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.
All students are capable learners of mathematics! We must shift this mental model for students and parents. As teachers the key structures in this course article helped to highlight practices that promote a community of mathematicians. For me this aligns so closely to ELA. Students use the 3 Rs, reflect, respond, react as they share ideas about a text to develop a deeper understanding of that text. Writing in a reader's/math notebook whether in reading or math allows students to connect to learning, clarify learning, analyze learning, and share their thinking thoughts and feelings. So many parallels. I also appreciated the PLC structures being laid out so clearly and will utilize this planning sheet as we begin the year. To end, in our classroom communities we want all students to feel known, heard and seen. This creates confidence, collaboration and respect.
ReplyDeleteI was especially riveted to the idea that we must have equitable structures and practices that provide all students with access to grade level content. This takes me back to the last session about taking equations out and grounding learning in exploration, logic, and discourse. There should be an emphasis on problem solving and seeing what students know, notice, and figure out before automatically explaining. It will be difficult to not interject, but the video did a fair job of explaining that with planning, I can ask guiding questions to support thinking. Furthermore, this gives an opportunity to raise the status of learners, which was discussed. This reminds me that I've done "My Favorite No", having students explain their thinking, and having others notice what students have done well with nameless papers. While Puzzled Penguin is lovely, I much prefer pointing out what real life students are doing correctly. Orchestrating productive discussions can also elevate the status of learners. Having varied levels of complex tasks allows access to all learners. This reminds me of having my students do our "daily number". If we have been in school 177 days, students individually work on coming up with ways to make that number. By the end of the year, I had second graders doing triple digit division, and one student who by the end of the year figured out 177 = 100 + 70 + 7 and was so excited to share.
ReplyDeleteWhile many of the ways to elevate student status I have used have relied heavily on verbal work, I think encouraging journal writing is another way for students to elaborate and take accountability for themselves. This goes beyond self-assessing with having students rate their learning 1-4, emojis, or colors, and asks them to provide evidence and reasoning. I think, as teachers, we are going to have to do a lot of frontloading of vocabulary and math talk to get quality self-assessments instead of, "I just know how to do it," or "I just don't get it." Another point stated about math journals is that it provides opportunities for students to make connections outside of just "math time" and possible real-world connections and applications. I look forward to using IM for these and many other reasons.
Jennifer, I agree with all of your thinking - about the journaling piece - even at the end of the year, my students struggled with explaining their thinking and reasoning. I am going to be doing "a lot of frontloading of vocabulary and math talk to get quality self-assessments".
DeleteWow, part 2 was packed with amazing information. I have a takeaway from each article, Design Principles and Key Structures, as well as the Video-5 Practices… Within Design Principles, my takeaway was the section call Community Building: Each lesson offers opportunities for the teacher and students to learn more about one another, develop mathematical language, and become increasingly familiar with the curriculum routines. Most of us start the year off building relationships and getting to know each other so community building in math will weave into that nicely. My take way from the article, Key Structures, was the journal writing and the amazing prompts that article provides. It would be great if Toni Ashley, or someone in T and L, could print the Teacher Moves tables on pages 77-79 on hard stock, front to back, and laminate it for teachers to have on hand during lessons. Finally, the video gave a great outline of the 5 Practices in action for teachers to use during a lesson. I hadn’t thought about the sequence of sharing the student work. The poster at the end is helpful too. Teachers who have been using Math Talk and/or having students share their strategies during lessons may be happy to see that they are already doing many of these strategies shared. For me, I am wondering how many of the pilot teachers used the journal writing piece mentioned. The prompts seem like it would make it easier to possibly integrate, but how often and in what do they write these responses?
ReplyDeleteBeverly, I agree - I'd love the Teacher Moves table on pgs 77- in a print out to have in my math planning folder! So helpful. I was an early implementer, I did not use the journal prompts as often as I now wish I had. It was mostly a time issue as the first time I taught the lessons. I hope to use them a lot this coming year in my 2nd year using the curriculum.
DeleteI was impressed with how IM started out the year, it was a great way to build a math community. I highly recommend looking closely at the first lessons and not waiting much to start because they really do lend themselves to the beginning of the year set up. At least in 3rd grade they did.
Delete@ Beverly & Jill - Amy Oliphant has graciously typed up all of the prompts and has offered to share them with everyone. I will send them out to all when it gets a little closer to our August days.
