Toes in the Sand Professional Development

I spent the day today gathering the books that I wanted to put on my bedside table and in my beach bag for my personally-designed professional development. As I made my list and gathered some of the books, I made an important discovery....

I'm gonna need a bigger bag!

I'm sure I won't get through all of these books this summer, and I'm not even positive that every one of these will be worth the time I put into reading them – but I'm hopeful to find a few gems or at least some ideas that either affirm or (best case scenario) cause me to reflect and question my own thinking. As you consider how you will renew yourself for the fall, consider ways that you can rejuvenate through some self-selected professional development. Perhaps professional reading has a place on your summer agenda, too :) 

EDIT (June 21): For my own accountability, I decided to come back and make additions to the original post by writing a "highlight statement" for each book that I successfully complete from my list. Perhaps it will motivate me to finish most of them and will provide me with some bullets points that I hope to make part of an action plan.

EDIT 2 (July 3): It seems that my list just keeps growing as "way leads to way" and one book or idea leads me to a new idea and book! What a fantastic rabbit hole to fall into! 

MY SUMMER STACK

Fluency through games? Two of my favorite topics. I'm sure I'll find tons of ideas to share when we come back together after reading this one!

This Math Fact Fluency book is not one of those books that you are likely to read cover to cover, page by page. I read the first 13 pages as the foundation for understanding how fluency was characterized in this book. Then I began flipping through the book reading the introduction to each chapter, skimming the various activities, and reading the concluding statements. Here are two of the take-away ideas that have stuck with me: 

1. Fluency DEVELOPS through a process; it is not something that is taught
2. Timed tests do NOT assess fluency since they do not effectively assess the four components of fluency: (1) accuracy (2) efficiency (3) flexibility and (4) selection of an appropriate strategy

I have read NCTM's Principles to Actions several times over the past four years, and always find something new that encourages me to refine my own thinking and practice each time I read it. This book "connects research with practice. Specific, research-based teaching practices that are essential for a high-quality mathematics education for each and every student...." I often see this title listed on other mindful educators' suggestions of "must reads" when asked what titles they recommend.

No matter how many times I read this book, I always find a new nugget of wisdom within its pages - perhaps it is the perspective I have gained since my last reading of the pages or perhaps, like all learners, I simply need to digest the information one small bite at a time.  My nugget of wisdom gained this time focuses on Mathematical Discourse (a topic that I am presenting on at the CMC-S conference in Palm Springs in November - so excited!).  As we include mathematical discourse as a regular part of instruction, we must be careful not to allow that time to become an "elaborate show-and-tell", but rather, we must orchestrate which approaches will be discussed, the order in which we have students share, and the questions we will ask that help our students to make important connections. To learn how to orchestrate these discussions more fully, check out the book 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions that was co-authored by Margaret (Peg) Smith who is also a collaborative author of Principles to Actions.  

Discussion around basic math fluency is always a hot topic. I have been looking forward to reading this title and getting more insight into the balance between memorizing basic facts and helping students to learn the concepts in a way that is conceptual so it sticks!

This book (as well as its counterpart by the same authors Mastering the Basic Math Facts in Addition and Subtraction) offers 11 of its 12 chapters on specific strategies encouraging classroom teachers to build fact fluency with conceptual-based strategies that go beyond simple memorization. 

The name Jo Boaler and effective, progressive math instruction go hand-in-hand. This one has been on my shelf for quite a while waiting for me to really read it thoroughly. So far, I've only had an opportunity to peruse it - can't wait for a deep read of this title.

Lots of bookmarked pages that I'll return to again and again and so much discussion happening around this title on social media among fellow teachers. 

I saw Sunil speak this past April at the NCTM Mathematics Conference and knew I had to buy his book. I should have bought it while I was there, but my suitcase was already past capacity -- I got reprimanded at the SouthWest ticket counter for being two pounds over the limit on my return flight!

I started this one today (6/26). I'll report back when I finish :)
It's two months later, and I'm still only 1/3 the way through. It's been an incredibly busy summer getting curriculum written - I'm looking forward to picking up where I left off once the new school year rush calms a bit.  

As folks in my district know, we've spent some time looking at the Hattie research on highly effective teaching practices, so this title is a natural addition to my reading list.  I think I'll start with this one this weekend since it's been looming from my bedside for quite some time now.

Much of what I read in the pages of Visible Learning for Mathematics aligned to my own thinking and to the current practices of my school district. One of the highlights, for me, was the Effect Size chart in Appendix A.  Classroom Discussions have an effect size of 0.82 (for reference, 0.4 is considered the hinge point value for impact) while Teacher Subject Matter Knowledge only produced an effect size of 0.09 (what?!). It seems that understanding how to orchestrate an effective classroom discussion has a much more powerful impact than whether or not the teacher is an expert in the field. 

