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Recap: CMC-South & North 2018

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Palm Springs, CA, Nov 2018
Monterey, CA Dec 2018

 

 

 

I have summarized each session with some simple (•) bulleted notes, red underline to encapsulate my big take-aways, and occasionally a brief italicized commentary. (Due to many duties at the conference this year, my session attendance was limited, thus why I am combining the two conference recaps here. )

Understanding the Resistant Teacher:  Mike Flynn (Mount Holyoke), Coaching Pre-Conference Keynote (South)

  • The Big Take-Away = Resistance is a Matter of Perspective
  • Mike showed us this impactful video mash-up in which the Karate Kid is made to seem like the bully in the famous movie. In other words, leaders may see resistant teachers as the villains, but those same resistant teachers may see the change agents as the villains.
  • He then shared a story of how he and a colleague spoke to his state government against some of the misguided changes the legislators were planning. In this situation, he was definitely a resistant educator who saw his public challenge to the new initiatives as the moral good. The video clip along with Mike’s story made it clear that writing off all resistant teachers as sticks in the mud, prevents us from understanding, and thus overcoming, the source of the resistance.
  • Another powerful visual that Mike presented was the analogy of the  Rider, the Elephant and the Path from the book, The Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.  In essence, the Rider is the rational part of our brain, and the Elephant is the emotional part, and the Path is the environment in which both are functioning. The Elephant wins out over the Rider in any conflict so leading change requires addressing all three: Directing the Rider, Motivating the Elephant and Shaping the Path.

  • The 5 Why’s. This third major point of Mike’s talk appeared to resonate the most with the audience. It is a process by which a team identifies a problem, then asks 5 Why’s. Each successive why is in response to the previous answer, much like a logical syllogism: Why did A happen? Because of B. Why did B happen? Because of C… This process continues for 5 questions, eventually getting to the root cause of the problem. Then the members are assigned corrected actions to each of the answers/problems identified, so the issue does not happen again. This process is documented in more detail at the following blog on workplace culture.

Mike’s talk reminded me how important it is to include all teachers, including the reluctant ones, in the change process. Which means creating a culture of collaboration (Shaping the Path) is critical.

I Think…Doesn’t Belong, Because…: Jennifer Bell (Oregon City SD)

  • The Big Take-Away = Offer Sentence Frames and Word Banks for Problem Solving Activities
  • Jennifer is an elementary Math Specialist who took us through a couple of Which One Doesn’t Belong? activities.
  • She had us pair up and practice, as students, two new layers to this already awesome activity:
    1)  Sentence Frames: “I think _____________ doesn’t belong because _________, but/while the ____________. 2) Word Banks: “Place Value, Decimal, Ten, Hundred, Thousand.” Here the students are pressed to use the given words and phrases in their responses.

These two simple, yet powerful, strategies scaffold conversation for struggling learners, while also challenging all students to explain their thinking. 

The Surprising Power of Gradual Reveal in Our Math Lessons: Steve Leinwand (American Institutes for Research)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Instead of bombarding students with the entire word problem, graph, table or figure, gradually reveal it, using questions to probe understanding of prior and new content.“
  • Cool Tool #1= “The Hidden Problem“
  • Cool Tool #2= “Create the Visual Pattern”
  • Gradual Reveal Example #1 (subtraction): Steve started by eviscerating, in true Steve Leinwand fashion, the notion of posing to students the following question:
    Sarah has 91 empty boxes. She had 2605 apples to pack into the boxes. How many apples should she place into each box?
    He instead showed how the very same textbook questioned could be gradually revealed by posing the following prompts one-at-a-time:
    Sarah has 91 empty boxes.
    – What can you infer about Sarah?
    She had 2605 apples to pack into the boxes.
    – Now what can you infer about Sarah?
    – So what the 91 tell us? What about the 2605?
    – What do you think the question is?
    – About how many apples do you think would be in each box? <pre than 100? Less than 100? Convince us.
    – Can you draw a picture?
    – Can you create a number sentence?
    – Do you multiply or divide? Why?
    This gradual reveal offers opportunity to build interest and to scaffold, as well as for inferential reasoning and for a low-floor entry.
  • Gradual Reveal Example #2 (Data Tables): Before asking students to make decisions from a given data table, the data can be gradually revealed as such:
    Once the students have taken a deep dive into the data and the context, they are finally presented with the task:
    “The 4th and 2nd Graders in your school are going on a trip to the Amusement park. Each 4th Grader is going to buddy with a 2nd Grader. Your buddy wants to go on as many rides as possible. The bus will drop you off at 10:00 am and pick you up at 1:00 pm. Each student gets 20 tickets for rides. Use this information in the chart to write a letter to your buddy and create a plan for a fun day at the Amusement park.”
  • Gradual Reveal Example #3 (Data Displays): Again, rather given students all the information upfront, gradually reveal the data display before posing the more traditional mathematical questions:
  • The Hidden Problem: Again instead of posing a traditional subtraction problem such as 95 – 47, Steve posed this:
    I have $95. You have $47.
    What is the answer to the hidden problem?
    Then Steve takes the various student answers, displays them to the class and asks, what is the hidden problem for each of these answers:
    $142      $48       $71      $150      $50      You     Me
    (The hidden problems are: How do we have together? How much more do I have than you? How much do we each get if we share the total equally? About how much do we have together? About how much more do I have than you? Who has more? Who has less?)
    Since the target of the lesson is two-digit subtraction, Steve then narrows the focus of the discussion with: “Let’s focus on how much richer I am than you. How do you know?”
  • Create the Visual Pattern: Many teachers are aware of the site/activity visual patterns. Steve applied the gradual reveal this solid task as well:

    If this is stage 2, draw and describe stage 1. How would your stage 3 then look?
  • Steve summarized his talk of applying a new technique to teach an old idea by emphasizing that “Processes are as important as content.

I arrived at Steve’s session expected a talk on ‘Gradual Release,’ because that is what was advertised in the program. I was intrigued, because this conventional instructional tool of ‘I do-We do-You do’ does not mesh with much of the problem-solving and discussion-rich tasks that Steve is known to promote. His title slide’s use of the word ‘reveal’ , however, exposed the misprint in the program. So I thought the presentation was going to be about the Gradual Reel-In of ‘You do-We do – I do’ method of leading class discussions on a math task. While Gradual Reveal is in the same spirit as the Gradual Reel-in it has a different purpose. It is a means to lead students to a critical question, rather than to specific concept or understanding.

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Recap: Fall for Math 2017, Growing Powerful Practices Together

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San Bernardino, CA , Sept 2017
The Riverside San Bernardino Counties Mathematics Teachers Association, the local state affiliate of which I am a member, conducted its first Fall conference, Fall for Math, with a theme of Growing Powerful Practices Together.The conference had three main objectives:

  1. Highlighting Math Practices 3 & 6 (Constructing Viable Arguments and Critiquing the Reasoning of Others, and Attend to Precision)
  2. Establish local support networks via social media connections and/or face-to-face meetings as an on-going vehicle to share ideas and resource
  3. Provide high-quality, low-cost professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers of mathematics.

