Cuisenaire rods – for factions, for counting – Numeracy Manipulatives

October 22, 2023 – Returning Home

Oh my… I learned a tonne. There is nothing more I love to do is to learn. I don’t consider myself to be an expert, which may seem counterintuitive in my work. I find that the more that I learn, I realize that there is a tonne I don’t know. I love that despite the idea that I am working on my research program and expertise. Learning is the underpinning of what I do and what I love to do. I won’t deny that.

Friday, October 20th was the Provincial Professional Development Day in BC. I was presenting at the BCAccess & BC People First AdvoCon2023 Conference on Saturday through my work with IPE/BC on Saturday and I was very intentional about going to a provincial conference for my learning. I did not want to present. I wanted to be the learner and enjoy the conference. I chose to go to BCAMT.

BCAMT is the BC Association of Mathematics Teachers and the Fall Conference 2023 was held in Surrey, BC at Gilford Park Secondary School. Next term I am going to teach the Numeracy portion of the EDUC 400 course to elementary education teacher candidates and wanted to learn more about it. I attended 3 workshops in K-7. Ahhh… I learned a tonne and loved every session I attended.

Whew. I walked away with a tonne of resources, ideas, and research supporting this work. I also learned something about myself and thinking about spatial reasoning and awareness. The more I listened to the speaker in one workshop, I realized that this was important to do with “the littles” but also it might have been something underdeveloped in me as a child, now adult. Numeracy is important.

I had a chance to see so many familiar faces from the Math Education world, but also meet new people. It was like a reunion. It was more like RETURNING HOME. Going to this conference was more about my professional learning, but it was also about connection and community. In a past life, I was a secondary mathematics teacher. At another conference, my fire was stoked. At BCAMT, it was reignited.

I am reminded how much I love teaching mathematics. I also love the leadership of folks presenting and running the conference. And, I appreciated the passion and deep desire to make mathematics accessible and enjoyable. This year’s theme for the conference was MATHEMATICS IS RELATIONAL. I could not agree more. We need to bring the humanity, relevance, and joy for mathematics back in schools.

Next term is going to be AMAZING. It will be the first time to teach this course (and might be my last time if the program updates and revises the program), but I am very stoked about delving in deeper to the idea of numeracy and professional development within the teacher education program and beyond. I am excited. I almost thought about pursuing an MSc or PhD degree in mathematics education.

That might be getting ahead of myself, but it might be a possibility. Who knows? What I do know is, being a part of professional development as a learner is a joy. My next step is to find some Cuisenaire Rods for my numeracy class as well as other manipulatives to engage in mathematics for elementary teachers that is fun, engaging, and meaningful. We teach how we learned. Damn. We will be learning.