Leadership: Establishing and Facilitating Collegial Mathematics Learning Teams

1. Leadership:Establishing and Facilitating Collegial Mathematics Learning Teams March 21, 2016 Session 1A Vickie Inge, Adjunct Professor VCU Jolene Lambert, Mathematics Specialist Lee County Schools Sponsored by the Virginia Council of Mathematics Specialists

2. Turn and Talk Please introduce yourself to your neighbors. Your name and where you work?

3. Teacher Leadership-- • ---a process by which teachers, individually or collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of school communities to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement. (Center for Comprehensive School Reform, 2008, pp. 287-288)

4. (Center for Comprehensive School Reform, 2008, pp. 287-288)

5. Framing Questions • What can being a part of a collegial professional learning team do for me and my work? • What do mathematics professional learning teams do? • What can I do as a leader to encourage and facilitate a mathematics professional learning team?

6. What does collaborating with a collegial professional learning team do for me and my work? The word 'team' derives from the use of oxen or bullocks shackled together to create a focused, shared force for transporting heavy materials.

7. From Dr. Kildare to Medical Teams Today Yesterday

8. From Perry Mason to Legal Teams Today Yesterday

9. Work Alone Teacher of the 1950s… Yesterday

10. Work Alone Teacher of the 21st Century • How can teachers use what we know about the power of teams to support their own high stakes challenges? • What can we do instructionally so that Every Student Succeeds and every child becomes Mathematically Proficient? Today

11. Think about these three words- professional community learning • What visual representations come to your mind? • Describe your picture to your shoulder partner.

12. Definition of a Professional Learning Community “Professional” is someone with expertise in a specialized field, an individual who has not only pursued advanced training to enter the field, but who is also expected to remain current in its evolving knowledge base. “Community” is an environment that fosters mutual cooperation, emotional support, and personal growth as they work together to achieve what they cannot accomplish alone. “Learning” suggests ongoing action and perpetual curiosity. It means to study and to practice.

13. Core Dimensions for Successful PLCs • (a) a shared mission, vision, and goals targeting student learning, • (b) a collaborative culture with a focus on learning, • (c) collective inquiry into best practice and current reality, • (d) action orientation: learn by doing, • (e) a commitmentto continuous improvement, and • (f) results orientation assessment of the actions • (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008)

14. Start Small within the Bigger Community-Mathematics Learning Team 2 colleagues 3rd grade Algebra Teachers “Meaningful collaboration arises out of genuine interests or purposes held in common” (Hawley & Rollie, 2002, p. 48). 3 math coaches from different schools 6th and 7th grade math Etc. 8th and 9th grade math teachers

15. Could working in professional learning team(s) in your school, department, and/or grade levelprovide support for you and your colleagues as professional mathematics educators? What are the teacher needs in your building? Take a few minutes to use the list of indicators on page 6 of your information packet to self-assess your school.

16. Experiencing Activities as a Math Professional Learning Team --

17. Doing Mathematics Together and Planning Together

18. Mathematics Learning Team Doing Math and Planning Together • 1. Consider individually at least two ways to solve the problem. Record your thinking strategies, solution methods. • a. Look for different ways to solve the task based on various mathematics ideas and/or representations. • b. Identify common errors students might make and the misunderstanding behind each error. • c. Think about questions that you might ask students along the way. • 2. Share your solutions at your Learning Team. • 3. Order the Learning Team solutions to make a mathematical progression based on solutions using less sophisticated mathematical ideas to more sophisticated ideas. Consider the range of where students might be on the mathematics progression. Information Packet, page 8

19. Whole Group Debrief In your tables discuss how doing the mathematics with a team and thinking about the learning progression can help when • planning the lesson, • facilitating the lesson, and • assessing students’ thinking, discussions, and work for misconceptions and for strengths?

20. Learning Progressions • Description of successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a big idea • Provide a framework for long-term development • Describe what it means to move towards more expert understanding in an area • Gauge increasing competence over time • A sequence of successively more complex ways of thinking about how an idea develops over time • Consider how ideas build upon each other to form more complex practices or ideas Jim Pellegrino, University of Illinois

21. Mathematical Progression of Essential Understandings Extracted from2009 Virginia Curriculum Framework • 5.2 - relationship between fractions and their decimal form and vice versa. • - fractions and decimals can be compared and ordered from least to greatest and greatest to least. • 5.14 - a sample space represents all possible outcomes of an experiment. • 6.1 A ratio is a comparison of any two quantities. A ratio is used to represent relationships within a set and between two sets • 6.2 Fractions, decimals, and percents are three different ways to express the same number. • 6.16 Events are independent when the outcome of one has no effect on the outcome of the other. (probability) • 7.9 Theoretical probability of an event is the expected probability and can be found with a formula (rule).

22. Resources for Identifying Mathematics Learning Progressions • Standards of Learning Curriculum Frameworks • SOL Vertical Technical Assistance Documents, http://www.doe.virginia.gov/instruction/mathematics/professional_development/index.shtml then click on 2001: Facilitating Students’ Mathematics Understanding • Mathematics Progressions by content strands for Common Core Mathematics http://math.arizona.edu/~ime/progressions/

23. Background Information for a 6th Grade Math Teamin our simulation of a Collegial Learning Team • The 6thmath teacher team meets 60 minutes • The teachers have been meeting for 1.5 years. • All have committed to attending each meeting, participating fully, and keeping the focus of each meeting on instruction and student learning. • Teachers take turns preparing the agenda and facilitating the meeting. At the end of each meeting they record decisions and agreements that were made and they provide next meetings facilitator with points for the agenda. Group decisions made during the first year to build a foundation for their working together to improve teaching and student learning.

24. BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR WORKING TOGETHER QUESTIONS What are our core beliefs about what students need to learn in mathematics class and how should they learn mathematics? Virginia Standards of Learning Content Standards Number & Number Sense Computation & Estimation Measurement Geometry Probability & Statistics Patterns, Functions, & Algebra • Math Process Goals • Mathematical Problem Solvers • Communicating Mathematically • Reasoning Mathematically • Mathematical Connections • Mathematical Representations True mathematical understanding lies at the intersection of the Content Standards and Process Goals (Information Packet, page 4).

25. Building a Foundation for Working TogetherWhat does it mean to be Mathematically Proficient?(Information Packet, page 3) Read free online at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10434/helping-children-learn-mathematics (Kilpatrick & Swafford, 2002)

26. What are our core beliefs about what it means to be proficient or “good at math”? • The teachers have accepted that the term mathematical proficiency embraces the aspects of expertise, competence, knowledge, and facility in mathematics that is critical to express what it means for anyone to learn mathematics successfully. • These ideas provided an understanding and a common language for the teachers to target and discuss the development of their students in mathematics. • Downloaded, for free, the brief 37 page booklet, Helping Children Learn Mathematics so that they could examine what research informs us about what children today need to know about mathematics.

27. Building the Foundation for Working Together Based on research-proven practices, what are our core beliefs about teaching mathematics ? Effective NCTM, Principles to Actions, p. 10

28. This group of 6th grade teachers decided they wanted to learn more about the practices indicated and about planning an inquiry standards-based lesson. Effective NCTM, Principles to Actions, p. 10

29. Mathematics Learning Team ActivitySimulation Looking at Student Work (LASW)

30. Analyzing Student Work in a Math Learning Community • Take a few minutes to individually consider the sample of 2 student’s work in the red enevelop. Then, as a table group, analyze each of the solution strategies and consider the following questions: • Where are each of these students in the mathematics learning progression? • What do students understand? • What are the misunderstandings? Be prepared to share your analysis with the whole group.

31. Whole Group Debrief • Table groups share • Where are each of these students in the mathematics learning progression? • What do students understand? • What are the misunderstandings? • What are some of the benefits of a mathematics learning team examining student work together?

32. Examining Student Work:An Important Tool for Figuring out the Instruction-Learning Puzzle • Helps build common understanding of knowledge and skills students need • Leads to discussions of work quality • What are we considering proficient? • Neutral, observable data • Challenges assumptions • Supports a culture of improvement

33. Looking at and Learning From Student Work Protocol • Purpose of the Protocol: Help us discover what students understand and how they are thinking to help inform instruction and planning. • Protocol Steps: • 1. Share student work with the team and provide brief description of assignment • 2. Make sense of task • 3. Describe student work • 4. Interpret student work • 5. Implications for classroom practice • 6. Reflection • 7. Debrief Information Packet, pages 9-12

34. Student work is one of the concrete, definitive measures of student achievement that teachers have at their fingertips every day. • Whether teachers use this work as a • formative assessment to determine their own instructional next step or • whether they use it to work with their students to analyze progress and set learning goals,

35. Looking at student work can be a valuable data point IF… Prior to Planning the Lesson Teachers do the task and ask the following-- What are we asking students to do? What is the mathematics behind the task? • Do the problem • Make a list of the skills/concepts/understandings • What would a proficient student need to do to be successful? • Make a list of the criteria for success • Prioritize the list – What is critical for the student to have in place to be proficient?

36. Math Learning Team Activity Planning Together Spend about 10 minutes reading the article Thinking Through a Lesson: Successfully Implementing High Level Tasks by Smith, Bill & Hughes. (Pages 133-137) While reading, think carefully about the lesson planning protocol. In particular, consider: • How is planning in this way different than typical lesson planning? • What are the benefits for using a protocol such as this one? • How does lesson planning in this way support the five VA Process Goals (please give specific examples)?

37. What can I do as a leader to encourage and facilitate a mathematics professional learning team?

38. Start Small within the Bigger Community 2 colleagues 3rd grade Algebra Teachers 3 math coaches from different schools 6th and 7th grade math ???? “Meaningful collaboration arises out of genuine interests or purposes held in common” (Hawley & Rollie, 2002, p. 48). 8th and 9th grade math teachers

39. Mathematics Professional Learning Teams Support Growth in Mathematics Teaching • What are Professional Learning Teams? • Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) are small teams of teachers who meet together regularly to collaboratively learn, investigate, and implement research-based teacher practices in service to improving student learning. A Facilitator’s Guide to Professional Learning Teams http://www.serve.org/uploads/files/Facilitator's_Guide_PLTs.pdf The SERVE Center for Continuous Improvement at UNC Greensboro

40. Mathematics Learning Team Members in Action • The work of the learning team may include such activities • as studying and discussing research-based and research-proven effective mathematics teaching practices, • planning and implementing new strategies, • designing common lessons, • designing common assessments, • examining student work, • working together to modify strategies, and • documenting the results of the team's work.

41. Think-Pair-Share

42. Stepping up to Leadership Supporting Collegial Mathematics Learning Teams

43. Getting Started Logistics • What colleague(s) may want to join with you? • How will you recruit a few colleagues? • What ideas do you have about when your team can meet? • Other questions you have.

44. Be Patient  and Persistent! Bruce Tuckman's 'Forming Storming' Team Development Stages Model (1965)

45. An attitude of confidence and initiative are key components of professional leadership. (Hurst and Reding, 2000)

46. Adults learn best not merely by listening, reading, or doing but by REFLECTINGon what they hear, read or do. York-Barr, Sommers, Ghere, & Montie. Reflective Practice to Improve Schools: An Action Guide for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA:Corwin Press. 2001.

47. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” 
~ John Quincy Adams http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_quincy_adams.html

48. Contact Information • Vickie Inge vickieinge@gmail.com • Joleen Lambert Joleen.lambert@leecountyschools.net • Virginia Council of Mathematics Specialists at vacms.org • Note that a reference and resource list has been included in your information packet for this session.