Where to go with teachers once they've drank the Kool-Aid??
So for the past 6 years my main job has been to teach a 3-credit PD course for inservice teachers. The course is based off Cognitively Guided Instruction, Jerome Bruner, Cathy Fosnot’s work, Realistic Math Education, John Van de Walle’s work, and many others depending upon the grade band of the course. In the PD course, our goal is to help teachers see math through the lens of student thinking and how to teach conceptually on the way to understanding procedures. We try to get teachers to consider a different way to teach math besides jumping straight to algorithms without understanding. So really to me, that PD course has helped open teachers’ eyes to a way of teaching that most of them never experienced. Every time I teach I hear multiple times comments like, “Why weren’t we taught math this way?” The course gives them a glimpse of teaching math a different way, but often teachers think it is great, but not practical. They have too much to teach to be able to teach it in the way we suggest, the parents won’t like it, and on and on. There are lots of factors to consider when changing the way it has always been done, but many teachers do walk away from the course wanting to change.
The other part of my job is going into the schools in the 14 districts that I serve within my region of our state to help teachers implement the ideas from the course. My job has no “normal” but often I work with individual teachers or a school staff on specific items that has been identified as an area of need by the teachers. However, this year I have two different groups (one group has teachers from the same district and one group from multiple districts), both include teachers from Kindergarten up to 12th grade, and I’ve been asked to work with them yet without any direction. The challenge comes from having such a large span of grade levels. Most of them have “drank the Kool-aid,” they believe there is a better way to teach math and are ready for the next steps. Many of them in the groups have worked with me in the past as we investigated the 5 Practices book and Accessible Mathematics. Both of those books gave us a framework to talk about implementing ideas into their classrooms and allowed teachers of the various grade levels to see how the ideas would work with their students and their content. Now I’m starting to run out of ideas and resources to use with these groups. I’ve spent this time while teachers were not in school reading through books in hopes of finding something that would help me with these diverse groups of teachers. I found stuff here and there, but not one resource that I could use as a theme of our work. Do any of you out there have some suggestions of resources to help with implementation once you understand the theory???
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I just found your blog today and read just a little bit but can’t wait to read more! I love your philosophy and your job has some similarities to mine. I just wanted to share a book that we are using in our district, maybe you’ve already heard of it, Number Talks. It’s about engaging kids in rich mathematical discussion around problem solving and mental math. The clips on the DVD are great and help teachers to really understand what that can look like in their classroom. Thanks for your great blog!
I do have Number Talks and would love to use it but feel like it might leave out the middle and high school teachers. However, I could use Building Powerful Numeracy by Pamela Weber Harris for them???
A tricky one, this is !
I gave it some thought and figured out that a visit to the real world and the origins of math was in order.
Conclusion: Measurement is the root of math. The simplest non simple situation is the measurement of area.
From simple figures (square, rectangle) to a ragged edge figure. Using paper, counting squares etcetera, finding the weight of a sheet, weighing small amounts
To surface areas, including a sphere
To areas under curves, rectangular strips, approximating curves – numerical methods (calculus methods if some of the teachers are there)
There is something at every level.
Measurement of speed is fun as well, from simple “how far is it, how long did it take you?”, or even “Who runs fastest?”, to “How do you measure the speed of a car? How does a speedometer work? How did they measure the speed of light?”.
There is so much math buried in all this, it’s scary!
Get them in groups to work up a lesson and use the others as guinea pigs. If nothing else is achieved the teachers will all get a broader view of something (the pessimist speaks !).
I love the idea of a measurement theme. I also like the idea of an estimating theme and a reasonableness theme.
At one point, I worked with a similar group, having a very wide range of levels and mastery. I purchased a few of the following books and held more of a reading workshop around great mathematical thinkers. Participants got to choose the book they wanted to read. They were responsible to keep a metacognition log as they read and they wrote two literature letters to me, and I wrote letters back. During part of our time together, we would spend time in book circles discussing what they learned so far and how they were planning to use what they learned in the classroom.
Then, as a culminating activity, each group had to create a “Math Super Hero” based on what they learned from the reading. It was hilarious, very worthwhile, and the participants seemed to really enjoy themselves.
Here’s a few of the books I offered:
Math worksheets don’t grow dendrites by Marcia Tate
Math exchanges by Kassia Omohundro
Good questions for math teaching by Peter Sullivan
Teaching student centered mathematics by John Van de Walle
Making thinking visible by Ron Ritchart
Building math comprehension by Laney Sammons
Guided math by Laney Sammons
Teaching Numeracy by me and my co-author
About teaching mat by Marilyn Burns
I love your blog and can’t wait to read all the great ideas people are sharing.
Oh my! I love this idea!!! That way teachers at various levels can pick something that appeals to them yet bring it back to the larger group. You got my wheels spinning now…I shouldn’t have read this at midnight! I don’t know that I’ll sleep now. 🙂
Definitely a cool idea. A colleague of mine did a day workshop on this very idea for upper elementary teachers while I was working with K-2…I think I need to chat with him and steal some ideas. Thanks, Howard.
I have been on a very similar path as a math consultant also working with a regional area. Much of your description resonates with me. While I don’t have a particular resource to suggest, I will give you a brief description of how I moved forward from K-8 PD into a more focused grade level focus. I am currently in my second year of a pilot project that I initiated with five schools. Our focus is to take the “kool-aid” as you described and put it into action. We are in a state that has adopted the CC math standards and schools are needing lots of support to figure out best practices for math instruction. While this is not a new issue, the adoption of the CCSS has provided a new sense of urgency to really examine math instruction and think past the excuses you mentioned many teachers have. I convinced the administrators to let me start working with teams of teachers by grade level rather than the whole K-8 group. I talked long and hard about the benefits of PD for the K-8 group and the weaknesses. I felt that we had reached the end of the benefits and would need opportunities to work in more focused groups to support any kind of meaningful and productive implementation forward. If you are interested, I would be willing to talk with you more about our work and how things are going.
Thank you, Angie, I will email you as I’d love to learn how you have approached this ever changing job. 🙂 I personally prefer when I get to work with grade levels or smaller grade bands, but this year have been asked to work with a couple K-12 groups and it is proving to be way more challenging than the K-5 groups I normally work with.
Lanny Sammons implementation guide is a good one. It’s like a supplement book to her actual guided math book. Both are good.
Thank you. I have not read the Guided Math books, but I did have some interest from the high school math teachers in one of the groups to learn more about doing small group work. Most of what I find on that is written for elementary teachers…anyone know of a good book geared more toward high school math teachers?
Unfortunately, I have not found 1 source, either; however, there is a great resource I use to supplement all of the conceptual training I have had (Singapore Math and Model Drawing and Math Foundations). I use Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s On Core Mathematics. There are black line masters and teacher editions available along with background info for the teacher and a mini-lesson for students. Also practice for students. Used merely as a supplement!
Any resource to help teachers navigate that space between getting students away from drawing pictures and to drawing models is appreciated. Thank you for sharing.