My role in reaching that first goal was to provide the keynote (Growing Our Practices: The 21st Century Habits of Mind) and the closing address (The Transformation Question).

To meet the goal of proving high quality PD for the Math Practices, there were two break out sessions in between. The presenter line-up for these sessions was mighty for a such a small conference that cost only $30…

  • Adriann Huntington and Sherese Ferrell
    Making Sense on a Mathematical Carpet Ride (K-5)
  • Mary Vongsavanh
    Leading Math Discourse with Students (K-5)
  • Shirley Roath
    “I Already Taught Fractions; Why Don’t They Get It?”     (3-5)
  • Lydia Song
    Growing Mathematical Prowess Through Problems of the Month
    (3-8)
  • Ioana Robles
    SiMPlifying and Applying the SMP (6-8)
  • Karon Woolsey
    Going Deeper Understanding the Mathematical Practices (6-8)
  • Giovanni Macias
    Linear Equations (6-8)
  • Chris Luzniak
    Debate That! (6-12)
  • Chris Duran
    Probability Without Formulas (9-12)
  • Venetia Ricchio
    Breakout EDU Can You Solve the Puzzle? (8-12)
  • Niki Fryer
    Power in Numbers (9-12)

Now, I would like to do my part in helping RSBMTA meet goal #2 of establishing and growing the leadership network by having our participants answer the transformation question… in two parts:

Part 1 (as a teacher): “How will your students be transformed because of their experience they will have with you, their teacher?”

Part 2 (as a leader): “How will your dept/school/district/county be transformed, because of the experience the teachers and administrators will have with you, their leader?”

This is only our first step. Leave your responses in the comments below. I look forward to reading how you plan on changing the world. Keep an ear out for the dates of our first virtual meeting.

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Recap: NCTM 2017

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San Antonio, CA , April 2017
I have summarized each session with some simple (•) bulleted notes, red underline to encapsulate my major take-aways, and occasionally a brief italicized commentary.

Math Task Makeover with Desmos Activity Builder — Michael Fenton (Desmos), Jed Butler (Heritage HS), Bob Lochel (Hatboro-Horsham High School)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Use Desmos activities to generate intellectual need to learn the lesson objective.”
  • Generate need for Graph of a Linear Inequalities ….

  • Generate need for Definition of Ellipses …

  • Start with informal investigation, then move to formal language.
  • Teacher facilitation is key.
  • Where to Learn more: learn.desmos.com

I’ve got to starting using the overlay function!

Numberless Word Problems in the Elementary Grades — Brian Bushart & Regina Payne (Round Rock ISD)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Have students make sense of word problems prior to computation by removing the numbers.”
  • The origin: Press kids to stop just circling numbers in word problems and applying random operation.
  • Not all day every day. It is a tool for sense making.
  • Focus on the relationship and the operation, formal language, and what the question would be, not the answer.
  • #numberlesswp

This makes sense for secondary grades as well.

Rich Tasks as Landmarks for Students to Use in Navigating Their Mathematical Learning Journey — Peg Cagle (LAUSD)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Students’ work on Landmark Tasks throughout the year that should be visible in the classroom so that students can map their learning.”
  • We don’t take advantage enough of narrative in math class.
  • “Imagine shrinking down an entire map to the size of an index card. All the details get lost and the map becomes unreadable. What are the landmarks that will help students navigate the mathematical landscape”.
  • Peg presented the criteria for a Landmark Task …

  • … and presented us with a LandmarkTask …

Tied Up in Knots: In your groups, measure the length, in centimeters, of the piece of rope that you have. Then tie a single overhand knot and remeasure the length. Repeat the process several times. Create a data table, graph and equation relating the number of knots to the the length of the rope.

  • … then she analyzed the task according to the criteria …

  • … and showed how this landmark was made visible in her classroom.

  • The Speech Bubbles were created by the students to make comments on other groups’ work.
  1. This is the second year in a row at this conference that I have seen Peg give a year-long, big picture vision of using tasks in the classroom.
  2. This is also the third presenter who has mentioned some variation of the Speech Bubbles. Time to use them in my classroom.
  3. Peg made a statement that has me thinking deeply and that I have quoted several times already: “Students have ample amounts of robust evidence that they are not good in math.” We need to help them overcome that.

Changing Teacher Practices: Transforming Teaching 101 to PD 101 — Audrey Mendivil (San Diego County)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Shift from Professional Development to Professional Learning.”
  • 5 Principles of Effective PD
    1. On-Going
    2. Support during implementation
    3. Model new practices
    4. Variety of approaches and active engagement
    5. Specific to discipline/grade level
  • Shift from Professional Development to Professional Learning

  • How to Change:
    1. Small Steps. Stick to only 2-3 short term goals.
    2. Rethink Our Norms:

  • Why PD often Fails: How can we set-up for success?
    1) Top-Down Decisions: How can you include teachers in the decision making process?
    2) Little or no support in transferring ideas to the classroom: What support is available?
    3) Idea that teachers need to be fixed: How are you communicating your why?
    4) Lack of variety in delivery modes: How can you differentiate for teachers?
  • Essential Elements. Audrey took us through a terrific activity for those who create Professional Learning experiences. She gave a sets of cards that were color coded, and asked us to work together to sort them into 4-6 groups, and then name the groups.
    She then shared how she grouped them (which is what the color scheme was for). The idea was to take ALL the things that we want teachers to know and do and rather than create a checklist for them, cluster these concepts into Themes or Essential Elements and have teachers learn that.

  1. This was yet another session at NCTM that focused on Vision and the need to put the WHY in front of teachers.
  2. The re-structuring of the norms resonated with me. I’m still thinking deeply on this one. The norms drive the culture of the meetings, so they offer great leverage.
  3. In her call to keep the list of goals short, Audrey discussed the need to set short-term, intermediate and long-term goals. This falls in line with the concept of “leading and lagging indicators.” Student data may take awhile to improve (lagging) so what are the improvements in teacher moves that we can credit to our PD (leading)?
  4. The objective of the card sort activity gets at the heart of what I see killing most PD in districts … too many short-lived initiatives. Keep the broader concepts in mind. Bigger, slower moving targets are easier to hit. 

The Struggle is Real: Tasks, Academic Status, and Productive Problem Solving — Geoff Krall (New Tech Network) 

  • The Big Take-Away = “Developing a culture of productive struggle requires holistic vigilance on the relationships between Quality Tasks, Effective Facilitation & Academic Safety.“

  • Protocols for Problem Solving
    1) Make it visual
    2) Estimate Before Solving
  • Record what students know…
    vs what they are assessed on.
  • Promoting Access:
    Example: Make the smallest (or largest) difference by filling in numbers 1-9 no more than one time each.

