Building Thinking Classrooms 2025 Annual Conference

Pre-Conference: Building Thinking Classrooms 101

This introductory pre-conference session is designed for newcomers to Building Thinking Classrooms. Participants of the main Building Thinking Classrooms Conference who are unfamiliar with the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) framework are highly encouraged to participate in this pre-conference session to fully access the content of the main conference sessions.
This pre-conference introductory session outlines some of the 14 practices outlined in the book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl.
Participants will experience mathematics through a Thinking Classroom environment and learn how to implement their own Thinking Classroom, including how to launch the environment and build in additional strategies over time.

Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) has revolutionized the way we engage students in deep mathematical thinking. But how do we align BTC practices with district-adopted curriculum resources? Too often, we default to a “one-size-fits-all” approach when what we really need is “one-size-fits-each.” In this session, we will guide participants through practical strategies for adapting unit and lesson plans that honor both the structure of a district curriculum and the core principles of BTC. Whether you're navigating pacing guides, mandated resources, or diverse student needs, you'll gain insights into lesson planning that fosters thinking, flexibility, and student-centered learning. Walk away with tools to transform any curriculum into a dynamic, thinking-centered experience for all learners.

A brief overview of why the BTC assessment model is important, how you can use it to differentiate for students with accommodations and extend it for advanced students. We will do a deep dive in creating the navigation instrument with our own curriculum, what to look for, and how to implement it at various grade levels. Ideas for frequent formative assessment will be provided.

Discover how Thinking Classrooms provide the perfect environment to develop the Mathematical Practices (MPs) or processes, which bring mathematical content to life. In this session, we’ll explore how rich math tasks naturally promote the MPs, making them visible and actionable in your classroom. Experience hands-on examples of these tasks, reflect on how they support students in thinking mathematically, and learn strategies to better identify and foster the MPs during teaching. Join us to deepen your understanding of the MPs within a Thinking Classroom and leave with practical insights to enhance your students’ mathematical growth.

Are you finding that students are thinking deeper but at the cost of their fact fluency? Come learn about Explicit Strategy Instruction and how you can design thin-sliced lessons that ensure your students are confident and well-rounded mathematicians. Walk away feeling more confident in your own fluency practice. We will use multiplication examples but the ideas are universal to all procedural fluencies.

Participants will learn what Explicit Strategy Instruction is, how it is different from Mixed Practice, and how both are necessary in supporting students’ fluency. They will learn how Thin Slicing is a perfect avenue for delivering Explicit Strategy Instruction. And they will learn how they might craft a Thin Sliced lesson focused on a specific fluency strategy for multiplication.

Bridging the work of Jenny Bay Williams & John SanGiovanni’s Figuring Out Fluency and BTC, I will show how you can build your tasks to intentionally support fluency instruction. (I am gearing this session towards multiplication fluency since basic fact fluency is often a hot topic, however this session is easily adapted to include PK-2 for addition strategies.)

Participants will begin by experiencing a short example of a thin sliced task built around a specific fluency strategy. We will deconstruct how the thin-sliced sequence was designed around the development of a specific multiplication strategy.

This session will provide participants with strategies and resources to integrate social justice and mathematics to provide equitable and culturally relevant instruction. Participants will be provided with resources to understand how social issues are historical, and reform involves problem-solving through mathematics. Participants can take what they learn to build community within their classrooms with their diverse student populations.

After a day of insightful sessions, join Pam Seda and the Conference Team for an exciting Game Night full of strategy, puzzles, and brain-teasing fun! Learn some new games but also learn how the game skills correspond to the skills needed in a thinking classroom. Come alone and team up with other attendees or bring a whole group! There's something for everyone—strategy games, thinking games, number challenges, and more. Dive into your favorite familiar games (Connect 4, Othello, Blockus, Prime Climb, SET) or team up with fellow attendees to explore something new (ever heard of Black Box, Abalone, Rumis, Input, Multi, Numeroso?). From classic puzzles to fresh challenges, this is your chance to unwind, connect, and ignite your competitive spirit. No experience needed. We’ll teach you the games as needed. Just bring your enthusiasm and enjoy the fun! See you there!

The 14 practices promote accessibility and equity in the classroom, but our own implicit biases, often influenced by institutional labels, can still get in the way of effectively enacting these practices.  In this session, we will explore how these biases can impact our perceptions of student capabilities.  Let’s think together about how we can shape the classroom environment to highlight students’ brilliance and spark our own genuine curiosity about students’ mathematical thinking.

As teachers, so much of what drives our assessment practices revolves around numbers. But do these numbers really tell us what we think they do? In this session, we will unpack our grading and reporting practices, interrogate their purpose and validity, and explore whether they truly serve all of our students. Together, we’ll challenge some of the assumptions we hold about numbers in our grade books and consider what might lie beyond them.

Join Maegan Giroux, as she walks through how she and her grade 6/7 students' assessed a full unit, from start to finish. Maegan will share student work and comments on the assessment approach including the various ways the class chose to embed conversations, observations, and technology into the assessment. This session will include time for Q&A and open discussion around the unit was planned and assessed.