What does a Building Thinking Classrooms lesson look like start to finish? In this workshop, you will experience a thinking task from the perspective of a student and unpack the teaching moves used to unlock student thinking and understanding. We will be exploring a task that is rooted in Indigenous language and ways of knowing to deepen our own understanding of numbers. Whether you're new to Building Thinking Classrooms or have been fully implementing for some time, there will be something for you in this session.

To facilitate mathematics learning for all, students must have opportunities to talk with, respond to, and question one another to create a classroom community centered on discourse. To support the mathematics learning of all students, effective teachers establish an environment where students regularly engage in productive mathematics discourse. Join me for this session to engage in rich math tasks to model the use of BTC Collective Knowledge Practices and the eight effective math teaching practices to facilitate productive discourse, foster student autonomy, and promote problem solving, reasoning, and critical thinking skills in a student-centered classroom.

Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) is revolutionizing math instruction in oh-so-many ways, so how do we, as leaders and coaches, support all teachers on their BTC journeys?  In this session, you’ll explore two powerful coaching models: the observation-feedback cycle and the co-teaching cycle. The observation-feedback cycle helps you assess where your school stands with BTC. The co-teaching cycle—also known as Math Studio—creates deep, transformative change as you walk alongside your teachers. You’ll leave this session with practical tools for both models and a fresh vision for how BTC coaching can elevate teaching and learning across all content areas.

Launching with an engaging story is powerful, but how it ends matters just as much! In this session, we explore the bookends of BTC: crafting compelling launch stories to spark curiosity and designing meaningful consolidations that center collective meaning-making over predetermined conclusions. Rooted in storywork and decentralized knowledge-building, we’ll examine how re-storying tasks can honor diverse ways of knowing, challenge traditional narratives, and shift from teacher-led conclusions to collaborative knowledge-building. Come experience the joy of re-storying tasks and designing consolidations to refine how you launch and conclude BTC practices for deeper engagement and learning.

This year, we launched a new after-school math class based on Thinking Classrooms pedagogy for 4th-6th graders. Students collaborated in random groups to investigate rich math tasks. We used various tools, including AI, as BTC teaching assistants to support student learning. Thin slicing problems is key in Thinking Classrooms, especially when working with diverse learners. AI tools, like ChatGPT, helped thin slice problems to engage and challenge all students. Join us to learn about our BTC work in a multi-grade setting and to discover AI tools that will support your own BTC classroom.