B Positive

B Positive is my blood type, and it has served as an important reminder about my attitude toward all things work-related (and non work-related).

I attended Dynamic Landscapes last week at Champlain College and had a wonderful time. The best presenters are those who are super enthusiastic about education and its potential. Though cynical about the way things are, wonderful speakers like Gary Stager, Thursday’s keynote, has an optimistic vision.

Gary says...

I am not surprised when kids do extraordinary things. I am surprised when adults are surprised when kids do extraordinary things.

What are kids really capable of? We need to find out.

Gary Stager is worth getting to know if you are an educator. He’s an advocate for kids working to their fullest potential with technology, and having high/low tech maker spaces in classrooms. His book is called Invent to Learn. Gary makes me want to be more radical.

At Dynamic Landscapes, I also attended a panel of educators who recently hosted the Smarter Balanced Assessment (Common Core) field test in their schools, facilitated by Peter Drescher of the Vermont Agency of Education. My district isn’t part of the field test, so it was great to hear from folks who know more. There was discussion of the nuts and bolts of the new assessment like the fact that students could take the test on a tablet but are supposed to have an external keyboard. There was talk of how to schedule the test to make it work, how to test the wireless capacity of the schools, how to prepare students and teachers.

I noticed that many of the educators who have administered the Smarter Balanced field test to students remarked that students enjoyed it. They like the tech format rather than dealing with pencil and paper, they liked the multimedia content, and the challenging questions.

A principal in the audience spoke up. I didn’t know him and didn’t catch his name. He said attitude is everything. This is a positive opportunity to learn. Let’s pull our sleeves up and make this work. There will be challenges, but we will learn a lot. Like any new thing there will be bumps in the road. His positive attitude was adopted by his staff and students.  

There is and will be lots of complaining about the Smarter Balanced assessments. Adult negativity is quickly taken up by students, and could rob them of important opportunities. As a math coach, I will model positivism.

B Positive.

Who Gets to Graduate?

On Sundays I love to play tennis and read the New York Times. There was a great article this past Sunday. Author Paul Tough shares some sobering statistics about who is graduating with four year degrees, who isn’t, and why.

You must read the whole article. Go and do that now. My big takeaways: remedial classes and groups don’t work and students in some demographic groups (low-income, non-white, parents who didn’t graduate from college) are at risk but can be helped. It isn’t really new information. It is just more evidence supporting certain ideas.  I want to know how we can apply this to K-12 public schools.

Every college freshman — rich or poor, white or minority, first-generation or legacy — experiences academic setbacks and awkward moments when they feel they don’t belong. But white students and wealthy students and students with college-graduate parents tend not to take those moments too seriously or too personally...It is only students facing the particular fears and anxieties and experiences of exclusion that come with being a minority — whether by race or by class — who are susceptible to this problem. Those students often misinterpret temporary setbacks as a permanent indication that they can’t succeed or don’t belong…

“What I like about these interventions is that the kids themselves make all the tough choices,” ... “They deserve all the credit. We as interveners don’t. And that’s the best way to intervene. Ultimately a person has within themselves some kind of capital, some kind of asset, like knowledge or confidence. And if we can help bring that out, they then carry that asset with them to the next difficulty in life.”

Organizing Information

New York Public Library

Max Ray’s talk at NCSM was about a math lesson he taught twice. The first time things didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. Max had the opportunity to reflect with his collaborators afterward. Luckily, they were going to teach the same lesson again to another group of students the same day. They decided what they wanted to do differently based on the results from the first group.

Here is the excellent write-up of that lesson by Max. The second go at the lesson is one in which the teachers respond to students who need support by modeling an organizational strategy. They actively avoid giving students hints about how they might mathematize the problem situation they’ve been given. It is no surprise that Max has done a nice job organizing the student-teacher-student volley into tables in his article. The outcomes in the second lesson are superior.

The ability to organize information is an important skill. When I observe students engaging in math problem-solving, often their success hinges on if and how they organize their work. Organizing information is also the key to great writing, troubleshooting, designing websites and databases, waiting tables, using spreadsheets, teaching, talking, and many other things. Here is Rob Lamb’s Collaborative Infographics for Science Literacy site, which also relates.

If you are a teacher, test it. See how students respond if you honor their ideas and teach only organizational strategies.

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)

Connie Knodt and Grit

My friend Suzy texted me last week to tell me she was listening to a wonderful piece on NPR’s TED Radio Hour about “grit”. Here’s the link to the story, entitled Is Having Grit the Key to Success?
The concept of grit or perseverance keeps coming up in my work, because the first math practice standard in the Common Core is “Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them”...and, more importantly, because teachers and parents know that determination and the ability to cope with failure is paramount to student success.
Last night I had the pleasure of speaking with Connie Knodt, a relatively new member of my family. She was featured recently on WCAX’s Super Senior series. Connie is 79 years old and still works 28 hours a week at Fletcher Allen Hospital in the pediatric ward. Here’s the link to her story. Connie and I had a great conversation about how she was able to transcend a difficult childhood to become an IBM engineer when few women did such a thing. I asked if she could remember anyone who was an important role model for her when she was young. Without hesitating, she told me about two top-notch high school teachers who inspired her to become to lifelong learner she is today. She remembered their names and talked in detail about how her geometry teacher asked the students to build structures rather than assigning pages in a textbook.
Connie’s story reminds us that teachers are so important. One great teacher can turn a life around.
Connie is also a living testament to grit. She’s interested in solving tough problems and never being finished with her own learning. She told me that at work if there’s a new computer system, medical device, or scheduling conundrum, they bring it to her. She’s happy to take on the challenge.

The Importance of Curiosity

One student was curious about tornadoes. Photo from NPR.

I look forward to getting the Marshall Memo via email. This week I found myself reading an Edutopia article entitled “Curious Homework: An Inquiry Project for Students and Parents” by Suzie Boss. It emphasizes the importance of curiosity in life and education, and laments the fact that students don’t always find a way to express their callings and passions in the context of school.

In the article, we learn about a teacher named Scot Hoffman who started his work on curiosity by bringing in folks with interesting careers or passions - a mountaineer, a doctor - and interviewing them in front of the students. Then it was the students’ turn to explore their own sense of curiosity. It would be fun to try this in the Burlington community, let students choose and interview folks, and partner with community members in addition to parents in order to pursue their own interests.

Helping students doesn't mean showing them how

A few days ago, I was in a professional development meeting with paraeducators at C.P. Smith Elementary School. We were discussing how best to help students in math. We had a great conversation about it and talked about the idea of asking instead of telling. Our focus was #1 and #3 of the eight Common Core Math Practice Standards. I’d printed some questions that I have seen on several different websites, so I am not sure of the original author. Here they are:

Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them

• How would you describe the problem in your own words?
• How would you describe what you are trying to find?
• What do you notice about...?
• What information is given in the problem?
• Describe the relationship between the quantities.
• Describe what you have already tried. What might you change?
• Talk me through the steps you’ve used to this point.
• What steps in the process are you most confident about?
• What are some other strategies you might try?
• What are some other problems that are similar to this one?
• How might you use one of your previous problems to help you begin?
• How else might you organize...represent... show...?

Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

• What mathematical evidence would support your solution?
• How can we be sure that...? / How could you prove that...?
• Will it still work if...?
• What were you considering when...?
• How did you decide to try that strategy?
• How did you test whether your approach worked?
• How did you decide what the problem was asking you to find? (What was unknown?)
• Did you try a method that did not work? Why didn’t it work? Would it ever work? Why or why not?
• What is the same and what is different about...?
• How could you demonstrate a counter-example?

After the paraeducator meeting, I came across an Edutopia article entitled, “Takeaways from Math Methods: How will you teach effectively?” It is about pre-service teachers who have taken a math course. This jumped out at me.

Helping Students Doesn't Mean Showing Them How

Before admitting [preservice teachers], we interview each one and ask, "Why do you want to be a teacher?" The most common response is, "I want to help students," a sentiment that PSTs describe later as "giving good explanations" or "making it simpler" -- notions of helping which are underdeveloped.

A synthesis of research in mathematics education by James Hiebert and Douglas Grouws identified two teacher actions that impact conceptual understanding. One is to engage students in productive struggle. Merely telling students how or making things simpler does not actually help them understand as much as providing challenging tasks and time to "dig in" to a problem.

To help them redefine how to help students learn, I encourage [teachers] to embrace their sense of accomplishment when they solve a challenging task, recognize the pride they feel when they share a unique way to solve a problem, and reflect on what such feelings might mean for a student in their own classroom.

The way this piece is written states an important idea in a concise, clear way. I hope to keep pushing myself and others to ask, watch, and listen instead of show and tell.