Effective early childhood math teaching is much more challenging than most people anticipate. The math is foundational, leading many to assume that it takes little understanding on the part of the teacher to teach it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most foundational math ideas — from quantity to identifying the characteristics that all different shapes and sizes of triangles have in common — are highly abstract ones, concomitantly requiring specialized mathematical content knowledge and expertise in young children’s mathematical cognitive development. Recent research made possible by the Mathematics Knowledge Network in Critical Transitions (Youmans, Coombs and Colgan, 2018) clearly shows that Kindergarten teaching teams (ECEs and teachers) need better preparation and specialized professional development to understand and enact their crucial role in mathematics education.

Bio: Dr. Lynda Colgan is currently a Professor at the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. She has been at educator at the elementary, middle school, secondary, post-secondary and district-wide level over her career. Recently, she was the lead on three CODE projects: Inspiring your child to learn and love math; Choose a path that includes math; and, MathStoryTime. She is the PI on a Ministry of Education project, Building Parent Engagement: a project to support the implementation of Ontario’s Renewed Mathematics Strategy and is also the Lead for the Critical Transitions CoP for the Mathematics Knowledge Network. Today’s presentation is based on current initiatives with the Early Years project for that CoP.