Day: October 12, 2017 (page 1 of 1)

My colleagues have long been frustrated sharing our work at conferences primarily because the work we do is complex and hard for people to understand thoroughly within the constraints of a conference session where we only have at most 75 minutes to work on an idea.

So we contacted the organizers of the two NCTM regional conferences and proposed a possible solution. Instead of running one session, we will run 4. Instead of 4 separate sessions, we will plan those 4 sessions to connect together. Given how closely my colleagues and I work, we were each able to be the lead speaker on a different proposal. Both the NCTM Orlando and NCTM Chicago conference organizing teams agreed to this proposal and scheduled our sessions both so they do not overlap and also sequentially as requested.

So although we have 4 separate workshops listed in the program guide, these sessions are actually one of our day-long workshops divided into four sessions. Our hope is that some participants will experience one workshop and be no worse off than before – they will still learn something even if it is not the complete picture – but that participants who attend multiple sessions will have more insight and ability to use our work.

Here is a video of Contemplate then Calculate in action, with Kaitlin Ruggiero as the teacher and some teachers from one of our courses playing the role of students.

If this teaser intrigues you, our four sessions are:

1. Experiencing Instructional Routines: 

   In this session participants will experience the same instructional routine three times with three different tasks to consider what elements of the teaching that occurs are part of the routine and what elements probably depend on the task and the students.

2. Unpacking Instructional Routines: 

   Next, participants will experience the routine again (this will give access to people for whom this is their first session) and name the parts of the routine, why those parts are helpful, and what questions they have about the routine.

3. Planning and Preparing Instructional Routines: 

   There is good evidence that a new teaching idea sticks better for participants if they have an opportunity to incorporate it into their existing teaching by planning and preparing to use the idea, so that will be the primary focus of this session. This will also connect the planning process for the instructional routines to the 5 practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions.

4. Rehearsing Instructional Routines: 

   There are two goals of this session. First that some participants will have an opportunity to apply what they have learned and actually practice using the instructional routine before trying it out with students. Second, rehearsal of teaching is a useful way to norm around teaching practice and to try things out in teaching in a lower pressure situation than with a group of students.

Here are the times and locations for these sessions in Orlando:

And here are the times and locations for our sessions in Chicago:

Further reading about instructional routines:

• Why instructional routines?
• Instructional Routines as Formative Assessment
• Ambitious Mathematics Curriculum

Here are some questions that I ask myself whenever I read through a mathematics curriculum:

• Does this curriculum assume that children will forget ideas over time?
• Does this curriculum provide instructional supports that increase the odds that all children have access to it?
• Does the curriculum assume all students are capable of learning and doing interesting mathematics?
• Are the connections between different mathematical ideas made explicit, both for me as a teacher, and for students who will experience the curriculum?
• Is it possible, based on the license and format of the materials, for me to extend / adapt / modify the curriculum based on student need?
• Does the material make it easier for me to use formative assessment practices each day?

If the answer to all of these questions is not yes, I don’t want to use that curriculum. A curriculum which is no more than a collection of tasks is no more useful to me than my ability to search for resources in Google.

What other questions do you ask yourself when reviewing curriculum?