Recording of Chris Woodin's Build Math Skills using Whole-to-Part Instruction Webinar

DESCRIPTION:

Do you have students who are struggling with math? Are their language challenges, processing deficits, working memory issues, and/or executive function skill weaknesses interfering with their ability to progress in math? In this webinar you’ll learn that the ways in which teachers visually display the quantities of things, the different mathematical relationships, and the specific processes of math can actually make it much easier or more difficult for our students to learn even the most basic of math skills. See how students who’ve been confused by typical math instruction can actually excel when they are taught in a way that always shows the big picture first. The creative methods presented in this exciting, new webinar can help you limit the typical demands on language processing, working memory, and executive function skills that are currently impacting your student’s ability to learn math. Discover the unique strategies developed by math “guru,” Chris Woodin, who is a renowned speaker, and teacher/ math department head at the prestigious Landmark School. This session will provide information that can help your students understand, process, and work with various important components of math.

Many traditional instructional approaches force us to use part-to-whole, linear sequential models of math instruction. These methods limit the ability of some students to gain a robust understanding of quantities so that they may then be differentiated and compared. The ability to compare quantities contributes greatly to the development of number sense and the ability to become numerate. Simply put, in this webinar, you will see how students can respond well to meaningful visual-spatial pictures. You’ll learn how they can start with the whole, take patterns apart, and then discover how the parts are connected to the whole. In this model, where students reassemble the parts while describing the process, students can process numbers in a manner similar to the way fluent readers process words. This approach is quite different from how most of us were taught math, and it is different from most modern curriculum approaches as well. A variety of whole-to-part graphic organizers will be presented that model whole number and fraction concepts and procedures, word problems, and equations. Various games and activities involving both fine and gross motor skills will be demonstrated, and supported with free online materials. Don’t miss this important event

PRESENTER BIO:

Christopher Woodin, Ed.M., is a specialist in the fields of mathematics and learning disabilities. He has been with Landmark School since 1986 where he is the Math Department Head and holds the Ammerman Chair of Mathematics. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Chris has published several articles, including a recent one through the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity and is the author and director of WoodinMath.com. His latest book is entitled Multiplication and Division Facts for the Whole-to-Part Visual Learner, and he is currently developing a computer-based numeracy program with Nessy Learning in the UK. Chris was a past Massachusetts Learning Disabilities Association (LDA) Samuel Kirk Educator of the Year, and he served on the Massachusetts Department of Education’s Mathematics 2011 Curriculum Frameworks Panel. He presents internationally on topics involving multimodal math instruction and learning disabilities.