four Common Misconceptions

    9. 640 But What About Explicit Instruction?

      FREE PREVIEW
    10. 645 Explicit Instruction, AHA Moments and Student-Centred Learning.

    11. 646 *Your Explicit Instruction comment*

    12. 650 A couple of reminders

About this course

  • 144 lessons

Testimonials

(This is a new Program, hence the small number of testimonials)

“I was very pleased with the PD and with Richard and Anja’s timely responses to my comments. For me, one who envisioned myself as already being mindful of the philosophy of conceptual understanding and to some degree student agency; this PD has given me a more practical grasp of how to make it realized in the classroom experience. Given that I began teaching more traditionally and have been transitioning over many years, slowly modifying my approach (with a couple of more major paradigm shifts), this was a timely PD for what I have been looking for with respect to where I am at in my own journey as a teacher. I will recommend this PD to our math teachers who did not join this time. ”

Jared Skeens, Department Head, Sekolah Mutiara Harapan.

“This is a wonderfully practical course. It has so many ideas to foster children's agency to learn maths. All the strategies here are approachable, and I can tailor them to meet my group's need. It’s really nice to be a part of a Team that encourages questions, discussion and feedback on lessons coming from all the teachers who are trying something new, which makes the training feel like a collaborative learning space. ”

Mira Gao, Wellington College International, Shanghai

Some pedagogy aspects to consider

Teachers want agency!

What do we want as mathematics teachers? We want to have an impact on our students. We want to do our best teaching more often in more lessons across more classes. In other words, we need to have agency.

Here’s the thing about teacher agency … When all our students have agency, they open the door for us to do our best teaching. The more agency our students have, the more agency we have. 

This PD is about learning to present mathematics in ways that foster agency in students … so that we gain agency … so that we can do our best teaching more often in more lessons across more classes.


Let's stop demanding students learn formulas by rote

Too often, we present mathematics in ways that have students working with formulas without understanding the related concepts. The only way to learn mathematical formulas when the related concepts are not understood is by rote. However, recalling mathematical formulas by rote is an impossible task.

(BTW, Mathematics educators do not recall mathematical formulas by rote because we use our understanding of related concepts to help us remember formulas!)  

This PD is about learning to present mathematics to students in ways that have students understand the concepts upon which the formulas are based.


Implementing strategies with your students

One of the program's key features is implementing strategies from the PD with your students. However, we don’t want anyone implementing strategies that do not make sense. Our role is to shift your awareness so that the strategies make sense. Once that happens, you will want to implement them.  

A video for every mathematics leader (2 min)


FAQs

  • Should we enrol more than one teacher in this online course?

    If you are looking for department-wide improvement regarding student agency then the ideal way to achieve this is to enrol all or most of your teachers into this course as a Team. However, this course is also ideal for individual teachers wanting to see significant changes occur in their classroom teaching. https://www.learnimplementshare.com/teaching-and-learning-teams.html

  • When does the course start? Am I able to commence whenever I want?

    Yes, you are able to start now or at a later time. Simply let us know on the form.

  • What happens if I don't complete the course within the allocated time?

    As long as you make regular progress - or keep us posted when something unforeseen is preventing you from making progress - you will be given every opportunity to complete the course.

  • Will I have to be logged in at specific times?

    No. The course is self-paced and accessible 24/7. There is no requirement to be logged in at any specific time.

Instructors

Richard Andrew

Hi! I’m Richard. I’ve been delivering PD to teachers since 2007 - after twenty-plus years in the classroom, six as a Department Head. My main PD thrust is to support teachers to improve their ability to foster agency and understanding in students. This is because we only shine as mathematics teachers when our students demonstrate agency ... when students assume ownership through experiencing a sense of control over their learning. I've always been fascinated by the craft of teaching maths. I have a knack for presenting complex pedagogical ideas in easy-to-follow ways, and in the absence of edu-babble. 

Anja Mori

Hi, I’m Anja, from Slovenia. I’ve been teaching in international programs - AP, A-level and IB - in multiple schools in China. I have a strong curriculum knowledge within these programs. As an educator, I focus on imparting an understanding of the underlying mathematical concepts to students, and I utilise multiple approaches to achieve this. Given that my experience is drawn from American and British systems with predominantly Chinese pupils, I am continuously working towards connecting what works best for the East and the West. Having students explore mathematical ideas collaboratively and share those ideas builds conceptual understanding, agency and authentic engagement. The more agency students acquire, the better mathematicians they become.