I am challenged by Geoff’s two graphs of the linear regression of student growth. My Claims-Based Grading needs a little more work in the area of reflecting cumulative knowledge rather than recent learning.

Logarithmic Earthquake Project: An Algebra 2 Project with Real Applications — Tanisha Fitzgerald-Williams & Beverly Heigre (Notre Dame High School)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Have students view videos of earthquake damage and do their own research on Richter Scale, before formal presentation of calculating Magnitude difference with Logarithms.”
  • Step 1: Research

  • Step 2: Calculations

 

 

 

 

  • Step 3: Student Groups make Presentations
  • Note: Tanisha & Beverly also have students offer possible humane response to victims of earthquake presented.
  • There is a google drive folder available that contains materials for this projects: goo.gl/Y197YR

Clothesline: The Master Number Sense Maker — Chris Shore (Me)

  • The Big Take-Away = “Number sense and conceptual understanding of current content can be taught simultaneously with Clothesline Math.”
  • I presented the power of the Clothesline to teach Algebra, Geometry and Statistics.
  • clotheslinemath.com
  • #clotheslinemath

There were at least 5 sessions at NCTM Annual in which the Clothesline was a part or the focus of the presentation. 

Fun Sidenote: The ceiling rafters and the carpet print of the convention center had the same Geometric Pattern. I am sure there is lesson to be created out of this.

There are videos of keynotes, ShadowCon and Ignite
at NCTM’s Conference 2017 web page.

The city of San Antonio enhanced an already fantastic trip!

 

 

 

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Recap: Greater San Diego 2017

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logo-gsdmcThe Greater San Diego Math Council resurrected its annual conference. After a two year hiatus, Jason Slowbe, Sean Nank and their Council colleagues did miraculous work to bring GSDMC 2017 to life. This Glorious Day was worth all their efforts.

Opening Session (Four Bursts)
Rather than one keynote speaker, four presenters gave brief talks.

Observe Me
pic-kaplinskyRobert Kaplinsky (@RobertKaplinsky),
Downey USD, CA

Robert made two strong points:
1) The #ObserveMe practice, which calls for teachers to invite others to observe them. The key here is that very specific feedback is called for from colleagues.
2) The need for teachers to gain new perspective. Robert shared the story of Febreze. It is a very effective product that initially had a tough time selling, because people were nose blind; in other words, they did not realize how badly their houses smelled. Similarly, teachers will not buy into professional development until they recognize the need for change.  Therefore, we really need to do the work on changing teachers’ perspectives on the results of their practices.

Music Cues
pic-matt-vMatt Vaudrey (@MrVaudrey),
Bonita USD, The Classroom Chef

Matt is well-known for his use of Music Cues to save on transition time in the classroom. In fact, he showed how as much as 21 hours of instruction time a year (a whole month of school!) can be saved with the use of these cues. In my own class, I personally use four of the cues that Matt offers in his Google folder.

Social Justice in Math Education
pic-susie-hSusie Hakansson (@SusieKakansson),
TODOS

Susie told the story of “Carol” and all the barriers to accessing rigorous math courses that she confronted as an Asian girl. Then she revealed that “Carol” was really herself and the experience she had growing up in the American school system. She called for more equity in access for all students, particularly in STEM courses.  “Don’t let test scores, skin color, or adults low expectations to prevent students from taking rigorous math courses.”

The Converging Future of Math and Computer Science
pic-pierre-bPierre Bierre (@pierrebierre),
AlgoGeom

Pierre  drew our attention to the growing number of computer Science courses being offered on high school campuses. Pierre went on to also share how programming can be a terrific problem solving tool in math class. This was a good primer for the number of sessions at the conferences that dealt with programming in math classes.

These quick presentations set a terrific tone for the conference experience.

Math Coaches Panel 
Brenda Heil (@BrendaHeil)
Bethany Schwappach (@MsSchwappach)
Chris Shore (Me) (@MathProjects)

panel-pic

Brenda, Bethany and I each offered up a 10 minute introduction of our roles as math coaches and a particular point of emphasis for math coaches to focus on. The rest of the session was open to questions fielded by our facilitator, Sean Nank.  The conversation was rich, and I learned a great deal from my panel colleagues.

brenda-slideBrenda is a TK, K-1 Coach in Escondido. Her biggest point was avoiding the badge of same… “If I work with a math coach, it means that I suck.” She instead insisted that math coaching training should be advertised as a resource for everyone.

Bethany is a Technology Coach for El Cajon.  She did something interesting by surveying math coaches, prior to the conference, with the question: “What are some of the greatest challenges Math Coaches are assigned to tackle?” The number one response was differentiating professional development for teachers. So Bethany offered two terrific ideas. The first was a Badge System for online “Anywhere, Anytime” PD, much like the structure of online mastery courses for students. The other was the promotion of omnipresent communication of the math coaching program to teachers.

bethany-slide-badges

bethany-slide-comm

I am a Secondary Math Coach in Temecula.  I declared that a math coach’s job is all about relationships as I shared out how many people I deal with to my south (teachers I serve), my east-west (coaching colleagues) and my north (administration). Because of this, the most important question to ask any of them is “How may I best serve you?”

relationship-panel

I also offered three axioms that I believe all math coaches should base their work on. Each of them are quotes from famous researchers.

  • Axiom #1, Dr. William Schmidt, University of Michigan: The greatest determining factor in the quality of the education that students receive is the decisions that the teachers make on a daily basis.
  • Axiom #2, Dr. Kenneth Leithwood, University of Toronto: Indeed, there are virtually no documented instances of troubled schools being turned around without intervention by a powerful leader.
  • Axiom #3, Dr. Maggie McGatha, University of Louisville: The meta-research shows that math coaches are effective. We see small bumps in years 1 & 2, and large spikes in years 3 & 4.

The second one seem to resonate with this crowd.

berray-tweet

From the questions and conversation I learned that …

  • …no two math coaching job descriptions are alike. Everyone’s daily routine was unique, but we all had a common goal… improve classroom math instruction.
  • … most math coaches are tossed into the position with very little support and training. Everyone, including administrators, deem this job important, but seem to be figuring it out as they go along. It was awesome to discover that San Diego County offers math coaching training. This is an idea that should spread to other counties as well.
  • … everyone is optimistic. Math coaches acknowledge that education has a long was to go in improving math instruction, but that we have all seen significant progress despite the challenges.

