Looking to Strengthen Your Lessons?

There are so many lessons available to teachers - it can be both a blessing and a curse.  Finding different resources allows educators to personalize the learning - both for their students and themselves.  How do you know whether the lessons are high-quality?  What might work well in the lesson?  What might need to be revised to better fit your needs?  Rubrics might be one way you can use to help you preview lessons you find and determine how they might best fit your needs.

I have been so fortunate to work with Achieve's EQuIP (Educators Evaluating Quality Instructional Products) over the past year.  Our group is comprised of 55 educators from across the country.  We look at lessons for mathematics and English language arts.  Using the EQuIP rubric, we review lessons and units, giving feedback to the developers about what works well within the lesson/unit and what might be improved.  During our meeting in Washington D.C. this summer, the Teaching Channel came to record our work.  You can see more about Achieve's work here: https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/better-common-core-lessons-equip

If you are interested in using the rubric, here is a link to the EQuIP rubric:
http://www.achieve.org/files/EQuIPmathrubric-06-17-13_1.pdf (for mathematics)
http://www.achieve.org/files/EQuIP-ELArubric-06-24-13-FINAL.pdf (for ELA/literacy)
http://www.achieve.org/files/K-2ELALiteracyEQuIPRubric-07-18-13_1.pdf (for K-2 ELA/literacy)

Lessons and units that are judged to be "Exemplary" or "Exemplary if Improved" are shared on the EQuIP website and are free for anyone to use.  When developers submit lessons to Achieve, they agree that their work will be shared with others if it receives the "E" or "E/I" rating.  You can find those lessons here: http://www.achieve.org/EQuIP

Ohio has created a similar rubric, based on the EQuIP rubric, to help educators evaluate lessons they might use in their classrooms.  You can find the Ohio Quality Review Rubric for mathematics here: https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Academic-Content-Standards/Mathematics/Resources-Ohio-s-New-Learning-Standards-K-12-Mathe/Mathematics-Quality-Review-Rubric.pdf.aspx

I hope that you will use some of these tools to talk with your colleagues about the lessons you are teaching.  Many teachers no longer use textbooks and these rubrics are one of several available tools to help teachers know that they are using high-quality resources.

Seeing Through the Eyes of your Students

During my coursework at Ohio State, I read a powerful article that made me think more deeply about what questions we might ask students.  The article was written by Shelly Harkness who is currently a professor of mathematics education at University of Cincinnati.  Entitled "Social constructivism and the Believing Game: a mathematics teacher's practice and its implications', the article examined how teachers responded to students when the teacher took the position that what the student said was correct - regardless of the accuracy of the student's statement.  You can access the full article here: http://bit.ly/1rgRAEY

Harkness writes of a student who responds "false" to the statement that All triangles have three sides.  The student is asked to come to the board and draw a figure to represent what she sees.  She draws the following:

The teacher responded, "No.  That's not a triangle.  It's not flat.  The answer must be true."  The conversation ended and the class moved on.

Harkness writes that the drawing above made her reconsider her own thinking about the mathematics.  She wondered if Kayla looked at each side individually, thinking each of the four sides was flat.  What questions might you ask Kayla to explore three-dimensional space? What discussion might you have about sides and faces?  Or about geometric language?

What does Kayla know about triangles?  How might this knowledge be influencing her interpretation of the question?

As we begin this new school year, I encourage you to assume all answers your students give are correct.  At least from their point of view.  Children do not intentionally give incorrect answers - the answer they give has validity from their point of view.  Working to understand why they believe they are correct is the first step to uncovering their misconceptions and working to build their understanding.  This school year, work to build meaning together WITH your students.

How I spent my summer vacation.....

We are getting ready to begin another school year - and I am excited about the opportunities I have had over the past few weeks that will influence my work for the upcoming year!  It has been a busy summer and too long since I've written on this blog.  Here are a few highlights:

• 4 days in Columbus, OH with the Network of Regional Leaders (NRLs) and the Ohio Department of Education.  One day in June was spent debriefing the previous year with the Mathematics Cohort.  Then we spent 3 days in July with NRLs from all disciplines at the Summer Leadership Academy.
• 1 1/2 days in Washington D.C. with EQuIP peer reviewers reviewing lessons for Achieve and sharing our work the the Teaching Channel.
• Many hours working on a parent website as a resource for parents in our district.
• Many more hours working on math resources for 5th grade teachers in our district.
• Meetings to plan professional development for using ST Math - our district is so fortunate to be part of a consortium that won a Straight A Fund grant from the State of Ohio to provide this opportunity for our students!
• Tutoring 2 wonderful girls who are going into 5th grade!!!
• Presenting at the Innovative Learning Environments 2014 conference in Hilliard, OH.
• Participating in Jo Boaler's "How to Learn Math" course through Standford University.
• Reviewing manuscripts for the Ohio Journal of School Mathematics.
• Reading great articles about teaching mathematics!!!

It wasn't ALL work!  We did manage to get away for a family vacation and I enjoyed time with family and friends this summer.  I feel so fortunate to have had these opportunities to spend time with so many talented educators!  I hope to share what I have learned with you in the upcoming weeks.

I hope you have had the opportunity to recharge this summer - and that you have a WONDERFUL start to this school year!