DeleteTHANK YOU, AMY! 💙
Sweet! Thank you Amy! and Renae
DeleteI was really intrigued by the journaling. "Journal writing not only encourages explicit connections between current and new knowledge and promotes metacognitive frameworks to extend ideas, but it also provides opportunities for teachers to learn more about each student’s identity and math experiences." This made me pause and think. I have done math notebooks, interactive math notebooks, monthly journals, and so forth but I have never done actually journaling of math. This was a ah-ha moment for me and made total sense. It also stated 'Writing prompts and journaling work well because students who may not advocate well for themselves when they are struggling get their voices heard in a different way, and thus their needs met (Miller, 1991).
ReplyDeleteIt is our hope that through the use of these questions and prompts, students will communicate to learn
mathematics as well as learn to communicate mathematically.' I love this and this whole idea and am really excited about this new idea for me and how it will impact my students. So then my question becomes, in the new math curriculum will these questions be embedded somewhere in the lesson or do we need to print out the article to know when and what questions to ask in the lessons? Also, I know that the kids get some kind of journals/ notebooks/ workbooks ( do not know what since it will be new to me) but will the kids have space in their books to journal or do we need to have kids have another notebook to journal? I love this!!
Yes, the PLC work was intriguing. I am not an activator but it makes me wonder will activators have some knowledge in helping/ supporting their team with our PLC since it is based on the new math curriculum? It states 'To support teachers and coaches in this collective work, each unit section has an activity identified as a PLC activity. This activity either highlights an important mathematical idea in the unit or has complex facilitation that would benefit from teachers planning and rehearsing the activity together. We have also included a structure for the learning community included in the Professional Learning Community section of the Course Guide.' So as a team, will we be using this to help plan/ support our goals for this upcoming year? I am super curious about this, or this more for just our information as teachers... Hmmm..
ReplyDeleteI 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 love the teacher PLC work too. It will be so nice to have that right in our material instead of having to wait for someone to come and train us. I loved how they had sentence framing so we don't have to think up every question either. There really is a lot of good stuff here.
DeleteWell this was meaty!! Doing this study is reinforcing so much of what the book study on, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, was talking about. And now we are getting to use all that information through our new curriculum. How awesome is that!
ReplyDeleteI love that throughout our curriculum we are going to have the opportunity to grow with our students through the PLC portion. It builds me up as a teacher of math minds. Reminding me of the mission of the curriculum and that is to produce students that can problem solve and think through problems instead of just memorizing a bunch of facts.
Loved the video and now I have to buy the two books that she talked about in her presentation. I especially liked the graphic that Ms. Wheeler made a 5 step progression. I think I’m going to go to her site and download that for myself. It’s just such a good visual of the 5 practices, even though there really are 7. That totally cracked me up.
I want to apply everything in my classroom. I want my students to have a very strong love of math through conceptual understanding and the procedural fluency that produces more flexible thinking relationships and reasoning strategies instead of memorizing to get to the next problem.
Cindy, I agree, I want to apply "everything" in my class too. I think the layout of the units, sections and lesson progression make it pretty easy to do most of it. The teacher guide helps with building the math discourse with suggested questioning. I think the key is to spend the time going over the Unit goals and progression at the start of the unit and each section. So many tools are there to support the teachers!
Delete@ Cindy - I have a few copies of the 5 Practice book that you can borrow if you don't want to buy it! :)
DeleteSo much great information and tidbits that resonate with me. First, In the IM Design principles, I appreciate the structure that flips problem solving from the "old way" of teaching math - with IM, students do the problem solving before the elements/content are taught. The structure is a catalyst of shared learning and discourse as the students dive into the problems. The students really do communicate with each other and scaffold previous learning to these new problems to "figure it out" - this also supports the 3 aspects of rigor: Conceptual understanding, fluency and the application piece = "developed together and interconnected." I have a very strong learning community last year, my students switched partners weekly and every-other week it was a random pairing. My students, with a couple of exceptions, could literally work with any partner effectively. I need to be more mindful of the students with less mathematical confidence and language. I was not as explicit as I need to be on writing about math with the "explain your thinking" - It continued to be difficult for most of my students even at the end of the year. I like the idea of journal writing to support students in math, just worried about the time to fit in that too. I do like the idea of including journaling about their "feelings about math" as well as their thinking and success. I really loved the Journal prompts in Article 2: Key structures of IM, and will be using those, especially early in the year as I get to know my students strengths and needs. . Lastly, I was pretty excited by the PLC work and activities included in the teacher guide for each section. I am stepping in as our PLC+ activator, and our team has pretty much agreed our SGG will be math focused next year as will most of our PLC work, so I'm thinking "YAY!" :) I think the 5 practices for orchestrating productive math discourse from the video can also help guide the PLC work as the progression listed really seems to mirror much of our progression in a PLC cycle.
