Professional Learning Supports
Principles to Action Professional Learning Modules
In its tradition of mathematics education leadership, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) defines and describes the principles and actions, including specific teaching practices, that are essential for high-quality mathematics education for all students. The book, Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All, presents eight essential, research-based Mathematics Teaching Practices.
The West Virginia Department of Education has teamed with West Virginia teachers in all programmatic levels to develop professional learning modules and task guides to support the classroom implementation of the eight essential Mathematics Teaching Practices. These Mathematics Teaching Practices are essential, regardless of whether instruction is in-person, remote, or hybrid.
For each module, the presentation with presenter notes and required materials are provided to support professional learning with teachers through analyzing artifacts of teaching (mathematical tasks and video clips) and abstracting general ideas from these specific examples about how to effectively support student learning.
Effective Teaching Practices
To access module materials and support documents, select the title of the of the item in first column of the table below.
Elementary School*
| Click on the topics below for resources | Grade Level | Establish mathematics goals to focus learning | Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving | Use and connect mathematical representations | Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse | Pose purposeful questions | Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding | Support productive struggle in learning mathematics | Elicit and use evidence of student thinking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3D Shapes | 1 | ||||||||
| Alike or Different | K | ||||||||
| Comparing Fractions | 4 | ||||||||
| Measure Me | 1 | ||||||||
| Plastic Building Blocks | 4 | ||||||||
| Sort and Count | K | ||||||||
| The Locker Game | 4 | ||||||||
| The Very Hungry Caterpillar | 1 |
Middle School*
| Click on the topics below for resources | Grade Level | Establish mathematics goals to focus learning | Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving | Use and connect mathematical representations | Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse | Pose purposeful questions | Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding | Support productive struggle in learning mathematics | Elicit and use evidence of student thinking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fermi Problems | 6 | ||||||||
| Fitting Boxes into Boxes | 6 | ||||||||
| Hot Sauce | 7 | ||||||||
| Planning a Pizza Party | 7 | ||||||||
| Tesselate This | 8 | ||||||||
| Two Storage Tanks | 8 | ||||||||
| Wagon Trails | 7 |
High School*
| Click on the topics below for resources | Grade Level | Establish mathematics goals to focus learning | Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving | Use and connect mathematical representations | Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse | Pose purposeful questions | Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding | Support productive struggle in learning mathematics | Elicit and use evidence of student thinking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Fossil Puzzle | 9 | ||||||||
| Analyzing Data | 9 | ||||||||
| Bagel Shop | 9 | ||||||||
| Flag Raising | 9 | ||||||||
| Trail Mix | 9 |