K-12 Math Coaches, Coordinators and leaders

Learn 5 Key Considerations for Unlocking Impactful Professional Development For K-12 Math Educators. 

So that teachers engage, adopt, and implement effective teaching practices that drive student improvement. 

Designing professional development or mathematics coaching sessions that inspires and drives meaningful change is no easy feat. In this article, we’ll explore strategies that make PD sessions & math coaching sessions for mathematics effective, engaging, and results-oriented. From establishing clear goals and fostering a supportive learning environment to promoting active engagement in meaningful mathematics, we’ll cover the essential components that lead to lasting outcomes. By the end, you’ll be equipped with 5 key considerations to design effective mathematics coaching sessions or professional development that energizes educators and empowers them to transform their practice.

Clarity is Key

Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, or instructional coach, you’ve likely been in a PD session that just didn’t hit the mark. Maybe the objectives were unclear or the direction felt scattered. Here, we’ll break down how to avoid that and share strategies, supported by research, to help you become a more effective facilitator.
The first thing we need to address is clarity. As a facilitator, do you have a rock-solid understanding of what you want participants to walk away with? Can you clearly articulate that? Clarity is key to the success of any PD session, just like in the classroom.

Connecting Clarity to Learning Outcomes

John Hattie’s research shows that teacher clarity significantly impacts student learning outcomes, and the same applies to professional development and for designing math coaching sessions.
Just like drafting a learning goal for your students, you need to define what lasting and enduring understanding you hope to establish for your adult learners.
For example, if your goal is to connect mathematical representations, your objectives might sound like:
Understand that all elementary mathematics can be represented visually.
Recognize that certain models, like the array, number line, and ratio table, are versatile across many situations.
Understand that multiple representations promote access for all learners and enhance conceptual understanding – critical for some, but good for all.
Recognize that solving a problem in multiple ways demonstrates mastery and critical thinking.

Transparency and Long-Term Objectives

While these objectives may seem ambitious for a single PD session or a math coaching session, they can serve as long-term goals to work toward collaboratively. Clearly defined learning objectives empower you to facilitate with greater transparency and purpose.
For added clarity in your sessions, consider using a strategy inspired by Dale Carnegie’s speech-writing formula: “Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you’ve said.” Start by clearly outlining your objectives. What do you want participants to take away?
How will this session help them address the challenges they face in their mathematics classrooms? By offering a clear big picture at the outset, you enable participants to engage with confidence and focus. Keep in mind that your participants don’t have the road map—show them the destination upfront, so they can relax and trust that the work will be meaningful.
It’s not just about what you want them to learn—frame those objectives in terms of their needs. Teachers are busy and need to know how your session will solve real problems they face. Connect emotionally, and you’ll earn their attention and trust.

Recap: Keys to Effective PD Sessions

• Be clear about your objectives.
• Share those objectives with your participants upfront.
• Frame the objectives around their needs and challenges.

Audiences shouldn’t have to guess where you’re going. They want to feel confident they’re in capable hands, and that begins with clear communication. By laying out the roadmap and demonstrating its value, you set the foundation for a successful professional development session.

Set a Positive and Productive Tone

Have you ever been part of a math PD session or math coaching session where negativity takes over, and instead of engaging in productive conversation or meaningful learning, the entire meeting becomes a venting session?
It’s a common pitfall: challenges and frustrations take center stage, and progress gets sidelined. While it’s important to acknowledge difficulties, too much focus on the negative can derail the whole purpose of the meeting.
We know that negativity breeds more negativity, but with the right approach, we can set a positive tone that maximizes mathematics learning, collaboration, and progress.

Starting on a Positive Note

A great way to avoid negativity from dominating the session is by starting on a positive note. Research shows that engaging participants early on in math PD sessions encourages active involvement, helping to prevent a passive “sit-and-get” dynamic.
To do this, prompt participants to talk right from the beginning, but with a focus on wins and celebrations.
By shining a light on successes, participants are more likely to be inspired and motivated. This not only energizes the session but also showcases practical examples of how things can work, providing real-life evidence to others who may be struggling.

Questions to Spark Positivity

Here are a few questions to kickstart the conversation and spark positivity:
“What has been really successful for you in the past week?”
“Share a celebration around how you implemented this new tool.”
By getting participants to share successes, you create a space where others can see what’s possible. Hearing colleagues talk about what’s working can be the nudge needed to encourage those who might be hesitant to take that first step. Sometimes, the most convincing argument comes not from the facilitator but from peers who are seeing real results.

