EMS Program Description
In Fall 2025, we plan to begin courses for our 3rd cohort of UIC Elementary Math Specialists. Becoming a member of a UIC cohort means joining a growing community of Elementary Math Specialists who learn together and support each other.
The courses emphasize the development of both content and pedagogy. Courses will involve field experiences connecting to participants' classroom practice and teaching context. In addition, Course 4 involves a leadership practicum where participants have the opportunity to plan, implement, and reflect on leadership activities in their school community.
Courses
At UIC, the Elementary Mathematics Specialist Program includes courses in the following areas:
Course One
Content focus: Expanding teachers’ experiences with relationships, patterns, and representations related to whole number concepts and operations, including attention to teaching and learning in early childhood.
Pedagogical focus: Developing habits of mind consistent with a growth mindset and resources for supporting colleagues and students in developing and sustaining a growth mindset.
Course 2: Rational numbers and proportional reasoning
Content Focus: Expanding teachers’ experiences with and understandings of rational numbers including multiplicative reasoning, fractions, ratios, and proportional reasoning.
Pedagogical focus: Analyzing formative and summative assessment strategies and exploring resources for improving how data is collected, analyzed, and used.
Three
Content Focus: Expanding teachers’ experiences with geometry and measurement including exploring tools for supporting students’ investigations as well as working with 2D and 3D shapes and developing familiarity with transformations.
Pedagogical Focus: Facilitating classroom discourse and enhancing opportunities for student agency and student-to-student discourse.
four
Grounded in content that includes data, statistics, and probability
Leadership focus: Developing expertise including an emphasis on communication skills and deepening understandings of adult learning such that participants are prepared to:
- Advocate for high-quality mathematics instruction
- Enhance collaboration within and across grade levels
- Support professional learning around high-quality mathematics instruction
five
Content Focus: Expanding teachers’ experiences with patterns, functions, and algebraic reasoning in contexts that deepen understandings of the connections and dependencies between the content domains of earlier courses.
Pedagogical Focus: Exploring and developing strategies and resources for supporting equitable instruction and for enriching opportunities for ALL students to learn.