Reflect
Read the two summaries linked below to get a better understanding of the design principles and key structures of Illustrative Math. Then watch the short video to learn more about the 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Math Discussions.
Consider
- What is resonating with you from these readings or this video?
- What caused you to pause and think?
- What principles or structures from your own math classroom align with some of these beliefs or components?
Respond and Interact
After reading and watching, please post your response to one {or more} of the prompts above. Read our colleagues' reflections. Feel free to respond to someone by sharing a comment, insight or interesting possibility.
I paused and thought about the student journal prompts from one of the articles. While I like the idea of incorporating writing into math, it's hard for me to imagine doing that when the primary students that I work with tend to struggle with writing almost as much as math. The "reflecting on content and practices" and the starter prompts (that aligned with incorporating writing into math) were concepts that I would love to work into my lessons through discussions.
ReplyDeleteI agree younger students having journal prompts incorporating writing into math could be tricky. I was thinking for my younger groups I could use the symbols of math operations and have them tell me what they mean or flip it and have them write down the operation I describe. With younger groups, it could be more of a discussion/math talks with some writing of symbols. Just a thought.
DeleteI have to agree with you both. I can see this as a huge struggle for the younger students who are receiving services in writing and reading. Maybe there is an alternative with showcasing their learning in a simpler way that fits the skill level, such as an equation or a picture drawing.
DeleteOne of the biggest things resonating with me from the Reflecting on content and practices portion or Key Structures in this section, is more of a talking prompt in lue of an exit slip. For example, using the prompt, "I felt heard in math today when" or "The most important thing I remember in math today was." as an exit slip prompt.
ReplyDeleteI also want to do more of exploring with visuals. Real, everyday items that kids can use to expand their thinking. My hope is to engage students that otherwise wouldn't partake in openly sharing and contributing to math conversations. I also think of my responses to student thinking & next steps. After the lesson and exit slip writing response, I can plan to follow up the next day with support in meeting the learning goals from the day before and go deeper in to past foundational math skills if needed or go a little deeper with their understanding of the current lesson/goal. This all depends on the students response to the questions.
This part really stuck with me, and I hope to implement more "Reviewing students cool-downs, or exit slip responses in relation to the learning goal of the lesson."
I agree with you in that I too want more exploring with visuals in math.
DeleteI would like to start my class by putting up the "Slide decks" to make the students talk and get involved. I also strongly believe making connection with the students relationship is one of the best key to make them listen and understand to solve the problems.
ReplyDeleteDuring my school days ,I remember solving all my math problems in a notebook or a scrap paper. That will make me get involved and helped me to understand the steps and follow a routine to solve the problems.I would to introduce this idea to my students as well. "Journal writing" is another concept that was really interesting that I would like to start. I paused a minute and thought about how can I make this possible to my Resource room students. Maybe I can ask them to write a sentence about how they did in today's class? or what did they learn today?... kind of questions.
I also paused to think about how journal writing would work for my resource room students. I thought about the possibility of virtual journals where students could use speech to text to record their thoughts and upload pictures of their work.
DeleteA journal seems tough to me. I think the prompting to get them to write in it, would take away from the benefit of the connections they are making. However, I like the prompts under the "Reflecting" sections. I feel I can incorporate these into group discussions that may have a similar effect to the journals.
DeleteI wonder if using the Seesaw journal as a way for students to talk about their thinking might make it more accessible to students? Seesaw was created as a digital portfolio for students to be able to be creative and show what they know using pictures, photos, video and speaking.
DeleteWhile I like the idea and see the benefit of student journals during math instruction, I stopped to think about my students with learning disabilities in reading and writing, and what this would look like for them. I made a connection to a PD on universal design for learning and how we can make journaling accessible for all students. For my younger students they could draw pictures, models, and words. For older students I thought they could have digital journals where they could use speech to text or Mote to record their ideas. Students could also take pictures of their work to upload to their digital journal. I don't have a deep understanding of illustrative math yet, but from what I have seen it would fit well with UDL principles.