ReplyDeleteSo many things resonated with me from both the articles and video. First off, the idea that all students are capable of learning mathematics is at the core. Students must first see themselves as mathematicians and our classroom structures and the community we build will ensure this. I loved where it talked about community being central to learning. The IM curriculum does a great job of weaving this throughout the lessons and units. Students learn instructional routines that involve them in their learning. We must foster a community in which students are encouraged to take risks and engage in that productive struggle. Students learn by 'doing' and an important component of IM is that students practice with their peers and participate in powerful mathematical discussions. Contrary to a teacher showing students how to do the math and them then practicing, students experience the math and build their own conceptional understanding. One piece of the lesson that was initially difficult for me to make it to was the synthesizing piece. I discovered how important this part was to bring the learning together and connect it at the conclusion of each activity and ultimately the end of the lesson. I had to become much more intentional about including this component.
ReplyDeleteAnother part that really resonated with me was the importance of incorporating writing into math. My students really improved in their ability to respond to mathematical ideas in their student workbooks. In addition to classroom discussions, this component really gave me a window into their thinking and reasoning. Next year, I want to add additional writing opportunities and have students reply to some of the general reflection prompts that were listed.
I love the PLC component that is a part of the curriculum and I am really hoping that our grade level team will decide to make this a focus during our PLC Plus time next year!
Lots of good stuff here! Like many of you I too loved the first thing I read, "All students are capable of learning math." This resonates with me because this year I am going to be working with our SPED team and doing a push-in math block. Not sure how this will look but I am excited to give it a try. The math conversations in my class last year using the IM curriculum was amazing to hear. I did not use the "journaling" as a much as I would have liked, or should have this is an area of growth for me. I do remember many of the cool-downs have the words "explain your thinking" on them. Having the stems ready and also making a point to have my students be intentional about writing it out might help.
ReplyDeleteAs an activator for my team I am excited to see the PLC work embedded into the curriculum and I am hoping to utilize it this year when doing PLC work.
I had several pause and think moments during this reading and video:
ReplyDelete1. equitable structures and practice - this seems very important for the math class and ties into TSD work towards belonging goals. The article says " community is central to learning & identity development". Therefore before we leap into content we must create a safe environment. I look forward to this every year, but I think this is not standardized therefor it is challenging to create in a classroom and can feel isolating if a teacher doesn't feel supported to take the time to set up a cohesive learning community. Moreover, some may say the equitable structures feel elusive. It would be great to have some concrete take aways for teachers to set up in their classrooms.
2. Key structures lists journal prompts. I can get behind this for sure, but my initial feeling is trepidation. Writing in 3rd grade is a bear to tackle. Some students who like math tend to feel terror towards writing. I fear student push back with this. At the same time, I do agree this would be a space to build math vocabulary and self- reflection around math concepts.
3. PLC suggestions in the key structures. These are encouraging. I believe this would be helpful to our PLC and a good use of teacher time.
As I was reading through these summaries I had a lot of thoughts and connections. I am excited to go through the illustrative math curriculum more and see the resources that are available for the different types of learners in my classroom. With the other math curriculum I used the tier supports often. I think that all students can successful with math but they just need the correct resources. I think that the thought that there is only one way of teaching math is so outdated although many people still think this way.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of a math journal is very interesting to me and something new that I am willing to try. I like the idea that math doesn’t always just have to be numbers and that students could use this journal to actually reflect on their learning. We already use this with our reading curriculum and our writing curriculum so I think it would be an easy thing to add to math time.
I love the idea of having a math journal and creating a safe place to share their ideas not just through talking but also writing. Not only is it a great place to share their ideas but also, as most of us know already, writing is a key way to help remember information. As an exit ticket of sorts, having the ability to write their ideas, thoughts, questions, or just overall thinking in their journal after a lesson, activity, or center, can help students retain the information discussed and also refer back to it. I also loved the list of reflection prompts as a tool to help students get started with their writing and this will be very useful to me and my classroom this year.
ReplyDeleteThe Design Principles article reminded me of a recurring thought I had last year while teaching the IM curriculum and that was why the order of unit were in the order they were. I remember thinking that I should be teaching place value much sooner than it was in the IM curriculum. But as I continued to teach each lesson in the order they came I had some big ah moments. One in particular happened in unit 6, (for 2nd grade) I was standing in front of the class and the lightbulb when off. I remember saying to my class, “Oh my gosh, this is makes complete sense why they waited to teach these lessons here.” I was learning as I went as much as my students were. Another thing that really resonated with me was the community building at the beginning of the year. These lessons and activities helped students feel like it was okay to take risks when talking about their mathematical thinking and I would often hear things like, “I am going to try Caleb’s method today.” The design of each lesson allowed all students to have an access point and as the lesson built on each other often students that struggled would have a reference point from the previous day.
