PETERBOROUGH, N.H., March 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — For many educators, teaching fractions can be a significant challenge. Students often have trouble grasping the numerous steps involved with solving fractional problems, and building a critical foundation for ongoing success with fractions.
Staff Development for Educators' (SDE) seminar on Success with Fractions: Simple Strategies for Deep Understanding, offered this spring for teachers of grades 3-6, is designed to be hands-on and provide engaging how-to's to help students truly "get" fractions while meeting the challenge of the new standards. Educators will explore how to guide students to build and compare fractions, analyze and talk about fractions, manipulate and compute fractions, and more.
In this seminar, veteran classroom teacher and math authority Anni Stipek will guide educators through quick and easy-to-use tools for transforming the way they teach fractions. Rich with research-based, top Singapore Math teaching practices, teachers will discover how to build their daily instruction to grow confident, competent, and mathematically-proficient students.
Stipek, an inspiring and knowledgeable classroom teacher with more than 20 years of experience, draws on her solid background of math curriculum design and implementation, along with key strategies she learned in her travels to Singapore to learn about the power of Singapore Math first-hand, to help teachers transform the way they teach math.
"The strategies in this seminar are tailored to intermediate grade classrooms and will help you build deep mathematical understanding," explains Stipek. "Students need a deep understanding of how fractions work before algorithms and abstract questions will make sense."
Teachers will explore engaging strategies to make learning fractions a visual and concrete experience to increase retention, and discover how to weave in manipulative and modeling activities to teach deeper understanding. The hands-on strategies, built on the powerful concrete-pictorial-abstract instructional approach of Singapore Math, help develop a variety of math skills while meeting educators' curriculum goals and Common Core demands.
Success with Fractions helps take the guess work out of HOW to teach fractions the way today's rigorous standards require, and allows teachers to bring home ready-to-use ideas for getting students exploring, manipulating, talking about, and understanding fractions. Stipek's innovative strategies will help students "see" the math so that they are more likely to remember it, and the visualization skills provided will help deepen student conceptual understanding of fractions.
The seminar is designed for new and veteran teachers alike.
"Math class is not just about right answers. It's about teaching kids to think," says Stipek. "We'll dig deep into fractions and you'll leave equipped with student-friendly lessons, activities, and games to help your students conceptualize and remember math."
Staff Development for Educators is America's leading provider of professional development for PreK through Grade 12 educators. SDE believes that educators have the most important job in the world. That's Through Onsite PD, PD Events, Web-based PD, and PD Resources, the company empowers teachers and administrators across the country with ongoing professional development that is not only research-based, innovative, and rigorous, but also practical, motivating, and fun. All SDE training is presented by the nation's top authors and educational experts, with the goal of creating extraordinary classrooms that prepare students for the evolving demands of the 21stcentury.
All SDE events include a free resource book of handouts, lesson ideas, reproducibles, and more, and a free 60-day membership at TeachingMadeEasier.com. With the paid registration of a staff member, SDE extends free tuition to a principal from the same building, and also offers group discounts for groups of 10+ and 20+.
Success with Fractions will be offered in Columbus, OH on April 4th. Educators interested registering for this seminar, or learning about more about SDE's national conferences, upcoming SDE events, or other professional development opportunities, can visit www.SDE.com, call 1-800-462-1478, or email Email.