Shawn McClory presented to pre-service teachers from across the state at the AMTEC Mathematics Pre-service Teacher Conference held on January 27, 2024. Shawn shared his presentation on how to effectively launch a lesson using methods from Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms. He demonstrated tasks that promote student engagement – both for the immediate task and long term, positive math identities, and proficiency with many SMPs. In this session, participants are students first as they do a problem solving task and model a launch for engagement. Shawn and the participants then debrief and share what they learned and tips for developing and implementing effective launches. As a last step, participants select a problem solving task, develop the launch, and have the opportunity to practice with others.

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