What worked? How will I repeat that?
K-5 program strength
We have a strong K-5 math program. Every year it seems that the children come to fifth grade stronger than the year before. I believe that's due to the following reasons:
- Our math director has made sure that all standards are taught in meaningful ways throughout the grades. New programming, tech venues, and knowledge has been added over time to enrich and deepen the program.
- There is some good math support for teachers in-house
- We have the hands-on materials we need to teach math
- A good amount of time is put aside for math teaching each week in each grade: 60 minutes a day for the core program and one-hour a week for RTI.
- Regular assessments help educators to know who is learning well and who needs more or different with regard to their math learning
- We have time set aside to review data, talk about students' needs/strengths/interests, and work together to teach all children well.
- We have Response to Intervention (RTI) time set aside so that all teachers at a grade level are working together to teach all students in meaningful ways for one-hour a week.
- The system supports, with time and money, educators' attendance at professional learning conferences, institutes, and events to grow our practice during the school year and summer.
- All teachers at every grade are dedicated to teaching math well--they put the time in and continually develop their repertoire in this respect.
- There are summer help sessions for some students.
I gave students a summer multiple/factor review packet. Many completed the packet, and I believe that helped students solidify good number knowledge including facts and multiples of numbers less than 100 prior to the school year. This year I want to design the packet a bit better so that it's more engaging, artistic, and memorable.
Early year number study including key vocabulary and operation understanding
Starting the year with good teaching and review of number vocabulary and operation knowledge helped to build a good base for learning all year. I want to deepen this and make it more meaningful and memorable next year.
Project based learning and hands-on exploration
As students engaged in test prep and the system-wide assessment, it was clear that the projects we did and the hands-on explorations stuck with greater depth than paper/pencil work alone. Next year, I want to build on the volume and fraction project we did and also add a metric and coordinate grid project to further deepen students learning in those areas. Students are very engaged when they work on the projects with their classmates--they extend the learning naturally outside of school and that learning sticks. The key here is to design the projects well to foster best possible learning.
Plenty of practice
Students engaged in lots of practice. Using the mantra "more of them, less of us," I made sure that a large percentage of math learning time was time on task with all kinds of varied practice.
Teaming with families
Families have been a key component of students' success. Our team communicates with families often, and our notes share how they might help us boost students' learning and engagement in all areas. Parents responded by helping their children stay on track, practice skills, and attend extra help sessions. Also many families take advantage of outside of school math programs. We can't ignore this fact, and we have to think about how this factor is related to the opportunity gaps we notice.
Extra help sessions
There were two steady extra help sessions offered to all students each week for thirty minutes. This provided an opportunity for some great individual and small group help. There were additional extra help sessions offered to selected students, and when students attended these sessions, that helped. Next year I want to extend these extra help sessions in an even better way including the usual two-mornings a week open to all, targeted mornings open to some who have specific needs, and then an afternoon help session offered to selected students too. I am looking into adding senior citizen volunteers to the afternoon session in order to provide more one-to-one help and positive coaching. Senior citizens in the town where I teach can get a tax break for volunteering. Though the extra help sessions costs me time, these sessions serve to buy me greater student success and better relationships with children which translates to greater satisfaction with my work. An enriching math team club would be beneficial too.
Reasonable class sizes and sufficient support
This year our class sizes were reasonable. This meant greater success. Last year our classes were simply too big and too complex to give the same kind of attention to every child. Reasonable class sizes matter. It's also essential to look at the complexity a class brings and make sure you have sufficient support for that complexity. For the most part, support was sufficient for this year's students. It's critical that we look carefully at scheduling at the start of the year to make sure that all children who get extra support have schedules where that extra support is sufficiently available.
Online practice tests and tests
Students, in general, like the online tests and practice tests because of the quick feedback. They like getting their scores right away and the fact that when they get their scores, they can see what they got wrong and why. That really helps with the learning. This is true for the practice tests too. When students are assessing their work and seeing the right answers, they generally talk about it with me and others. I always ask, "Do you understand why you got that wrong?" and if they don't we discuss the situation and engage in more fruitful practice. The online Google Form quizzes save me correcting time, make the scores more meaningful, and buy time for more targeted attention to the curriculum prep work and working with students.
Test Accommodations
By scheduling special educator and teaching assistant help strategically, students had the support they needed for tests. We need to pay attention to this kind of scheduling next year too.
Integrating standards
In many cases, I integrated standards to build greater meaning. For example I integrated measurement and geometry standards with fractions. Next year I want to do more integration to build positive review, learning, and meaning. Some great opportunities to integrate standards at fifth grade include the following:
- algebraic thinking, order of operations, and review of basic number fact knowledge and operations
- coordinate grids and plane geometry
- base ten system and metric measurement
- customary measurement and fraction study
- operations and science study standards
I will think more about this integration over the summer months.
Reading comprehension
Another reason that many students did well is because this group of students reads well and comprehends well. If students have trouble with reading, they also struggle with math tests and math learning. For a few that didn't reach as much success, I believe that reading comprehension, in part, was the problem.
Stamina
Students generally have good stamina. For a few that didn't do as well, I think that stamina played a role. In some cases, the children are simply younger by many months than the others. The age range at fifth grade can be as much as about one and a half years. That time makes a big difference with regard to stamina for some. For others they are still working on building stamina for many reasons, reasons often related to other challenges they experience.
Reading comprehension
Another reason that many students did well is because this group of students reads well and comprehends well. If students have trouble with reading, they also struggle with math tests and math learning. For a few that didn't reach as much success, I believe that reading comprehension, in part, was the problem.
Stamina
Students generally have good stamina. For a few that didn't do as well, I think that stamina played a role. In some cases, the children are simply younger by many months than the others. The age range at fifth grade can be as much as about one and a half years. That time makes a big difference with regard to stamina for some. For others they are still working on building stamina for many reasons, reasons often related to other challenges they experience.
Professional study
A steady diet of professional study helps to keep the math program fresh. This year attendance at local math conferences, reading my Twitter math-related thread daily, taking advantage of the state's math-related professional learning, and following other online threads and sites such as the You Cubed Facebook page has kept me thinking about what's happening in math research and practice, and how I might improve the teaching/learning program.
All in all the math program is in a good place. Of course I believe that we can continue to develop the program with the ideas noted above as well as greater attention to the processes we use to support and develop the program. I believe that if use more modern approaches to our collaborative time and student support we will develop the program even more. More time-on-task with students, better collaborative processes, more targeted programs/teaching for our students who are behind with the expected learning, and developing how and what we do during RTI and at extra help sessions will prove to be beneficial. We might want to consider the following actions:
- Choosing a team of teaching assistants for grade five that are committed to math teaching and learning. This year's teaching assistant team at grade five really knew the math--this helped a lot.
- Looking deeply at students' who fall far from the grade level expectations at the start of the year and thinking about how to best teach those students so they make substantial progress.
- Looking at teaching math reading comprehension for those who struggle with reading and comprehension to help them advance more in math teaching and learning.
- Making the most of our collaborative time with modern, research-based processes that truly elevate what we do. At times, I think our collaboration is not as meaningful or deep as it could be. I want to think more about this.