Framing Conversations Around Ideals

Another way to set a positive tone is by framing the conversation around ideals rather than obstacles. One effective method is the magic wand question:

“If you could wave a magic wand, what would you see happening in math classrooms consistently?”
Alternatively, you could ask:
“What would it look like or sound like if this tool or strategy was working successfully?”
These types of questions open the floor for participants to imagine best-case scenarios and help them visualize positive outcomes.

Addressing Challenges with an Asset-Based Approach

Although it’s important to acknowledge the challenges participants face, it’s helpful to approach them in a way that inspires problem-solving rather than dwelling on the negatives. Asking asset-based questions, such as “What would the ideal classroom look like?” naturally brings challenges to light, but it frames them in a forward-thinking way. This approach helps participants move from frustration to action.

Building a Positive and Collaborative Culture

At the heart of any productive mathematics PD session is a positive culture. As facilitators, it’s essential to create a learning environment that supports collaboration, trust, and positivity. When participants feel safe to share ideas, ask questions, and offer feedback, the conversation stays focused on learning and growth.
Culture is key. By establishing the right conditions for a productive and positive learning space, you’ll maximize the time spent in the session and ensure that everyone stays on track toward the shared goals. A positive, collaborative environment doesn’t just happen—it’s something that facilitators actively create by guiding the conversation in the right direction.

Shifting the Mindset of the Group

While it’s crucial to ensure that participants feel heard and that their real challenges around mathematics education are acknowledged, it’s important to prevent negativity from dominating the session.
With thoughtful planning and a focus on positivity, facilitators of effective mathematics PD sessions can steer clear of this pitfall.
By starting on a positive note, emphasizing what’s possible rather than what’s not, and fostering a culture of trust and collaboration, you create an environment that’s both productive and inspiring.
Shifting the group’s mindset around positivity in mathematics learning sets the stage for meaningful discussions, active engagement, and lasting progress.
Ultimately, fostering positivity in your sessions isn’t just about creating a feel-good atmosphere—it’s about cultivating the right conditions for genuine learning and meaningful change.

Prioritize Engaging in Mathematics for Deeper Professional Growth

One of the most impactful ways to build our students’ mathematical proficiency is by prioritizing our own. As educators, deepening our understanding of mathematics can significantly enhance how we teach it. Engaging in rich mathematical problem-solving with our colleagues is one of the most effective ways to strengthen our content knowledge. This deeper understanding allows us to be more responsive and effective when facilitating lessons and providing interventions, ultimately benefiting our students.

During professional development sessions, it’s essential to prioritize doing the math ourselves. However, it’s not enough to simply plan to do any math. Just like in the classroom, we must carefully select tasks that promote reasoning and problem-solving. In other words, the math tasks need to be interesting enough to be worth doing.

The Importance of Productive Struggle in Professional Development

Engaging in a math task is only impactful when it places participants in a productive struggle. I want to emphasize the word “productive.” We’re looking for the “Goldilocks” of tasks—one that is not too hard, not too easy, but just right. Tasks that challenge without overwhelming help foster the kind of mathematical growth we hope to see in our classrooms.
When selecting tasks for PD, particularly for a wide audience, consider choosing tasks from the middle grades. For instance, selecting a task from 6th-grade offers enough food for thought without being too taxing. Mathematics anxiety is real, even for teachers, and we want to avoid participants shutting down before they even get started.
At times, I’ve received pushback from primary teachers who argue that the tasks we engage with during PD aren’t relevant to them because they would be too difficult for their students. It’s my responsibility as a facilitator to make it clear from the start that these tasks are not for their students—they’re for the teachers themselves. These tasks are designed to build their mathematical proficiency. If I were to select a primary-level task, there could be little struggle, which would likely result in minimal learning.
When we select a great task and engage with it alongside other educators, we have an opportunity to strengthen our strategic competence. There is tremendous value not just in knowing how to solve a problem, but in understanding how to approach it in multiple ways. This knowledge is best gained through collaborative problem-solving.

Modeling Strong Facilitation During PD

Doing the math during PD sessions not only strengthens teachers’ mathematical proficiency but also offers an opportunity to model effective facilitation techniques. Whether it’s selecting and sequencing solutions, asking probing questions, or making connections during consolidation, the way you facilitate the task is an opportunity to notice and name great pedagogy.
Just like a well-structured math lesson in the classroom, the goal of PD is lasting and enduring understanding for everyone involved.

Questions to Consider When Selecting a Task for PD

• Is this task interesting enough to spark debate or rich discussion?
• Does this task encourage reasoning through problem-solving?
• Are there multiple ways to approach this problem?
• Does this task allow for multiple representations?
• Is the cognitive demand too high, potentially causing participants to shut down?
• Will the consolidation of this task lead participants to an “aha” moment?

