On Friday, September 8, about 400 teachers and early years educators met in Windsor, Ontario to think about mathematics teaching and learning in early years classroom. The event was organized by the Greater Essex County District School Board and The Mathematics Knowledge Network.
There were two keynote sessions: one by Jo-Anne Lefebvre director of Carleton University’s Institute of Cognitive Science; the other by our very own Joan Moss, Professor Emerita in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development here at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto.
Joan’s keynote was called, A Playful Pedagogy Approach to Early Years Mathematics: Supporting Young Learners to Enjoy (And Succeed In) Mathematics. She talked about the Math for Young Children Research project (M4YC), which has worked with teachers and their students in more than 100 classrooms in urban, rural and First Nations schools. Through collaboration, educators design and test innovative and engaging lessons in geometry, measurement and number — all with a playful pedagogy approach. Joan talked about how the program has an emphasis on spatial reasoning — an important factor in success in all the STEM disciplines. She also highlighted the exciting outcomes from M4YC: children not only improved significantly in their overall mathematics performance, but they also made substantial gains in spatial reasoning abilities.
Educators attend the Early Years Professional Learning Day at the Ciociaro Club in Windsor, Ontario
Joan Moss delivers her keynote at the Early Years Professional Learning Day
A slide from Joan Moss’ presentation that explains the PD process involved with the M4YC project
Joan mentioned a number of lessons during her talk. The Robertson Program has a many of them featured on our website. Please follow the links below to find some of these lesson plans on our site:
