Latest and Greatest in a Nutshell

Dan Meyer

There are some very good things happening right now in the world of mathematics education. Being at the NCSM Conference gave me the opportunity to connect with many of the greatest minds in the field and hear about their current projects.

Here are my top picks for books to buy, courses to take, blogs to read...right NOW.

Books

NCTM’s Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. The book Steve Leinwand keeps waving around. I read a draft in the fall. Educators need to start turning to this when figuring out how to do professional development, how to craft school goals, what to look for in classrooms. It’s radical.

Visible Learning by John Hattie. This book is being enthusiastically talked about by greats like Tim Kanold and Bob Laird. Subtitled “A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement”, it’s the new go-to resource for knowing what truly works in education.

Smarter Together: Collaboration and Equity in the Elementary Math Classroom by Featherstone, et al.

Blogs

Tim Kanold. Check out his most recent post about math homework.

Max Ray. I went to an excellent workshop for teachers by Max and also saw his engaging Ignite talk. He’s with the Math Forum @ Drexel. There are problems, videos and more.

Dan Meyer. Prolific blogger, thinker. Recently published Great Modeling Tasks in Three Acts (for NCSM members only, except for one freebie).

Annie Fetter. At Math Forum with Max. Great Ignite talk about her artist mother and the math she used.

YouCubed. Not a blog but go there and sign up for updates. Watch some of the videos.

Courses

There are two online Stanford courses taught by Jo Boaler that are a must-do. Last summer, I took How to Learn Math for Parents and Teachers. It was fabulous. It was free then, now it costs $125. Worth it.

This year, Jo Boaler has added a brand new course called How to Learn Math for Students. It’s free. I haven’t taken it yet but I recommend trying it with a young person you know. It sounds like it is appropriate for children ages 10-18, but for children younger than 13, a parent or teacher should register and share the material with the child. Go to the site and register. It begins in May.

People to Follow on Twitter

@jgough, @steve_leinwand , @SkipFennell, @maxmathforum, @tkanold, @MFAnnie, @TuvaLabs,@Trianglemancsd, @wahedahbug, @lambchop1998 (I met this guy at NSTA Boston, but he was great), @IllustrateMath, @joboaler

Who I missed

Uri Treisman. But here’s the audio of his talk.

NOLA Greats

There is a treasure trove of greatness at NCSM New Orleans. See below for conference tweets that will link you to wonderful minds and resources.

Choose a problem and anticipate student responses. T/F: 80/4=(80/2)+(80/2). Kazemi & Hintz

Rethink homework! Purpose is not to give a child a grade, ever. What's your homework protocol? @tkanold tkanold.blogspot.com

Go beyond checking for understanding. Students must get feedback, take action. @tkanold

Working on our practice. Teach the same lesson twice with collaborative reflection in between. Nice! @maxmathforum http://mathforum.org/pps/

Number sense is acquired; you don't teach it, you nurture its development. @SkipFennell mathspecialists.org

Set it up so kids are asking the next question of the teacher, using the lang. of our discipline. @jgough http://jplgough.wordpress.com/

Stop making excuses. Implement what we know works. @steve_leinwand http://steveleinwand.com/

We say all students can learn, now we need to act that way. Cathy Seeley (via @Maryvfitz)

St. Louis STEM Reader

I attended the NSTA STEM Conference in St. Louis last week with several colleagues. It was a very worthwhile trip.

Top Quotes

“Engineering naturally integrates mathematics, science, social studies and language literacy.” - Tamara Moore

“Tell kids they are doing engineering. Use that word. Students, especially girls, tend to go to medical school or major in science in college if they enjoy STEM. Very few choose engineering because they don't know what that means.” - Liz Parry

“If you are not iterating, it is not engineering.” - Ann McMahon

“Is it really STEM or is it just John Dewey?” - Tara Bell

Top Takeaways

1. High-quality STEM education is more about the how than the what. We can’t teach students everything they will need to know. We can help them learn how to learn.

2. The habits of mind related to engineering can be a thread running through all content areas. Empathy, collaboration, failure, iteration, perseverance, social justice, activism, leadership.

3. STEM has the potential to make a real difference for equity and diversity. It has been shown to be an effective way to engage struggling or at risk students. Currently, success in STEM subjects in school and in careers is very skewed toward certain demographic groups, and something needs to be done to change that.

Favorite Presenters

Tara Bell, STEM coach at Washington STEM Academy in Champaign, IL

Bob Goodman (New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning: Ridgewood, NJ) Demystifying Science with the Progressive Science Initiative (PSI) Equity requires that all high school students learn physics, chemistry, and biology. PSI is a free open-source program that is helping schools achieve that goal.

Liz Parry, Coordinator, STEM Partnership Development, The Engineering Place, College of Engineering, NC State University

Ann P. McMahon Ex-Aerospace engineer. Strategies for integrating STEM with social and emotional learning. Ann recently gave a TEDx talked titled Engineering Empathy (use password tedxgladstone).

