Successful School Instructional Cultures

1. Successful School Instructional Cultures Mike Pacheco mpacheco@doe.nv.gov

2. Some Norms… • You will have to interact with the people around you • I ask that you try • You will most likely have to share what you’re thinking • Struggling is good! • And most importantly……

3. It is ok to be wrong! • Correct answers are not the most important part of math, in the math classroom When presenting learning tasks to students, the teacher should portray challenges as fun and exciting, while portraying easy tasks as boring and less useful for the brain. When students initially struggle or make mistakes, the teacher should view this as an opportunity to teach students how to try different strategies if the first ones don't work—how to step back and think about what to try next, like a detective solving a mystery. –Carol Dweck Dweck, C. S. (2010). Even geniuses work hard. Educational Leadership, 68(1), 16-20.

4. Lets Get Started • Each table has a baggie full of paper • Work alone (If possible) • Sort the papers into two groups: Productive Beliefs Unproductive Beliefs

5. Then why do I always see this:

6. And I still see:

7. Teaching MathMathematical Practices-Nevada’s K-12 Standards • Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them • Reason abstractly and quantitatively • Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others • Model with mathematics • Use appropriate tools strategically • Attend to precision • Look for and make use of structure • Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

8. Teaching MathMathematics Teaching Practices-Principals to Actions • Establish mathematics goals to focus learning • Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving • Use and connect mathematical representations • Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse • Pose purposeful questions • Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding • Support productive struggle in learning mathematics • Elicit and use evidence of students thinking

9. Team Building • The first week of school (First day if possible) • Challenge students • Spend time reflecting • Record/Post successful strategies • Praise effort and reason over quick answers

10. Math as Team Building • Challenge students • Nothing reinforces negative mindsets more than “easy” math • Use some of the same structures as the non-math tasks • Debrief on strategies as well as the mathematics • Structures help

11. Mathematics Tasks • As real world as possible • As meaningful to students as possible • Context • Challenging • Teacher should not validate or invalidate student thinking

12. Math Task: • Many problems can be solved in different ways. Decide if the following word problems can be solved using multiplication. Explain your thinking. Then solve each problem. • Liam is cooking potatoes. The recipe says you need 5 minutes for every pound of potatoes you are cooking. How many minutes will it take for Liam to cook 12 pounds of potatoes? • Mel is designing cards. She has 4 different colors of paper and 7 different pictures she can glue on the paper. How many different card designs can she make using one color of paper and one picture? • Nina can practice a song 6 times in an hour. If she wants to practice the song 30 times before the recital, how many hours does she need to practice? • Owen is building a rectangular tile patio that is 4 tiles wide and 6 tiles long. How many tiles does he need?

13. Lets do some math… • Without talking to others please create a model that shows what happens in the math problem: 3 X 4

14. Great work! • Using your favorite model from the last task, please model:

15. Additional Math Culture Rants • Speed • Gender • Tracking • Vocabulary • Homework

16. Homework Assignment What were the main mathematical concepts or ideas that you learned today or that we discussed in class today? ____________________ What questions do you still have about ____________________? Describe a mistake or misconception that you or a classmate had in class today. What did you learn from this mistake or misconception? ____________________ How did you or your group approach today’s problem or problem set? Was your approach successful? What did you learn from your approach?____________________ Describe in detail how someone else in class approached a problem. How is their approach similar or different to the way you approached the problem? ____________________ What new vocabulary words or terms were introduced today? What did you learn from the debate? ____________________ What was the big mathematical debate about in class today? What did you learn from the debate? ____________________ How is____________________ similar or different to ____________________ ? What would happen if you changed ____________________? What were some of your strengths and weaknesses in this unit? What is your plan to improve in your areas of weakness?____________________ Boaler, J. (2016). Mathematical mindsets: Unleashing students’ potential through creative math, inspiring messages and innovative teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey. 49.

17. Vocabulary • Don’t front-load1 • Discuss in terms of the concepts post investigation • Come up with a consensuses definition • Then name the word • Display the word • Use the word and prompt students to use the word. • Don’t front-load1 1. Unless the word is a not the concept you are learning or you are required to by the person who evaluates you

18. Contact Mike Pacheco mpacheco@doe.nv.gov