Clothesline: Algebra, Geometry & Statistics
pic-luevenosDaniel Luevanos  (@DanLuevanos) &
Chris Shore (Me) (@MathProjects)
clotheslinemath.com

I loved presenting with Daniel. He is a Clothesline Math enthusiast who has developed some terrific ideas, particularly on systems of equations.

pic-daniel-system-1
We demonstrated fractions, algebraic expressions, linear systems, solving multi-step equations, vertical angles, special right triangles and statistics (average, range, standard deviation).

pic-twitter-clotheslne-gsdmcMy favorite moment was during the Call to Action when Daniel challenged the teachers to use the Clothesline to enhance their own understanding of mathematics. So I surveyed the room by asking “How many of you today learned something about mathematics itself, not just the teaching of it?” Ninety percent of the room raised their hand!

 

21st Century Conference Ideas
I also want to give a quick shout-out to the GSDMC President, pic-slowbeJason Slowbe, and the rest of the Council for their willingness to experimentation with some new conference formats:

  1. Opening Session Burst: Instead of one keynote speaker, four presenters gave brief presentations within the same hour as the MC greeting.
  2. Genius Bars: Presenters were made available outside of their sessions for participants to meet and ask questions.
  3. Panel Sessions: 3-4 panelists share brief introductions and presentations (15 min), then the remaining hour was open to question by the audience.
  4. Working Lunches: People received their box lunch (part of the registration fee) and then were allowed to sit in the session rooms. Many of these rooms had exhibit presentations.
  5. pic-philippClosing Session Reflection and Evaluations: Closing speaker. Randy Phillip (@rphilipp), asked us all to reflect on one idea that we would take back to our classrooms. After giving us time to ponder, he asked for volunteers to share out publicly. It was an excellent way to have participants reflect on their conference experience and increase the chances of us committing to improve our instructional practices.
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Re-Cap: NCSM 2016

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Oakland, CA , April 2016NCSM Logo

I have summarized each session with some simple (•) bulleted notes, red underline quotes to encapsulate my major take-aways, and occasionally a brief italicized commentary.

Game-Based Learning: The Hype is Starting to Give Way to Some Surprising Substance  — Keith Devlin (Stanford)

  • Pic Keith_DevlinBig Take-Away = Start with the thinking (which is the more important), then follow with the notation.
  • The “Symbolic Barrier”: Symbols are a terrific way to use mathematics, but a horrible way to learn them.
  • The vast majority of our population is taught symbolic notation, yet most need mathematical thinking.
  • Students using Dragon Box Algebra learn the Algebraic thinking needed for solving equations in 90 minutes. However, this ability did not transfer to paper/symbolic test, therefore, both are needed.
  • We teach students to play music, before we teach them to read it. The same should be true of mathematics.

Personal note: I’ve had Dr. Devlin’s book, Goodbye Descartes, for almost 20 years; after his talk he signed it for me.

Developing Deeper Student Thinking  and Reflection — Patricia Rogers (Gilroy USD)

  • Big Take-Away = Use “structured” student collaboration to enhance student reflection, and thus student thinking.
  • Good collaboration needs to be: Regular, Brief, Prepared, Open-Minded.
  • 3 Teacher Moves (Phil Daro)
    • Student thinking made visible (to other students, not just the teacher)
    • “Everyone Ready” (ALL students individually prepare themselves to share thinking.)
    • “Make an Expert” (of a students who has viable strategy) then have the rest of the class “Turn and Talk” when productive struggle weakens in order to focus on targeted math topic.
  • Classroom Discussions (Chaplin, O-Connor, Anderson)
    • Wait Time
    • Revoice (The teacher rephrases what the student just said.)
    • Restate (Student(s) rephrase what a student just said.) 
    • Add-on (Student(s) extend or challenge another student’s conjecture.)
    • Apply (Students apply their own reasoning to someone else’s reasoning …” just try it on.”)

I’ve seen the two techniques of revoicing & restating demonstrated a great deal lately and have now been challenged to bring these into my class more often.

SFUSD logoThe San Francisco USD Mathematics Teaching Toolkit: Changing the Practice Along with the Content — Glenn Kenyon & Kathy Bradley (SFUSD)

  • Big Take-Away = Established Vision, Beliefs and Goals before building district curriculum…

Vision
“All students will make sense of rigorous mathematics in ways that are creative, interactive, and relevant in heterogeneous classrooms.”

Beliefs
1. All students can and should develop a belief that mathematics is sensible, worthwhile, and doable.
2. All students are capable of making sense of mathematics in ways that are creative, interactive, and relevant.
3. All students can and should engage in rigorous mathematics through rich, challenging tasks.
4. Students’ academic success in mathematics must not be predictable on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, language, religion, sexual orientation, cultural affiliation, or special needs.”

3 Goals
1. Help students express, expand and clarify their own thinking. 2. Help students to listen carefully to one another and negotiate meaning.
3. Help students deepen their reasoning.

“The teaching strategies in the SFUSD Math Teaching Toolkit are designed to support an inquiry-based approached to learning mathematics, with an emphasis on classroom discourse. This approach reflects the shifts of pedagogy required to promote the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice.”

  • Unit Design Structure to incorporate tasks

SFUSD Unit Design.png

1) Math Talks
(SMP#3. “Math Talks”, instead of Number Talks, so discussion can broaden {e.g. strategies for computing area})

2) Three-Read Protocol
(Model for close reading of complex math text)
First Read (Teacher Read Aloud) = What is the Situation?
Second Read (Choral Read) = What are the Quantities & Units?
Third Read (Individual Read & Think) = What question can be asked?
This only runs 10-12 minutes. Take away the question to create a rich task.

3) Participation (Group) Quiz A technique to give public feedback on group work. Lists ways a student can contribute (“You can help your group if you can…. create a table, draw a diagram, listen to people’s ideas and ask questions, etc) Also publicly list teacher expectations (e.g. How groups … us shared space? ask question? explain thinking? etc)

  • Video Exemplars & PD modules are available on district web site.
  1. SFUSD has a PHENOMENAL math web site chalked full of resources for supporting teachers implement the vision and the curriculum. Check it out!
  2. The description of their Group Quiz speaks to the need to explicitly teach students how to productively collaborate.
  3. This was the first of three sessions that spoke about the importance of vision. It will be the predominant point that I take home with me from this conference.

Beyond Relevance and Real World: Talking with Teachers About Engagement in Mathematics? — Dan MeyerPic Dan M

  • Big Take-Away = ‘Real World’ does not have to be real, just accessible and engaging.
  • 62% of teachers surveyed : Greatest challenge is “unmotivated” students. Interesting that they didn’t say motivating students was the challenge.
  • Question: Why don’t teachers spend more time developing good questions?
    Teacher Response: “Because we don’t have the time.” (True that.)
    Real Issue: “Lack of creativity. Giving the answers does not require creativity.” (True that, also, but ouch!)
  • A stronger option than the typical “engaging images or context” in a textbook: Redefine Real World. A situation is in the process of becoming real to you if you are able to … 

1. Ask a question about it.
2. Guess about it .
3. Argue about it.

High School Coaching Model: Building Bridges Between Coaching and PLC Culture — Kris Cunningham & Jeanette Scott (Phoenix UHSD)

  • Big Take-Away = Roll out PD through PLC teams.
  • New initiatives first unveiled during PLC team meetings.
  • Most powerful change agent was a lesson study. (1st day by 1 teacher, next day by all teachers)
  • Most teachers took 3-4 years to show change; 4 of 5 teachers showed significant change within 5 years.
  • There exists a Common Lesson Plan format for lessons studies and co-planning.
  • Professional Development certificates tied to evaluations. (i.e. Professional Growth affects evaluation outcome.)

