I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop to learn more about the Investigations curriculum. I felt it was informative to deepen my understanding of the various resources embedded into the curriculum, and it inspired me to look over the Implementation Guide when approaching the new year. A tool I learned more about was the Teacher Notes section in the back of each unit book, where they have many resources to guide teaching and assessment. I haven't used this tool in the previous years, and I want to be more intentional in using this resource to guide math lessons and evaluate assessment.

The first day, there was an overview of the curriculum and we focused more on developing computational fluency. We took a deeper dive into looking at the Mathematical Practices from the first unit, the focus points shown in the beginning of a unit, and looked at real life student work to discuss student knowledge of place value, operations of subtraction, and more. This is where I was introduced to the Teacher Notes, providing a guide for deepening student learning in discussions.

The second day, we discussed assessment and review and practice within the curriculum. We discussed how assessments link back to math benchmarks, and how those benchmarks evolve throughout the school year. In the Teacher Notes section, it showed examples of students meeting, partially meeting, and not meeting benchmarks. This was helpful to understand the expectation for students with assessment, and seemed helpful for me to utilize when scoring assessments. In review and practice, we went over the Ten-Minute Math or other daily activities. It was helpful to see the sequence of the Ten-Minute Maths and how they build upon one another. A question I had and have had in the past has been how can I fit all of this into one session? Talking with teachers who have used the curriculum validated that this was a common issue when lessons are planned for 60-75 minutes, a lofty goal for younger students.

Overall, I found the workshop informative and helped me gather a better understanding of the resources I can use within the curriculum.