First Quarter Math Coaching

It was a very active first quarter in our fifth through eighth grade math classrooms with teachers embracing the opportunity to collaborate and stretch and grow in new ways.  We are all learning together, and I have been amazed by how much we have been able to accomplish together in such a short time.  I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the work that we have been doing.

At the in-service on October 10, I was able to work for half the day with the entire fifth and sixth grade team and half the day with the seventh and eight grade team.  Information about the workshops can be found here.   One of our tasks for the workshop was to identify goals for our WCSU math teams.  We identified these goals: 

• We will work collaboratively to develop clear and consistent language, instructional models, scope and sequencing, and definitions of proficiency.  
• We will develop and implement common assessments that will allow us to respond to needs and assess the effectiveness of interventions.  
• We will improve access by developing and using coherent concrete models for each non-negotiable skill and employing strategies to move all students from the concrete models to abstract models with conceptual understanding. 

As a starting point, our focus for this year is to make sure that every student in grades 5 through 8 is able to use the area of a rectangle model for multiplication and division reasoning for all rational numbers.  If mastered, the area of a rectangle model provides a conceptual thread that can bring students from operations on whole numbers in third grade to operations on all rational numbers in seventh grade to operations on polynomials in high school.  I spent time during the October 10 inservice introducing the model and how it can be used to teach for conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. 

Here the area of a rectangle model is being used to teach the distributive property of multiplication in eighth grade Algebra.

Since September, I have been in every classroom in grades 5 through 8 modeling instructional methods, co-teaching and supporting teachers as they learn to use and apply the area of a rectangle model and language.

The next few weeks will be very busy, too, with members of the WCSU math steering committee developing common assessments with Karin Hess, a day of embedded professional development with Mahesh Sharma and the launch of our new screening tool, easyCBM.