The fact that teachers took 3-4 years to show change aligns with Maggie McGatha’s research shared at last year’s NCSM conference. 

Practicing the Five Practices: Coaching Teachers to Use Student Work in Planning  — Max Ray-Riek (Math Forum)

  • Big Take-Away = Walk teachers through the 5 Practices of Discourse with student work samples.
  • Max shared with us the Teddy Bear’s Banquet pattern problem. He had us determine the Math Goal for the lesson, and then Anticipate the student responses.
  • Max then offered 16 samples of true student responses (Monitor) and then had us Select and Sequence some of the responses for classroom discourse and share why. We were then asked to Connect the responses to the Math Goal.

This is a great training tool that can be brought into any PLC structure.

I also witnessed Max slyly counting on his fingers. This was his way of giving is all wait time on his prompts. 

Smarter Balance – Making Connections: Eliciting to Acting on Evidence —  Judy Hickman (Director of Mathematics, SBAC)

  • Big Take-Away = When the scoring focus is on Reasoning, students can still score full credit with a minor calculation error, if they show understanding.
  • Do NOT put too much emphasis on Interim Assessments. As “snapshots” they will give you good information, but it will be an incomplete assessment.
  • The authors of the exams were shocked that students answered so few questions correctly.

Four Keys to Effective Mathematics Leadership — Mona Toncheff & Bill Barnes  (Activating the Vision )

 

 

 

 

  • Big Take-Away = Vision needs to be created by ALL stakeholders
  • The Four Keys:

1. Establish a Clear Vision for Mathematics Teaching & Learning
2. Support Visionary Professional Learning for Teachers and Teacher Leaders
3. Develop Systems for Activating the Vision
4. Empower the Vision of Family and Community Engagement

This was the second of three sessions that spoke about the importance of vision. This one stressed the need to have all stakeholders (admin, teachers, classified staff, parents and the business community) in on the creation of the vision. Mona & Bill then asked, “If you were ask 10 people on your campus, ‘What is our vision,’ how many answers would you get?”

The Secret to Leading Sustainable Change: Vision, Focus, Feedback, and Action! — Dr. Tim Kanold (Turning Vision into Action )

  • Big Take-Away = Set the Vision, Help people advance the Vision,  Celebrate Evidence that the people are advancing the Vision, and take Action on the feedback towards the Vision. 
  • Sustainable change requires evidence that the change is bigger than their opinions.
  • Is the work you are doing formative? Meaningful feedback must be followed with results in action by the teacher or teacher team.
  • Meaningful Feedback = F.A.S.T. Action: Fair, Accurate, Specific, Timely. Action from your feedback is required.
  • Mary Beth call. Dr. Kanold told a story of when he was Superintendent of Stevenson HSD. He called a secretary at one of the schools, restated that ‘engagement’ was part their district vision, and asked “What does engagement look like in your job.” That’s keeping the vision in front of the people!
  • The Popeye Moment: Change happens when the moment of moral courage vocalizes what Popeye often said, “That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands n’more!“

This was the third of three sessions that spoke about the importance of vision. The story of calling the secretary is tattooed on my brain. Dr. Kanold stressed that the vision should be posted visibly during every PLC meeting, and that any unproductive dialogue can be redirected with the simple statement, “How does this conversation advance this vision?”

A Math Coaching Package — Donna Lione, Rebecca Williams & Chris Shore (Me) (Temecula Valley USD )

 

My colleagues and I presented the framework for developing a comprehensive math program. The details of each of the 8 components will be posted as separate posts.

  • Vision
  • Relationships
  • Humility
  • Influence
  • Passion
  • Faith
  • Focus
  • A Plan
Blog, Common Core, Instructional Leadership, Re-Caps

Recap: CA Mathematics Network Forum, 2015

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Logo CAMNThe 2015 California Mathematics Network is a community of math education leaders from twelve regions in the State. This Conference focused on the NCTM publication Principles to Actions. The book is an amazing resource that discusses what needs to be done in math classes, and what actions need to be taken by teachers and administrators alike to make that happen. It should be read by anyone who has an investment in math education. A good primer is p 5, 10, & 109-116, or check out the Executive Summary. Following are some terrific ideas from the conference speakers on how to implement these Principles.

The Best of the Common Core Closes the Achievement Gap — Dr. Lee Stiff, former NCTM President

  • Lee StiffThe Achievement Gap can best be narrowed through Effective Teaching of the CCSSM Practices.
  • Where do these effective teachers come from? … “from our good work!” (as instructional leaders)
  • The primary purpose of Principles to Actions is to fill the gap between the adoption of rigorous standards and the enactment of practices, policies, programs, and actions required for successful implementation of those standards.
  • NCTM Guiding Principles
    (from Principles to Action)
    Teaching and Learning
    Access and Equity
    Curriculum
    Tools and Technology
    Assessment
    Professionalism
  • NCTM Teaching Practices
    (from Principles to Action)
    1. Establish mathematics goals to focus learning.
    2. Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving.
    3. Use and connect mathematical representations.
    4. Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse.
    5. Pose purposeful questions.
    6. Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding.
    7. Support productive struggle in learning mathematics.
    8. Elicit and use evidence of student thinking.
  • Student placement and support should be based on DATA not DEMOGRAPHICS.
  • We create the gap!!
    Screen Shot 2015-05-21 at 10.50.39 PM

Teaching Practices that Support Student Learning of Mathematics — Peg Smith, University of Pittsburgh

Peg Smith PicDr. Smith had us read through a well-known task, the Hexagon Train, and then analyzed it through the lens of each of the Teaching & Learning Principles in Principles to Actions (Summarized Below):

Hexgon Train

 

 

1. goals
2. tasks
3. representations
4. discourse
5. purposeful questions
6. procedural fluency
7. productive struggle
8. evidence of student thinking

  • It’s all about the task. Choosing the task really matters.
  • “What you put in front of the students frames their opportunity to learn the mathematics.”
  • Have your questions “locked and loaded,” and your responses “in your back pocket.”
  • It’s time to break out of the “postage stamp” lesson plan, (the homework, & examples fit in a little box), and write analytical, anticipatory lesson plans. (This one needs a cute name, too)
  • It’s difficult for teachers to use a high level task. It’s even more difficult for them to use it well.
  • Decrease the complexity of language without decreasing the cognitive demand of the task.
  • “Never Say Anything That a Kid Can Say.” (Article)
  • Writing “SWBT” objectives limit what students learn. Is the goal really to be able to find the length of the hypotenuse or to understand the relationship of the areas of the squares formed by the three sides of a right triangle?
  • Dr. Smith is the co-author of 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Discourse in Mathematics Class.
  • Dr. Smith shared this Principles to Action Tool Kit:

Dr. Smith then asked us to restructure a standard series of textbook questions into a more robust task. The conversation at my table was very rich. It was a briefer version of a lesson makeover, and would be an awesome PD activity.