ReplyDeleteI was just talking to the 3rd grade team in the PLC about we should let the students answer with speech to text when they are trying to solve math problems that require more explaining than just writing numbers. I think it would take a lot of pressure off them.
DeleteI like the idea of developing a math community in the classroom. I think making norms with the whole group and having them help come up with them really would engage the students. I like that you assign jobs to students so that they are all helping solve the problem. Revisiting them once a week to make sure the norms are working is a good idea too. I also think making a journal is a good thing if you would allow some students to do it with technology instead of just paper and pencil.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I love the idea of having different options and ways to support journaling. I can think of so many possibilities with technology that could allow access to the benefits of journaling regardless of the ability to write. I would love to hear more about what you are thinking!
DeleteI love that the Key Structures of IM includes suggestions for PLC work. I also appreciated the table with teacher moves & questions that will support building a math community in our classrooms. Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of having discussions about these math problems and forming communities to explore problem solving. In Resource Room, we have some quite chatty and invested individuals that I anticipate always contributing, and some on the spectrum that would rarely contribute and let the rest of their community do all of the work. These are the students I'm concerned this curriculum might not work for. I also think the journaling would work better as a mandatory "ask and respond" session at the end of class in our case, rather than writing.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the summaries and watching the video, many things resonated with me. I like how Illustrative Math provides a deeper integration of writing into math through student journals. Writing is always something my second graders could use more practice with, so I like the added opportunities. When fostering classroom discussions, the student vital actions and teacher moves for building a math community from the second summary are very helpful. I’m sure I will be referring back to those later. In the video, I noticed a focus on ensuring lots of intentional moves and purposeful planning from the teacher.
ReplyDeleteMuch of the information regarding PLCs caused me to pause and think. I am looking forward to the unit PLC activities and hearing more about those. I like for each unit, there are guiding PLC questions such as what to do before a PLC meeting, during PLC meetings, and steps to take after the PLC meeting. This is especially helpful because we are digging deeper into PLCs, and it is nice to have guidance and suggestions.
Some principles and structures from my own math classroom align with what I learned about from Illustrative Math. Currently the synthesis and cool down portion of the lesson looks like my review of success criteria. Exit tickets from each lesson would be the formative assessment to gauge student understanding. I also provide opportunities to build a math community through partner and small group work during math rotations. We frequently have math talks, especially when exploring problem solvers. I also connected when the summary talked about equitable math instruction. One way I currently do this is through differentiation and targeted math groups.
I’m looking forward to learning more!
There were two sentences that resonated with me from Design Principles. First, "The activities and routines are designed to give teachers opportunities to see what students already know and what they can notice and figure out before having concepts and procedures explained to them". This is really exciting and I can't wait to see how these activities play out with students. Also, from the Advancing Student Thinking portion, "...support students as they work on challenging tasks without taking over the process of thinking for them". I feel like I struggle with this now and I am looking forward to learning more.
ReplyDeleteI also highlighted these two sentences. I look forward to collaborating with you to work on strategies.
DeleteSomething that resonated with me was the reference to the 5 practices for productive math discussions in the video. This was a good review for me, as I have read the book but it has been a little while and these are really great ideas. I dug into #5 with notice and naming the thinking and strategies that teachers see students using. I liked the addition of #0 and #6, especially the ideas in #6 around planning for next steps. It really emphasizes that we aren’t teaching a curriculum- we are teaching students. As we consider what understanding students are demonstrating, we need to be responsive to their needs as we select the next experience or lesson. Oh, and I LOVED the sketch note to the 5 practices that the video mentioned at the end.
ReplyDeleteSomething that caused me to pause and think was in the Key Structures document around Professional Learning Communities. As we begin this journey of using a new resource and shifting our practice and in some cases our beliefs around teaching mathematics, it is so important to have a community to lean on and support each other. As I read a little deeper, I noticed evidence of student thinking and understanding is embedded in each of the pre, during and post lesson work that a PLC team would engage in. I am excited for this as a possibility for a PLC+ focus if a team opts to do some work around math.
