CONT544: Mathematics, Primary and Junior Specialist
This course explores what powerful, equitable, and engaging mathematics leadership can look like in Ontario Primary and Junior contexts. You will examine how math identities are shaped, how inclusive classrooms are built, and how school-wide math cultures can be shifted using intentional routines, shared language, and community-informed visioning. You’ll explore high-impact approaches to teaching and learning—such as inquiry-rich design, spiralling big ideas, experiential and interdisciplinary learning, and land-based opportunities that honour Indigenous Ways of Knowing—so math feels meaningful, connected, and accessible for every learner. You will strengthen assessment practices by designing success criteria, triangulating evidence (observations, conversations, products), and integrating student voice to guide feedback, evaluation, and next steps.
Throughout the course, you’ll collaborate, experiment, and connect big ideas to your teaching and leadership context—whether you’re leading from the classroom, supporting a team, or shaping a school-wide improvement focus. You’ll also explore how technology, coding, data literacy, and AI can enhance learning and accessibility, while asking the critical questions needed to use these tools responsibly, ethically, and in ways that protect student learning and privacy. By the end of the course, you’ll have an array of practical strategies and a math leadership handbook that brings together vision, instruction, assessment, equity, and sustainable change into a coherent plan you can apply immediately in your school, department, or Board.
Learning Outcomes
What You Will Learn and Do
In this course, you will have the opportunity to
- articulate a vision of math leadership grounded in professional standards, research, and personal identity to guide you as you set priorities for improvement
- cultivate and lead a collaborative math culture where belonging, curiosity, creativity, productive struggle, and shared responsibility are visible
- apply and adapt inclusive approaches (e.g., culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy [CRRP], universal design for learning [UDL], Indigenous perspectives) to design and facilitate inquiry-rich math learning that strengthens reasoning, representation, and communication through purposeful spiralling and meaningful connections
- design and lead assessment and evaluation practices that use clear success criteria, triangulated evidence, descriptive feedback, and student voice to guide next steps and represent learning more holistically
- leverage and evaluate digital tools, coding, data literacy, and AI to enhance accessibility and creativity in math, while addressing ethics, privacy, bias, and responsible implementation
- interpret and use multiple data sources to identify patterns, challenge assumptions, surface equity implications, and prioritize improvement actions
- lead and sustain math improvement through professional learning and change leadership (e.g., professional learning communities [PLCs], coaching, mentoring), translating vision into feasible plans, routines, and measures of success over time
Assessments
Module 1
Building a Math Culture
Module 2
Innovations in Math Education
Progress Update 1
Module 3
Math Assessment
Module 4
Equity, Identity, and Inclusion
Progress Update 2
Module 5
Educational Technology and Future-Ready Learning
Progress Update 3
Module 6
Leadership Pathways and Leading Change
Module 7
Course Culminating Task
Final Report