Washington State Math Coaches

1. Washington State Math Coaches March 22 & 23, 2010 Yakima, WA klind11@comcast.net

2. Welcome! • Introductions • Logistics for the day • Conversation Starters – Talk to people with different color papers than yours. One starter per person, record names, create a mental image.

3. Goals for Our Time Together • Enjoy math with our colleagues. • Share coaching/leadership ideas with one another. • Look at alignment of the state PEs and Common Core Standards. • Examine Best Practices for teaching math. • Learn (or revisit) strategies for continuing coaching work.

4. Framing Questions • Write what you hope to learn or questions that you have about math in the frame. • As we progress through the next two days, record a sentence or two about each topic you want to remember and connect it to your ideas/questions.

5. Focusing Our Work • Reflect on the Best Practices Sheet. • How would you know if you saw this practice in a classroom? How would it look? Sound? Feel? (Indicators) • Where have you seen it? What do you wish were happening in classrooms at your school? (Needs Assessment)

6. Make a Plan • What would your teachers choose as a focus? • What would you need in order to make a difference in this area? • What strategy could you use to initiate a conversation around the Best Practices?

7. Take a Break • Back in 15 minutes!

8. Take a Break • 5 more minutes

9. Take a Break • 1 minute and counting!

10. Reconvene!

11. Just a Little Math • You need a Folding Fractions worksheet and some patty paper. • You are creating fractions of the diagonal of the paper. • How can you be sure of the fractions you are finding? You must be able to justify each one.

12. Starting and Restarting Coaching • Enroll • Model • Observe • Co-Teach • Collaborative Conversations • Identify A Student Learning Problem • Read Together • Examine Student Work

13. Enroll • Use data. • Don’t pretend! • Listen – really! • Set goals together. • Be worthy of trust. • Respect perspectives and goals. • Persist. • Give options.

14. Model • Beware being the “expert”. • Lesson Study • Give the teacher something active to do in an observation.

15. Observe • How is your observation different from an evaluation observation? • Establish what you are looking for. • Stay focused on the students. • Use protocols. • Help teachers be explicit about their teaching moves. Affirm what they are doing right.

16. Co-Teach • There is always a lead and support teacher. • Co-planning is the key. • Establish roles and a purpose.

17. Collaborative Conversations

18. Identify a Student Learning Problem • What is getting in the way of students making progress? • Who is making progress? Who is not? • What is in our control? • Don’t leave a problem conversation without a plan to try.

19. Read Together • Never Say Anything A Kid Can Say – NCTM Mathematics Teacher • Developing Mathematical Understanding through Multiple Representations – NCTM Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School • Springing Into Active Learning – ASCD Journal • How Students Learn Mathematics – National Academies Press

20. Examine Student Work 1. The teacher who is this meeting’s student work provider sets the context. • Teachers examine work for 3 focal students silently. Then they discuss their concrete evidence and interpretations for each student. • The group proposes diagnostic questions and follow up activities. • Each member makes plans and commitsto a follow up.

21. Lunch! • One hour to relax and connect.

22. Facilitate Student Discourse • Work on the “Strings” by sorting the cards into groups that appear to have commonalities. • Separate each group into subgroups. What do they have in common? Write the reason for your subgroups on a 3x5 card. • Can you think of other sub-groupings? Add to your 3x5 card.

23. Facilitating Student Discourse • Watch the videos. What is significant about each stage of the lesson? • What would you affirm for the teacher? • What are you wondering? • How does the teacher support learning, get at the heart of misconceptions and encourage the students to make meaning of the notions?

24. Break! • Reconvene in 15 minutes!

25. Creating Rich Tasks • Discuss at your tables – What makes a rich task? • Use the problem stems to fuel your ideas. Expand one to make a rich task. Put on a poster • Post your problems around the room. • Gallery walk for feedback – an affirmation and a question.

26. Rich Tasks • have engaging contexts. • are accessible and offer opportunities for initial success, challenging the learners to think for themselves. • allow for different methods and different responses (different starting points, different middles and different ends). • have the potential to broaden students' skills and/or mathematical content knowledge. • promote discussion and communication. • have the potential to reveal underlying principles or make connections between areas of mathematics. • encourage learners to develop confidence and independence as well as to become critical thinkers.

27. Whew! • At your tables, create a summary of today’s learning. • What resonated with you? What would you like to think more about? What additional information would you like to get?

28. Day 2 – Welcome Back • Pick up a dot for your nametag. Red Elementary Blue Middle School Green High School Yellow Other Job! At your tables, put your questions on 3x5 cards -

29. State and Common Core Standards • Examine closely the Algebra 1 standards from Washington State and the Common Core Standards. • Use the Comparison Chart to find the similarities and differences between the two. • Be prepared to give feedback to Greta about the standards. • You may choose another level if you wish! Visit www.corestandards.org to choose a level.

30. Break • Reconvene in 15 minutes! • Connect groups of 5.

31. Don’t Forget the Norms! • Pausing • Paraphrasing • Putting inquiry at the center • Probing for specificity • Placing ideas on the table • Paying attention to self and others • Presuming positive intentions

32. Math Leadership Issues • Choose numbers 1 – 5 in your group. • Go to the Discussion Group that matches your number. • Your facilitator will pose a question. Keep track of the thoughts of the group as you discuss for 25 minutes. • Return to your group of 5 for sharing big ideas.

33. Big Four James Knight Instructional Coaching • Management • Content • Pedagogy • Assessment

34. Lunch! • One hour to relax and connect.

35. Absolute Value Problems • We will be doing a math problem together. • If you would like help – ask! • Sharing our thinking. • Back to the Big Four…

36. Break • Take a quick break! • Reconvene in groups that have at lest 1 person from each grade level… no more than 6 people

37. We Need a Little More Fun ! • Laughter – the best medicine…

38. Play a Little Math Relay Everybody in you group must play. Share the problems. Nobody will finish all of them! There is a prize for the winning team.  GO!

39. Reflect back on the last two days • Enjoy math with our colleagues. • Share coaching/leadership ideas with one another. • Look at alignment of the state PEs and Common Core Standards. • Examine Best Practices for teaching math. • Learn (or revisit) strategies for continuing coaching work.

40. Celebrating Our Last Time Together

41. Complete Your Evaluation • Complete your evaluation – • Travel safely and come back next year! • What are you committed to trying? • klind11@comcast.net