Mariposa Elementary recently served as a training ground for district administrators partnering with the UCI Math Project as part of our districtwide effort to strengthen mathematics instruction and student discourse.

Administrators spent time in Mariposa classrooms learning alongside teachers and students, with a focus on how school leaders can better support teachers as they implement effective math discourse strategies. The goal is to ensure administrators continue growing as curriculum and instructional leaders who understand what high-quality mathematics instruction looks and sounds like in the classroom.

Throughout the visit, our teachers demonstrated dynamic strategies that placed students at the center of learning. Students were actively problem-solving, explaining their thinking, using academic language, working collaboratively, and making connections between conceptual understanding and mathematical procedures. Observers saw students carrying the cognitive load rather than simply listening or copying, while teachers used questioning and formative assessment to uncover student thinking and extend learning.

A major area of focus was creating even more opportunities for every student to explain, justify, and build upon mathematical ideas. Strategies such as structured partner talk, sentence frames, purposeful questioning, and clearly defined collaborative roles can help turn classroom conversation into meaningful mathematical discourse.

Across grade levels, visitors also observed productive struggle, multiple approaches to solving problems, strong classroom routines, student choice, and opportunities for students to learn from both correct and incorrect reasoning.

We are proud that Mariposa could provide a setting where teachers, administrators, and our UCI Math Project partners could learn together. Most importantly, the work keeps the focus where it belongs: creating mathematics classrooms where students think deeply, communicate their reasoning, take risks, and develop both the conceptual and procedural knowledge necessary to become confident mathematicians.