ReplyDeleteIn the Key Structures article, I LOVE the questions and prompts to get students talking. I use random pairs for each math lesson and these questions and prompts will also help students get to know each other since they will be working with different partners each time. I copied the prompts and will print on card stock and laminate to keep on my board as a reminder to use frequently. I also really liked that section on PLCs as I am the activator for our team and these ideas will help plan our Friday meetings.
My key takeaway from all of this was about the journal writing and the prompts that article provided. I appreciate reading that Amy typed them to share (thank you Amy!). After doing IM this past year, i could easily see trying to integrate the journaling into the lessons to solidify the student's thinking and have them working on explaining their reasoning in words. I also really love the way IM sets up the community building in the first few lessons in grade 3 by building in norms, and how a mathematical thinking classroom looks and sounds. I wasn't sure about those lessons initially last year but afterwards it solidified how vital they are to building a classroom that is a safe place to take risks and try new things.
ReplyDeleteOne of my key takeaways was the importance of building a math community from the start. It is so true that all students are capable of learning math, but we need to set the foundation from the very beginning. I feel like I have just jumped into math in the past and not taken as much time to build our math community. I focus on community building in so many other ways it only seems natural to bring math into it as well. Our math lead shared some flexible partner/random partner generator tools last year that I believe will be extremely useful as we build our math community by learning to work with each and every classmate.
ReplyDeleteI also LOVE the journal writing prompts. Writing can be so trickly as it is and adding explaining our math thinking and learning it adds another level of challenge. I can see these prompts being especially helpful as students begin to journal about their math.
I look forward to the Math Community building lessons to start the year. These will hopefully support routines, structure how to work well with a partner and emphasis math talk.
ReplyDeleteAs a PLC+ Activator, I am interested in the resources provided and if they will align with the common challenges my team discovers as we get to know our students.
I am looking forward to the Instructional Practices being built into the lessons. I know they will connect to the content and allow all students to begin thinking about math in a way that all can participate to start.
There was a lot of great information here! Many things resonated with me, but the importance of building a math community was a big one. It fits in well with all the classroom community building we do at the beginning of the school year. The other thing that resonated with me is that "students learn mathematics by doing mathematics." I have learned that IM provides a lot of manipulates for the students to use in their learning. This gets me excited about the program. I have always enjoyed providing manipulatives and math games for my students to use. I think it stems from being trained in a program called, Math Their Way a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by the prospect of using math journals this year. I feel having sentence starters will be a good way to help my second graders share their thinking about math.
I was nervous that we were going to jump right in and expect students to comfortably share their thoughts and ideas with a new set of peers. While I think some kids may be okay with this, I feel others will take more time. It was reassuring to read that the first 6 lessons focus on building this math community and what this year’s math will look like and sound like. I also appreciate that it stated that we should review this often so students know that we value the math learning community as much as we value the math content.
ReplyDeleteI'm also interested in using the journal prompts with whole group discussions, one on one discussions, small group or partner talk, and journaling to deepen student's understanding and my understanding of what they learned or are still questioning.
ReplyDeleteI walked away from these readings with so many things I wanted to be better at, or focus my attention on, and that feels exciting. One thing that especially stood out was the section on student journal prompts. In implementing IM last year, one thing I was rarely satisfied with was the closure of my lessons. To be frank, at first there wasn’t closure at all. I was fumbling and rushed and lucky to get my kiddos out the door on time for recess, let alone give an effective synthesis or allow for meaningful reflection. After much trial and error, eventually my math block began to flow as a typical IM lesson is intended; however, I ended the school year unsatisfied, wanting to do more to promote and provide opportunities for student self-assessment, goal setting, and reflection. I am so excited to incorporate the student journal prompts this year to help serve that purpose and have been experimenting with ways to do that. Although I see the benefits and importance of writing within mathematics, I would like to have some different, more scaffolded ways, to introduce my primary students to the reflection questions and to provide access to the reflection. I have considered beginning with a group or partner discussions, as well as using digital tools such as Seesaw, Padlet, or Jamboard. After attending the Lynx Lab next week I am also hoping to be able to use the questions and starter prompts to create a few files for quick reflection on the smartboards. I am eager to see the effects the journal prompts have on our math community and on students' understanding and perception of themselves as mathematicians.