Smarter Balance Update — Mary Tribbey & Jane Liang

This slide makes two BIG statements:

  1. The Red Dot (•) is along a timeline from the start of the assessment initiative to full implementation. We are still in the early stages of perfecting it.
  2. There do exist Interim Assessments that few schools (including mine) are using to check for student readiness.

Screen Shot 2015-05-19 at 9.52.34 AM

This day was the first I heard of the scaled score for the reporting of the test. It appears that there will now be some reporting on the standards as well as the claims, after all.

Screen Shot 2015-05-19 at 9.53.08 AM

 

Equity-Based Teaching Practices — Karen Mayfield-Ingram, EQUALS Program, UC Berkeley

  1. Mayfield PicGoing Deep with Mathematics
  2. Leveraging Multiple Mathematical Competencies
  3. Affirming Mathematics Learner’s Identity (multiple access points)
  4. Challenging Spaces of Marginality (diminish status within class)
  5. Drawing on Multiple Resources of Knowledge (including culture and experience)

Lesson: “He Was Suspended for Being Mexican” (excerpt from The Impact of Identify in K-8 mathematics Learning and Teaching) This was an anecdote of a teacher who took a students statement, “He was suspended for being Mexican,” and turned into a statistics lesson in which the students had to analyze data to determine if the school policies truly were racist or not. While we can’t tie every topic into a student-oriented context, I think it is a powerful idea that should be done more often.

Technology & Computation — Joe Fielder, Cal State Bakersfield

  • Pic FeidlerAll computation outside the classroom is done by a machine.
  • Machine computation is mostly done with spreadsheets.
  • Hand calculations are only done in math classes. (referenced TED talk by Conrad Wolfram)
  • If we are going to teach students mathematics that is relevant beyond the college entrance exam, we need to give explicit instruction on the tools of computation.
  • TI InspireDr. Fiedler is currently working with the college board to change the SAT to reflect computations done by hand-held graphing calculators.
  • The introduction of the first scientific calculator 1972 was controversial, because teachers were worried that students would no longer be able to use tables.
  • “Students are idle, indifferent, irresponsible in response to absurd work. This is a rational response!”
  • There is no change without a loss. If there is no loss, there is no change. Similarly, literacy diminished the need for memory, but we still teach students to read and write.
  • Yes, part of education’s job is to pass on old knowledge, but it’s not the entire job. It’s time to get with the times.

BREAKOUT: Exploring the Common Core Statistics & Probability Standards — Jim Short, Ventura County Office of Ed

  • Pic Jim Short“Statistics means never having to say your certain.” The irony is that this is what makes math teachers uncomfortable with stats.
  • Teachers are avoiding the teaching of statistics, but the ponderous of the Performance Tasks on State Tests are based on Statistics and Data Analysis.
  • Statistics is more important than Calculus. (referenced TED talk by Benjamin Arnold)
  • From the GAISE Report,
    4 Components of Statistical Problem Solving
    I.   Formulate Questions
    II.  Collect Data
    III. Analyze Data
    IV. Interpret Results
  • You aren’t teaching statistics unless you are teaching modeling.Here are some great tools that we used in the session to generate statistical displays in a spreadsheet:
    g(math) {Google Sheets add-ons}
    Geogebra {box-n-whisker}
    Core Math Tools {NCTM}
    “=norminv(rand(), mean, s.d.)” {Excel Macro for generating a set of normalized data}
    Stats vs Prob

BREAKOUT: The Right Answer is Not Enough — Ivan Cheng, Cal State Northridge

  • PIc Ivan ChengWhat the teacher assesses is what the students think that the teacher values.
  • How is “doing math” defined differently under Common Core versus NCLB? How you answer that questions, determines how you teach and assess under the new standards.
  • After a test, if the teacher can’t state what the student misconceptions are, then the teacher needs to do some more digging.
  • Teachers should use assessment questions that intentionally reveal misconceptions.
  • Why “a” student missed a question is as important as which question they missed.
  • Clicking Smarter Balanced ASSESSMENTS (in SBAC navigation bar) will take you to documents that map targets to standards.
  • “Think about getting through to the kids instead of getting through the textbook.”
  • This sample question demonstrated why the students have issues with the new assessments. The students instantly think that the answer is “20,” because x = 20. Since 20 is not a given situation, they often choose “D: Neither.”

Inequality Sample

My Big Take-Aways

  • The achievement gap can be closed by the effective teaching of the Math Practices.
  • It’s all about the task!!
  • Two Big Words kept coming up: Meaningful & Equity. Equity is achieved by giving all students access to meaningful, high-level mathematics.
  • Get with the times, and start using technology in order to move from computation to deeper, higher mathematics.
  • There are some amazing tools available for Statistics tasks. This is a pervasive topic that needs serious attention and support.
  • Our assessments communicate what we value. The assessments are changing, because our goals are changing. Therefore, we teachers must change our values and practices.
  • We should all read Principles to Action.
  • The Region 10 Team is an amazing group of intelligent, passionate people. I look forward to seeing how we will put all these principles into action.

Region 10

Blog, Re-Caps

Recap: NCSM 2015

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NCSMI spent a terrific week in Boston for the 2015 NCSM & NCTM conferences. I am recapping the NCSM sessions here. I already summarized the NCTM sessions in a previous post.

As with my other Re-Cap, I have summarized each session with some simple (•) bulleted notes and quotes to encapsulate my major take-aways, and occasionally a brief italicized commentary.

While I have been to several NCTM conferences, this was my first NCSM trip. For my new position as math coach, this was experience was very worthwhile.

What the Research Says About Math Coaching? — Maggie McGatha

  • Maggie-McGatha2013Positive, small student increase in 1-2 years, strong spikes after 3-4 years.
    Math Coaching works, but you must be patient. This was my biggest, most encouraging take-away of the conference.
  • Positive teacher growth on incorporating Questioning, Engagement, Conceptual Understanding, Group Work, Discourse & Technology.
  • Spectrum of Coaching
    (least directed is most effective, all are needed)

most directed ——————————- least directed
Model lessons          Co-Planning           Data Reporting
Resources                Co-Teaching           Reflecting

Ironically, the most directed (lesson resources) is what teachers request most often, even though it was the least effective service from math coaches. It still showed teacher growth and student improvement, so this is the logical place to start with teachers. As soon as possible, though, it is better to work side by side with the teachers on these lessons.  The ultimate coaching service, though, appears to be the debrief… having teachers look at student results and contemplate their effect on student learning.

