Disciplinary Literacy and Student-Centered Assessment in the Secondary Mathematics Classroom

Assessment Learning Network with Pam Harris

Date

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Time

8:30 am - 11:00 am

Location

Webinar
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Resources

ALN Schedule 2024-25

ALN-Harris_SecondaryMath-ResourceLinks

ALN-Harris-Presentation-3.11.2025

Session Description

This session explores the disciplinary literacies of mathematics and will feature examples that engage students in:

  • problem solving;
  • drawing connections between mathematical ideas;
  • communication techniques used by mathematicians; and
  • reasoning, proof, and representations of mathematical ideas.

The session also explores the assessment practices that intentionally support students as they are apprenticed into ways of thinking and communicating valued in mathematics classrooms.

Framing Questions

  1. What research supports the importance of developing disciplinary literacies for teachers and their students in the secondary mathematics classroom?
  2. What does instruction look like in the secondary mathematics classroom when we live into disciplinary literacy?
  3. What do student-centered assessment approaches look like when they support instruction designed to develop disciplinary literacy in the secondary mathematics classroom?

 

This session is co-sponsored and presented by the Disciplinary Literacy Task Force of the GELN and the Michigan Assessment Consortium.

 

Event Resources

Presentation Video

ALN Presentation—Disciplinary Literacy and Student-Centered Assessment in the Secondary Mathematics Classroom (Available to ALN attendees only. Need the password? Contact klafave@michiganassessmentconsortiuim.org)

Presenter: Pam Harris

Pam Harris is a mom, a former high school math teacher, university lecturer, an author, and she wants to change the way we view and teach mathematics. While Pam was teaching high school math, her four children grew and mathematized their world in a way she had never imagined. “I had always bought into the myth that math is a disconnected set of facts to memorize, with rules and procedures to mimic. I now call that fake math.” Pam’s own kids, research, and experiences teaching real math have shown her what it means to mathematize and to support learners in their own journeys. Real math is thinking mathematically, not just mimicking what a teacher does on the board. You can shift your brain from using rote memory to mathematizing. Pam helps teachers make this shift for themselves, and helps teachers teach in a way that supports students to learn real math.

Learning Moments

LM-Harris: Living into disciplinary literacy with secondary mathematics instruction
LM-Student-centered assessment approaches that develop disciplinary literacy in secondary mathematics classrooms
LM-Harris: Research support for disciplinary literacy in the secondary mathematics classroom

Learning Points

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