Selecting the right tasks for professional development is critical. When done well, it provides a powerful way to enhance not only the content knowledge of teachers but also their pedagogical skills. With the right blend of challenge and collaboration, PD can become a space for profound growth.

The Power of Co-Presenting

In the classroom, one of the most impactful professional development structures is team teaching. Having a colleague by your side, sharing the experience, offers countless opportunities for growth and improvement. Team teaching provides a built-in chance to debrief, consult, and reflect, with the simple truth that two minds are often better than one.

The Art of Observation

In a team-teaching dynamic, while one person speaks, the other can observe the room—reading body language and gauging student engagement. This ability to “read the room” is invaluable in determining whether or not the lesson is truly resonating with students. With two teachers, responsiveness is doubled. Both educators can circulate, ask questions, and monitor student thinking, allowing for immediate adjustments and deeper engagement.
Moreover, everyone brings their own biases to the table. By teaming up with a colleague, you gain insights from another perspective, enriching the overall teaching experience. You’re not just managing a class; you’re learning from each other and honing your craft collaboratively.

A Team Approach to PD

The same benefits apply when co-presenting PD sessions. Sharing the stage with a trusted colleague offers a wealth of experience and insight. Ideally, this person understands your presentation style and, more importantly, complements it—making you PD even more engaging. With a co-presenter, you can step off the stage from time to time to simply observe, and you have someone to debrief with afterward, refining the session for future improvements.
Delivering PD sometimes requires us to pivot. The session might not go as planned, the timing could be off, or the content may not resonate with the audience as expected. In those moments, having a co-presenter allows you to make decisions on the fly, reducing stress and ensuring that the necessary adjustments are made in real time. You become more confident in going off-script when needed, and tackling tough questions becomes less daunting with a colleague by your side.

Finding the Right Co-Presenter

In an ideal world, this co-presenter would have math expertise. But that’s not always possible, nor is it necessary. You might have a colleague in a similar role who supports Language Arts, for instance. How can you team up with this person to improve your facilitation skills? How might their feedback help you fine-tune your pacing and delivery?
Ultimately, whether in the classroom or in a PD session, collaboration enhances the experience for both educators and participants. So, if you’re looking to take your facilitation skills to the next level, consider bringing someone along for the ride. You’ll likely find that together, you’re able to achieve far more than you could alone.

Turning Learning into Action For Math Improvement

You can have the most impactful day of learning, but if it doesn’t lead to actionable change, did it truly hit the mark? At the end of the day, the goal of any professional development session is to inspire teachers to make meaningful shifts in their practice. But how do you ensure that your session results in the intended outcomes? How do you conclude the day with a clear call to action, balancing pressure and support to generate movement and follow-through from your participants?

Reflecting and Self-Assessing for Growth

An effective way to conclude a PD session is by incorporating opportunities for self-reflection and self-assessment. John Hattie’s research highlights that many of the most impactful teacher strategies for student achievement are tied to metacognition—students reflecting on their learning and identifying the steps needed to achieve their goals. The same principle can be applied to professional development.
Consider ending your session with time for both reflection and self-assessment. Encourage participants to evaluate their current practice through a lens of where they are versus where they want to be. Introducing “levels of implementation” helps teachers reflect on their own progress and determine their next steps.

Building Accountability and Encouraging Follow-Through

In addition to reflection, how can we build accountability into the professional development process? Applying the right amount of pressure is crucial to ensuring that participants stay committed to the work. One strategy is to assign “homework” or follow-up tasks. For instance, ask participants to bring student work, or evidence of a strategy they’ve implemented, to your next session. This creates a sense of accountability and provides concrete follow-up on the work that was introduced.
In an ideal world, we would be able to provide personalized follow-up to every participant, knowing one-on-one coaching is one of the most effective models of professional development. However, this is not always feasible. So, what other ways can we stay connected and ensure progress between sessions? This could include follow-up emails, video messages, or sharing resources at staff meetings. These small touchpoints keep the learning alive and encourage continued reflection and action.

Focus on Long-term Impact for Lasting Change

In conclusion, achieving lasting change through professional development requires more than just a single day of learning. It hinges on having clear goals, strong alignment across all levels of the organization, and a shared understanding of the steps needed to reach those goals. By creating opportunities for reflection, establishing accountability, and offering ongoing support, we can ensure that PD sessions lead to meaningful and impactful shifts in practice.
As you plan your next PD session, remember to focus on what happens beyond the session itself. Lasting change is possible when everyone is on board, expectations are clear, and progress is continuously supported. Only then can professional development drive the deep, transformative change that ultimately benefits students and educators alike.