Achieving Equity: Instructional Strategies to Reach All Students (Chicago) — Ruth Seward, Jessica Fulton, Lynn Narasimham

  • RuthSewardThe third largest district in the country has a very structure, organized, intentional professional developement program.
    If a district this large can provide sustained PD for its teachers, then my district should be able to do the same. We just need a plan and a system to implement it. My district has both, but they need to be revisited to include some of the following.
  • Focus on Engagement, Application and Communication
  • Accountable Talk… Just as teachers should question more than tell, we should have students do the same with each other, also.
  • 3-Reads by Harold Asturias
    1) Read aloud to a peer.
    “What is the problem about?”
    2) Read the problem again.
    “What is the question in the problem?”
    3) Read it a third time.
    “What information do you know and not know?”
  • Hierarchy of training:
    Facilitators ->Teacher Leaders -> Teachers
    PD is given to Admin as well as Teachers.
    PD for teachers includes Elbow Coaching (Co-Planning, Co-Teaching, Co-Reflecting)
  • The Five Dimensions of Mathematically Powerful Classrooms
    5 Dimensions
  • We were also shown an example of the types of activities that are promoted in their teacher training. We were asked to place the Decimal/Percent cards in order from least to greatest, and to fill in any blanks. Then we had to match the set of Fraction cards, followed by the Area Model cards, and finally the Number Line cards.
    This would be a great activity to open the year with in ANY class, even an upper level, in order to accelerate number sense and set norms for group work.

Percent activity

Engaging ALL Learners in Mathematical Practice through Instructional Routines — Amy Lucenta & Grace Kelemanik of the Boston Plan for Excellence

  • Amy LucentoThe Standards for Mathematical Practice create open doors to struggling students, not walls.
    This is such a simple, yet profound concept. It was the heart this presentation, and one of the best principles pitched at the conference. I’m a fan, because it is one of the three principles that I shared in my presentation at NCTM .
    SMP doors
  • Not all SMPs are created equal. #1, followed by #2, 7, 8.
    I have heard many people say that the 8 Practices should be a shorter list. It was interesting to see their list.
    SMP scal e2

Hey! What’s the Big Idea? — Greg Tang

  • tang-montageProgressions is the Big Idea?:
    Concepts -> Algorithms -> Speed
    Greg really pushed for a balanced, reasonable approach to teaching math. I have always emphasized the first two, but was challenged to put more effort into the back end. This was one of the Biggest Ideas that I brought home.
  • Number Sense is Key, and can be enhanced through number games.
    I am now addicted to Kakooma
  • “Generalizing your thinking is what makes you smart.”

Reinventing Algebra in a Common Core World — Eric Milou

  • MilouProvocative Statement #1: Dr. Milou laid out an Algebra sequence that pushed the introduction of Quadratic functions to Algebra 2.
  • Provocative Statement #2: Teachers need to to start a grassroots revolution to address the Common Core’s failure to limit the bloated list of standards in high school, since no revision/feedback mechanism exists.
    I was very impressed that NCSM allowed a dissenting view, and I loved the courage with which Dr. Milou spoke. While I find his suggestion having merit in terms of math progressions, I don’t see how it  addresses the glut of standards, so I agree with him that there needs to be a feedback mechanism to address that issue.

Sense-Making: The Ultimate Intervention — Janet SutoriusJanet S

  • Removing the mathematics from context and focusing on procedures prevents students from using their own common sense and sense-making abilities to do mathematics. Struggling students need a contextual framework the most.
    I have always said… naked math comes last.

Hot Topics: Intervention — Matt Larson

  • Matt LarsonDo not pull struggling students out from class. Give them additional learning, instead.
    This was a round table discussion with a big name in the field of math ed. He described some field studies he was involved with in Chicago regarding elementary intervention structures. The big take-away here was to not have intervention students miss class time. Build the time into the day when they receive additional instruction on unmastered topics, and give those who have mastered the topic an enrichment activity.

Occam’s Razor — Eric Hart

  • hart_ericFocus on the Math first (methodology second)
    This echos what I learned from William Schmidt, about focusing on the mathematics, not the methodology.
  • “If we could switch from telling to questioning, we would change the world of math education.”
    A college Professor said this! In public! I pressed him on this statement, which I whole-heartedly agree with, but pointed out the obvious … college math is taught almost entirely through telling. His response was, “That is changing.”
  • Which form of the Quadratic Formula is better? Doesn’t the less conventional one make more conceptual sense?
    This pic got a lot of response on Twitter.
    Quadractic Pic
  • Students in other nations do not spend as much time on factoring as U.S. students. They use the Quadratic Formula to get factors them plug them into the equation.

Nank 2Mathematic Modeling with Strawberries and Video — Sean Nank

  • Sean had us participate in a modeling task that involved a video of himself cutting strawberries. The task walked us through each step of the Common Core’s definition of modeling:
  1. Identifying variables,
  2. Formulating a model by creating and selecting representations that describe relationships between the variables,
  3. Analyzing and Performing operations on these relationships,
  4. Interpreting the results of the mathematics in context,
  5. Validating the conclusions,
  6. Reporting on the conclusions and the reasoning behind them.

Nank Strawberries

The question was simple, “How long will it take to cut the strawberries?” The task, however, was rich and robust. While Dr. Nank allowed the lesson to be very student driven, he still paused before each of the 6 steps above, to direct us in the next segment. It was a great demonstration of how to scaffold the teaching of modeling, instead of the typical errors of “Here kids, now model.” or the “Let me show how modeling is done.”

  • Marilyn MansonMarilyn Manson Pedagogy: “Just shut up and listen.”
    Dr. Nank shared an interesting anecdote. He said after the Columbine shooting, Marilyn Manson was asked what he would say to the kids. He claimed that he wouldn’t tell them anything, he would  “just shut up and listen.” Sean was encouraging us to do the same while the students are working on the various components of modeling.

PAEMST Seminar for Awardees of The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching — Dan Meyer

  • Dandy CandyDandy Candy Lesson
    I have always loved this task. Dan took it so much deeper than I had imagined from his post on it. It was a delicious pleasure to participate in it with its creator.
    The conversation at my table of instructional leaders was how to get teachers to do lessons of this richness and quality. Our teachers back home all readily admit that they need as much scaffolding in teaching these kind of lessons as the students do in learning them.
  • When leading students through a task like this, wait for their questions. “Don’t give away too much, too soon. You can always add, but you cannot subtract.”
  • Dan shared Sean Nank’s/Common Core’s Definition of Modeling. (He also has a great post on modeling.)
    Dan also probed us for our take on it. There was consensus at my table that the definition was solid, but that modeling did not always have to be that comprehensive or limiting. There was also consensus that creating mathematical models from a given context to this degree needs to be done far more often in classes.
  • JerryI met up with Jerry Young of Oregon, a fellow awardee from 2001 whom I really connected with in Washington DC, some 13 years ago. This was a treasured highlight of the trip.

