Thursday Musings: April 4, 2019

It's been another busy week. Today students "showed what they know" as they used good strategy to complete a systemwide math assessment. As they took the test, I noted a number of efforts I'd like to add to next year's math teaching and learning:

• Provide summer practice of multiples, factors, and number knowledge
• Update early year community building math activities to boost number knowledge and foundation
• Integrate metric measurement with the base ten numeral system unit
• Develop a more explicit focus on vocabulary and concepts with the volume project
• Integrate standard measurement with fraction units
• Develop the fraction project
• Add more time to the math curriculum and fidelity to extra help sessions in school and outside of school
• Identify students who face learning challenges in math earlier and work to create positive programming for those students
• Utilize valuable math tech venues earlier than later as one more way to learn math

Overall students did well on the assessment. 

Next week will find students taking an MCAS math practice test, practicing MCAS test problems, and working on Climate Change projects. I'll spend a day at the ATMIM math conference where I'll learn more about teaching math and also lead a conversation about the role of practice when learning math. It will be nice to end the week prior to vacation with lots of project work rather than test prep.

After vacation I'll engage students in DESE's new fraction computational thinking unit and complete the prep for the fifth grade STEAM Survival Projects. Test season is demanding, but fortunately followed by lots of wonderful projects so we'll stay the course with good things to come. Onward.