yTaking Action Book Study: Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Pulling it All Together

Reflect:

After reading Chapter 10, please reflect on the questions below and post your response by Monday.

Respond:

The authors conclude this book by stating: Changing one's teaching is hard work that takes sustained and meaningful effort over time. Enacting the effective mathematics teaching practices will improve with experience, thorough and thoughtful lesson planning, and deliberate reflection.

As you think about the 8 Effective Mathematical Teaching Practices, which one(s) do you want to be more intentional with? What will you do to make this happen? Is there anything that we {your colleagues} can do to support you?

Interact:

On Tuesday, read your colleagues' reflections and respond to at least one other post by sharing a comment, insight, or interesting possibility by Thursday.

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Susan Heater (TSD) · 255 weeks ago

I want to be more intentional with supporting productive struggle in learning mathematics. I will work on affordance responses. I want to make sure I give the students the opportunity to linger in their thinking. I want to motivate them without telling or diminishing the cognitive demand of the task. In order to promote productive struggle, I think it is also very important to have rich, demanding tasks that allow for productive struggle. I have been using 3-Act Tasks from Graham Fletcher, and also open middle tasks. I like that these are low floor-high ceiling tasks. I would like to continue to use these while I work on my questioning and scaffolding to make sure I am guiding them too much, but rather inspiring them. I feel that this is a wonderful group of people that really share a passion for teaching. Keep inspiring me to reflect and learn and I will feel very supported!

2 replies · active 254 weeks ago

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Caty Carino · 255 weeks ago

Susan,
I am right there with you! This one has been a tough one for me always because I just want to guide them to the right way/answer. However, after reading this I realized I am only hindering their learning a bit. I think the incorporation of rich tasks is perfect for productive struggle. I also think it would be easy to differentiate with your different types of learners with rich tasks.

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shawnseeleydotcom 44p · 254 weeks ago

Susan,
In my physical class, I'm in the same boat as you. These tasks have been a game-changer for my students. I've found this is much more difficult (like everything else) with remote learning. I was excited to have a few of my parents reach out this past week and ask for math help because they didn't know how to work with fractions. It was a great opportunity to have parents model productive struggle with their children.

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Caty Carino · 255 weeks ago

I think I really grew as a teacher with mathematics while reading this and I am excited to continue learning and growing. Of the eight practices the one I want to be more intentional with is facilitating meaningful mathematical discourse. It is not that we don't have great math conversations already in class, I just want to make them more meaningful and for the students to feel comfortable sharing all their ideas. Often, I feel that it is a conversation I am leading and I am ping ponging off students. I would like to create an environment where it is a conversation and students analyze each other's approaches to mathematics. I also want them to "argue" with their mathematics. I think this important because it creates a safe environment where ideas can be shared, students are willing to risks with their learning, and it helps develop a deeper understanding. I think for this to actually happen I need to make phrase cards for students to use. I also need to be more mindful when I am choosing student work to share and really work on my sequencing. I think in the beginning of the year it will be heavily modeling but then the students would be able to have that discourse with one another and I can be a viewer rather than a leader.

2 replies · active 254 weeks ago

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Susan Heater (TSD) · 255 weeks ago

I love the idea of focusing on Mathematical Discourse. I did so in the current year and it really paid off. I am, of course, not an expert in this area! But, being intentional about providing opportunities for mathematical discourse both with time and with rich tasks made math a lot more fun for the kids, and their grasp of the contents went far deeper than it has in previous years!

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Stephanie Clement · 254 weeks ago

I agree! SO many great, new ideas to try and I really love them all. They were all so worth it for kids and their learning. I also agree with making discussions more meaningful and planning for them a little better. It really makes a big difference when you have planned out how you want your conversation to go.

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Stephanie Clement · 254 weeks ago

This book has been really great. I've learned a lot of great tips, activities, and ideas to try in my own classroom. It was really eye opening to see things in action and how powerful they can really be for kids. You really only have to try a new idea once or twice to be sold on the greatness. I'll never forget watching my students struggle through a performance task. It was so challenging for me to now jump in and tell them what to do next. They worked through it and their conversations were magical. They felt so successful when they got to the answer. I saw the transfer and the confidence in them, and that sold me!

I think the biggest thing I learned from this book is to really take the time to plan out lessons. Plan what the conversation will look like, plan out the rich tasks, plan productive struggle, etc. It really make the world of a difference in the lesson and kids are so much more engaged.

1 reply · active 254 weeks ago

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Julie Rodriquez · 254 weeks ago

Stephanie, Planning is the key, isn't it. I need to work on this. I feel confident in my teaching math but know that to effectively implement all of these practices, I need to including the first step of planning. it takes a lot of time, but that is an area where having Fridays available to meet with grade level colleagues is so beneficial.

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shawnseeleydotcom 44p · 254 weeks ago

Of the eight practices, I want to be more intentional on eliciting and using evidence of student thinking. I've given a lot of thought to all the practices, but this one seems to be the piece that is most difficult for me to see happening on a large scale through any sort of remote learning. I have already tried out a few different approaches to grow in this area by offering individual, live Zoom sessions for math, starting last week. It has been tremendously impactful because without this evidence of student thinking, I can't tell what is happening as students work from home. Did they get the right answer because someone told them/mom or dad did it with them/they looked it up, etc.? By meeting "face-to-face" with students through Zoom, I'm better able to really assess their understanding.

2 replies · active 254 weeks ago

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Julie Rodriquez · 254 weeks ago

Shawn, I would love to hear more about how you started the Zoom meetings. Is it similar to using Google Meets? Is it by invitation or just anyone who wants to can come?

I do agree that it is hard to know if a student got the right answer because they worked through the problem on their own or with the help of a parent.

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shawnseeleydotcom 44p · 254 weeks ago

Julie,
I created a SignUpGenius sign up with dates and 20-minute sessions for parents to sign up their students. I sent the link for signing up in my weekly email on Friday, which had slots for the following week. Of the 14 times I had available, only two went unfilled!

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Julie Rodriquez · 254 weeks ago

I am so grateful for the opportunity to read this book and delve deeper into the eight effective mathematics teaching practices. Thank you, Renae! Going forward, there are two areas I want to intentionally improve - posing purposeful questions and selecting student work that helps students connect and build on their own understanding from concepts to procedures. Something else I would like to ponder more is how I can apply these strategies/practices to other academic subjects. I don't think they are exclusively meant for only math. Our students need to have opportunities to engage in rich tasks in all academic areas that elicit deeper student thinking and productive struggle. They also need to see learning as an opportunity to "play", whether it is with numbers, words, or investigating ideas. Finally, I want to create a classroom culture that invites risk and encourages mistakes in order to make deeper sense of the learning. I want students to recognize that they are being challenged but have the capacity to solve problems with confidence.

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