I read the K-3 edition of this book last summer and it played an important role as we developed the daily Number Sense Routines for grades 1-5 in our district. I am looking forward to seeing how this edition stretches the ideas into the intermediate grades.

Truth be told, this title is still sitting in my Amazon cart waiting for me to clear the rest of the stack. 

I feel like I need to do more to understand equity as it relates to mathematics instruction, so I added this title to my pile. It's a short read, so I should be able to read the pages in a few short hours, but I suspect understanding the impact of those words will take much longer.

When I read books for my own professional development (like the ones listed here in my summer stack), I always keep a pack of Post-It Notes handy to jot ideas from the book that I want to make actionable for myself. Although this book has fewer than 120 pages, I ended up with a surprising number of notes sticking out when I was finished. Among the numerous take-away ideas is the list of Mr. C's Promises found on page 50 (this one is sure to find its way into some PD session or PLC meeting somewhere soon): 

• I will work with you until you understand
• I will not waste your time – every activity is tied to a learning standard
• I will ensure that our classroom functions as a positive learning community
• I am open to suggestions
• I will learn along with you

Several of the educators in my district are reading this title. I've put it on my list for this summer so I can join the great conversations surrounding the content.









Okay, one more title.... I've been promising my mathematics supervisor that I would read this one for over a month now, so let me add it to the list. It has a 5-star rating currently on Amazon and we've been slowly changing our Count Around the Circle routine to make use of choral counting, so it will likely be a good fit.

Last year, I worked with teachers in my school district to write daily Number Sense routines for each grade level (gr.1-5) that included Count Around the Circle activities. We love those activities, but later came to discover the power of Choral Counting when we participated in a session while at NCTM San Diego. I knew we needed to somehow integrate our Count Around the Circle activities with Choral Counting to get the biggest benefit in building our students' number sense. As I read this book, the anecdotal examples written in each chapter helped me to better understand the purposeful planning that precedes the routine and the focused questioning that follows it. The chapters of this book helped bring together the routine I experienced at NCTM with words I could use to to explain the routine and its benefits to others.  Looks like I'll be refining a few of our daily routines to incorporate Choral Counting more purposefully 😄

Always room for one more, right?!  I am preparing a professional development session that I will be presenting at the CMC conference in Palm Springs in November and I came across this book and knew I HAD to read it as it seemed to be directly linked to my topic (and it was!). When the book arrived, I decided to flip through it before placing it on my ever growing stack of summer reads. Flipping through turned into skimming which, somehow, turned into an all out sit down and read from cover to cover. I finished the book in about 3 hours – with tons of little notes scribbled on a notepad as I moved from one meaningful sentence to the next.  Below is a picture of the notes I was creating as I read; they will eventually be assembled into some useful form.


This turned out to be one of those books that mirrored my own thoughts and ideas -- it made me wish that I had written it myself while simultaneously feeling delighted that someone did write it.  

There were SO MANY great ideas, and they were presented in a way that made every sentence accessible to all educators and in a sequence that just makes sense. The "take away value" of the content is tremendous – The book is a great resource filled with many ideas that can be applied to classrooms immediately; not just theory, but actionable ideas complete with planning templates and specific teacher moves for leading productive mathematical discussions in the classroom. 

My Big Take Away: Next year will be the 10th anniversary of CCSS-M.  As the nation refocused its priorities away from simple "answer getting" to a focus on deep understanding, we guided students to discover a wide range of conceptual-based strategies. Our next steps must now focus on helping students to (1) know how and when to apply those strategies, (2) understand which strategy will be most efficient and effective in a given situation, and (3) learn how to articulate their understandings so they can participate in the larger math dialogue. 

What's YOUR

rejuvenation plan 

this summer? 

I know it looks like all I'm doing is reading this summer, but don't worry -- there will be a healthy mix of biking, kayaking, beach visits, and a few house projects (truthfully, I find painting and organizing closets to be strangely satisfying). 


Summer Rejuvenation Update - September 15
Summer has officially come to an end. School has been back in session for a couple of weeks now. I biked only once. Finished a couple of the house projects. And didn't meet the goal of "10 new kayaking sites before the summer ends".  But my husband and I did explore 9 new kayaking sites (so close!) - some of which were simply amazing. We had two trips that were particularly spectacular: (1) The Pocomoke River where the tannic acid from the cypress trees turns the river into a beautiful rich coffee colored reflective lens creating the illusion that the cypress trees are both above and below you and (2) Mallows Bay where we paddled over sunken WWI ships (see the cool Google Map photo below).  We're not disheartened by our missed goal; we have simply decided to "extend summer" and plan to do our 10th new site as a fall trip to enjoy the cooler temperatures and to see the changing colors of the leaves over the water - heck, we may even keep going beyond the ten new sites for as long as the weather holds out. 

Light SUMMER READING

I've included 6 short articles that may interest you. The article titles are hot-linked to the respective websites, so just click the title of the article that catches your eye!