Presented by David Woodward, Founder and President, Forefront Education; and Jay Meadows, CEO, Exemplars

Sponsored by Exemplars, in association with Forefront Education

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Using the math classroom to prepare our students to thrive in the 21st century requires educators to teach and assess far more than the ability to calculate accurately. Success in the 21st century requires students to apply their math toolkits as they think critically to unpack complex problems and design effective approaches and solutions, collaborate with teammates as they work on the problem, communicate ideas and approaches, and work creatively to solve these problems.

Success with these goals requires school systems to clearly define these 21st century expectations, utilize research-based practices that demonstrate success, utilize effective assessments that will drive instruction, ensure teachers have strong content knowledge, and have the ability to track these expectations over weeks, months, and years.

Join this edWebinar with Jay Meadows, CEO of Exemplars, and David Woodward, CEO of Forefront Education, to discuss how they are working with hundreds of schools across the world to move 21st century learning to the next level (for teachers and students). David began his passion for standards-based learning while utilizing Exemplars tasks in his classroom 20 years ago. Their life’s work comes together in this unique discussion about standards-based learning and problem solving in the math classroom.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to K-12 teachers, school leaders, and district leaders.

About the Presenters

David Woodward is an education insider with over 25 years of experience as a classroom teacher, district leader in math education, and frequent national conference presenter. In 2009, he founded Forefront Education to help educators gain a deeper understanding of student learning through classroom assessments and to support standards-based grading that is automatic, accurate, and reliable. David retired as an elementary math specialist from the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado in June 2020. He leads the Universal Screeners for Number Sense project, a series of open-source assessments.

Jay Meadows serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Exemplars. With three decades of experience in education, Jay is a former middle school math and science teacher who holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and a second master’s degree in mathematical pedagogy. As one of Exemplars’ primary performance task writers and professional development consultants for the middle level, Jay leads sessions across the United States, helping teachers integrate performance tasks and research-based best practices into their curricula. Through Exemplars, Jay aspires to empower a generation of students to solve any problem they encounter. Before his career in education, Jay coordinated delegations from the former Soviet Union through programs with the U.S. State Department. He has also collaborated with various international non-profits and is a former Peace Corps volunteer.

Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.

Join the Building Understanding in Mathematics community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.

Exemplars provides performance tasks, rubrics, and student anchor papers for schools and districts in Math and Science. Our performance material engages students and promotes reasoning, communication, and higher-order thinking. Performance tasks are classroom-tested and may be used for assessment, instruction, and professional development. Exemplars’ supplemental resources are research-based and designed to meet state, national, and Common Core standards.

Forefront Education strives to support districts in utilizing classroom assessments for their school improvement processes. For teachers, Forefront is a powerful tool for organizing assessment results for formative uses, collaboration, parent communication and standards-based grading. Forefront is excited to support schools and districts to use Exemplars tasks systematically.