I really like the idea of the Teaching Moves to Support Math Community. The teacher moves and prompts are great! I think this will really help all our students have a voice in our math classes. I can't wait to use these with my Resource students.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the documents and watching the video, there are a couple things that are resonating for me. First, the five practices are something that I have a had a bit of exposure to, but did not know about when I was in the classroom. However, the three act math tasks were something I used often. I appreciated the way the two were tied together in the video showing how the each supports the other. Also, with my limited knowledge of Illustrative Math so far, the practices and the three act math task type structure will be a natural fit with the lessons. The other thing that is resonating with me, is the intentional connection between structures in Illustrative Math (specific lessons, teacher reflection questions, etc) that can be used within the PLC+ framework to impact teacher and student growth. Having intentional resources and places to start from when it comes to PLC+ in our new curriculum will be helpful in supporting teams to have discussions about moving student learning forward and growing together as educators.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the math journal. I think it would be a great way to gain insight into what our quieter students are thinking, learning, and struggling with. For the resource students I work with, writing about math would likely be a struggle at first, but using prompts for paired and small group discussions might be a good starting point. This sentence really resonated with me: "Journal writing not only encourages explicit connections between current and new knowledge and promotes metacognitive frameworks to extend ideas...". I wonder if as students learn to reflect on their prior knowledge and connect it to new learning, it might improve their retention and ability to build new skills.
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel, we've been using math "journals" for a few years in our class, which are actually just composition books. They allow students to make connections and stretch their thinking and learning beyond the skills and concepts learned in class to real world situations and events. It seems like we used them more frequently in our early lessons, but this is a great reminder to build them back into our math routines.
DeleteThe information about writing prompts in the Key Structures article stood out to me the most this week. I actually had this as a warm up for students this year, and posted this questions, "How did you use math in your real world this weekend?" I gave each student a sticky note and had them respond and post their note on the anchor chart. Then, we took time to read their responses and this opened a dialogue about how we can use math in our everyday lives. Some responded about the number of goals scored in their soccer game, others talked about helping their grown ups in the kitchen, and some students explained how they were given a certain amount of screen time after they finished their homework. It was fascinating to see/hear their responses and deepened our understanding collectively. I'm eager to see how these prompts can be intentionally incorporated in our new curriculum. I love this structure.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that resonated with me from the article “design principles” is the quote : “Students learn mathematics by doing mathematics, rather than by watching someone else do mathematics or being told what needs to be done.” I am too one of those learners, in that for me to learn I need to be actively doing it instead of just reading. For example, I have several recipes in my recipe book that I never use, I tend to make meals from videos that I watched and can do with them. While I am cooking I problem solve and adjust my cooking at the time. When I just read a recipe, I don’t see how to adjust until I actually make that item. This goes back to the other video of stories problems from his text book, he didn’t just read the problem from the text book, he created it for his students to view it. I often wished I had a kitchen to teach math.
ReplyDeleteOne of the 5 practices for orchestrating was “Task Complexity” I just taught a measurement lesson to my 2nd graders, and they had so much fun using different units of measurements to measure our items in our classroom, such as, pencils, pens, windows, desk, windows. We discussed as a class different things that could be measured and how long or wide they would be. Would you use centimeters or meters to measure a door, would you use centimeters or meters to measure your glue stick. They were all engaged.
I am going to teach multiplication next and I will you “Purposeful Representations” “For example, in grade 3, equal-groups drawings are used to introduce students to the concept of multiplication. Later on, students make equal-groups drawings to find the total number of objects in situations involving equal groups.” I can adjust this to fit my 2nd grade concepts. I also want to give them visuals, such as plates and markers. They can divide the markers to make equal groups.
All of the references to journaling and getting regular student reactions and responses to the material definitely sticks with me. In MAP, I think we have so many challenges with time constraints as well as finding a way to include students within a group who have both a wide variety of prior knowledge AND differing personalities. I think a verbal response at the end of group time may work better. I look forward to trying to use many of the prompts provided in the "Key Structures" portion.
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