Beth Bender, Principal of Gateway STEM High School, St. Louis. A public magnet school, 85% FRL, 55% African american, increasing ELL. There is a lack of awareness about engineering, and it is mostly male. Engineering students give demonstrations for other students during lunch; recruiting for the high school is done with hands-on tasks, live puppies.

Tamara Moore, University of Minnesota. STEM Education Center. Said she would soon be running a pilot program of K-6 STEM integrated units that include a heavy children’s literature component.

Resources

Family Engineering (book and website recommended by Liz Parry)

TeachEngineering

Ideo and the Design Thinking for Educators toolkit

New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning

eGFI

Gateway STEM High School

The Deep Dive

EnLIST Entrepreneurial Leadership in STEM Teaching and Learning

University of Minnesota STEM Education Center

TryEngineering

National Center for Universal Design on Learning

NCSM Denver - Brilliant Minds

Penny Stearns and I flew to Denver for the NCSM 2013 conference. NCSM is an organization focused on mathematics education leadership. They have resources on their website. The powerpoint presentations from the conference presenters aren’t posted yet but I hope they will be soon.

We’ve seen some incredible speakers over the last 3 days. These include the following:

Cathy Seeley

Marilyn Burns

Kati Haycock

Jo Boaler

Steve Leinwand

Cheryl Adeyami

Greg Tang

Deborah Ball

Heather Hill

These are folks you will want to look up. I will definitely get their entire presentations when they become available.

Steve Leinwand is my new hero. He yells, which I appreciate. Speak truth to power, Steve says. He talked about how he helped turn around a middle school in Missouri. His stories and learning from that process are fascinating. Steve keeps teachers and students at the center of his school reform work. At the end of his compelling talk, he showed a slide listing the names of the teachers at the Missouri school. He thanked them and dedicated the talk to them.

Steve shared 9 research affirmed practices for improving a school.

Number one is that effective teachers respond to most student answers with Why? How do you know that? or Can you explain your thinking?

Instruction is everything, says Steve.

Regarding the Standards of Mathematical Practice: Practice #3 is where it’s at. Those 9 words are the most important words in the entire Common Core standards. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Finally, Steve said we probably shouldn’t be talking about an achievement gap. This makes it sound like it is the students’ fault. We should instead be talking about an instruction gap. Wow.

I was going to write something about these other speakers as well, but I wrote so much about Steve that I think I will postpone. More to come.

Here is Steve today. I took this with my phone. Go Steve!

Student Conferences

From The city and country builder's and workman's treasury of design, Langley, Batty (1696-1751). NYPL

Many teachers are in the practice of holding individual conferences with students during literacy blocks. Teachers sit with students to converse about the book they are reading, asking questions like “Is this a just-right book for you?”, “Have you made any connections to the book?”, “What questions came up while you were reading?”, etc. Leah Mermelstein, a literacy consultant, suggests regular, one-on-one writing conferences with students.

 
What about math conferences? Over the last year, I have used an assessment tool called the Primary Number and Operations Assessment to help me interview students about mathematics concepts. I enjoy the opportunity to sit with a single student and spend time listening as they perform various math tasks and explain their thinking. I always learn important things about the student’s strengths and I gain insight about appropriate next steps for instruction.

Here is an email from my colleague, Sally Hayes, fourth grade teacher extraordinaire, in which she shares her experience conferring with students during math class:

Karyn,

I have to tell you about something I tried recently. It came to me several years ago when I was correcting one of our Bridges unit math assessments. I asked myself, "What is the most important outcome of this assessment?" The answer, of course, is student learning.  As a teacher, I must figure out where each child is on the continuum of learning for a domain so I can help them move forward. Grading the assessments and entering scores into the database is only part of the work. For years I had gone over assessments with the entire class, but it never seemed very efficient or terribly useful for individuals. I realized I should try going over the assessment with each student individually. This would allow both me and the student to gain a clearer understanding of their strengths and areas for improvement as a mathematician.

So, last Friday, the day after correcting our Unit 2 math assessments, I decided to try conferring with each student. After lunch, I gave the class some options for independent work during the next hour, which included practicing math skills, writing in writer's notebooks, and reading. While the class was quietly working, I met with each student to discuss their math assessment. First we looked at strengths and then areas that needed work. Amazing! The conferences were so much better for the student and incredible for me; I finally felt like I was getting something really useful out of a unit assessment. I only wish I had allotted an hour and a half, which is a lot of time, but would be well worth it. I need to refine the way I spend time with the students, but I think it will get better and easier each time that I do it. I was thinking that it would be nice to create small groups of 2 or 3 students that had similar challenges with certain problems. I am glad I finally tried math assessment conferences!

Sally