As you can tell, it was a great trip, from which learned a great deal. I am already looking forward to NCSM 2016 in San Francisco.

Blog, Common Core, Re-Caps

Recap: NCTM 2015, Boston

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NCTM Boston CropI had the wonderful opportunity of spending a week in Boston for the 2015 NCTM & NCSM conference. I am recapping the NCTM sessions here, and the NCSM sessions in another post.

Since there was so much information, I have summarized each session with some simple (•) bulleted notes and quotes to encapsulate my major take-aways, and occassional a brief italicized commentary.

This was an enormously worthwhile trip. I highly recommend that you get yourself to San Francisco in April 2016, if you can.

NCTM President’s Address: Five Years of Common Core State Mathematics Standards — Diane Briars

  • Diane Briars“College and Career Readiness” in math calls for Statistics, Discrete Math & Modeling.”
  • Standards are not equal to a curriculum.
    We need to pay more attention to the tasks & activities through which the students experience the content, rather than simply focusing on the content itself.
  • 75% of teachers support Common Core, but only 33% of parents support it, and 33% of parents don’t know anything about it.
    So we have to get the word out.

What Decisions — Phil Daro (1 of 3 writers of CCSSM)

  • Phil Daro“Don’t teach to a standard; teach to the mathematics.”
    This was the most challenging statement of the conference for me, mostly because I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around it. I get what he means, but I have been so trained to state an objective on the board and bring closure to that lesson. He shared that Japanese lesson plans are simply descriptions of the math concepts of the unit rather than the typical American model of objective, examples and practice sets.

The Practices in Practice — Bill McCallum (1 of 3 writers of CCSSM)

  • MCCallumStudents understanding what WILL happen without doing the calculations is an example of Using Structure.
    I took this back to my classroom and immediately applied it in the students’ graphing of quadratic functions. One of the more practical things I took from the conference.
  • “A student cannot show perseverance in 20 minutes. It is done day after day.”
  • Noticing & Wondering applies to teachers looking at student work as well.
    Dr. McCallum was referencing an instructional practice made well-known by Annie Fetter of the Math Forum through which students are asked to closely analyze mathematical situations. He was calling on teachers to focus on and analyze student thinking (not simply answers) just as closely.

Five Essential Instructional Shifts — Juli Dixon

  • DixonShift 1: Students provide strategies rather than learning from the teacher.
  • Shift 2: Teacher provides strategies “as if” from student. “When students don’t come up with a strategy, the teacher can “lie” and say “I saw a student do …”
  • Shift 3: Students create the context (Student Generated Word Problems)
  • Shift 4: Students do the sense making. “Start with the book closed.”
  • Shift 5: Students talk to students. “Say Whoohoo when you see a wrong answer, because we have something to talk about.”
    I felt that I do all of these, but that I have been ignoring Sgift #3 this semester. Dr. Dixon compelled me to give this more attention again. 

Getting Students Invested in the Process of Problem-Solving — Annie Fetter & Debbie Wile

  • AnnieTeachers must stop focusing on answer getting before the students will.
  • Honors Students are used to a certain speed and type of outcome, so they need a different type of scaffolding when it comes to problem solving.
  • “If you are focused on the pacing guide rather than the math, you are not going to teach much.”
    This was one of several comments, including Dr. Daro’s, that bagged on the habit of being too married to a pacing guide of standards.

Motivating Our Students with Real-World Problem-Based Lessons — Robert Kaplinksy

  • Kaplinsky CroppedTo students: “I will only give you information that you ask me for.”
  • Chunking tasks (Teacher talks — Students Think/Pair/Share — Repeat) was demonstrated to allow student conjectures, critiquing reasoning and high engagement.
    Robert modeled his “In-n-Out” lesson. I have seen this several times, but I never get tired of it, because it is awesome. Every time I have witnessed this lesson, teachers cheer when the answer to the cost of a 100 x 100 Burger is revealed. I have never heard this from someone looking up an answer in the back of a textbook. Also, Robert expertly demonstrated how a lesson like this should be facilitated in class by chunking and by getting the students to think of what they need to know.

Getting Students to Argue in Class with Number Sense Activities — Andrew Stadel

  • vQWJdnFF“As the teacher, I feel left out if I don’t know what my students are thinking and discussing.”
  • Discussion techniques
    Andrew is known as “Mr. Estimation 180.” In this session, he showed how to bring SMP #3 into a number sense activity. The new one that I learned from Andrew here was having students stand up … those that choose A face left, B face right, C face forward. Then find someone near you who agrees and discuss. Find someone who disagrees and discuss. That’s Bomb!
  • Calling for Touch Time with the Tools
    In other words, let’s get the kids measuring with rulers, constructing with compasses, building with blocks, graphing with calculators.
  • Chunking tasks to allow student conjectures, critiquing reasoning and high engagement, as I saw with Kaplinksy.

Using Mathematical Practices to Develop Productive Disposition — Duane Graysay

  • duaneDuane and other educators of Penn State created a 5-week course with the intent of developing a productive disposition in mathematical problem solving.
    There were a lot of data showing the effectiveness of this program which focused on teaching the 8 Math Practices. The most amazing and provocative result was shown by this slide in which student felt that the math was actually harder than they thought before the course, but that they felt more competent.

2015-04-18 08.46.25

(SA = Strong Agree, etc)

Shadow Con — A Teacher Led Mini-Conference

  • Michael pershan-219x181There were six worthy educators from the Math Twitter Blogosphere (#MTBoS) that each offered up a brief 10-minute presentation. The uniquely cool aspect of these talks is the Call to Action at the end of each. In other words, you have to do something with what you learned.
  • Michael Pershan’s talk: Be less vague, and less improvisational with HINTS during a lesson. Instead, plan your hints for the lesson in advance.
    This one resonated most with me, because I once heard that Japanese teachers have a small deck of cards with hints written on them. To draw a hint card, students have to first show effort and progress, then they may draw a hint card. They must use each hint before they may draw another. I accept Michael’s call to action.

 Ignite — Math Forum

  • IgniteThese were a series of 5 minute/20-slides mini-presentations that were more inspirational than informational. Apparently they are part of a larger movement (Ignite Show), but the folks at Math Forum have been organizing these Ignite Math Sessions at large conferences for a few years.
    If want to get fired up about teaching math, these sessions definitely live up to their name. 

Can’t wait for next year!