Teachers are a Gift!

This past weekend, I went into the basement and pulled out my Christmas decorations from storage and began the annual transformation – my home was soon filled with twinkling lights and the the smells of the holiday season. As we were decorating our tree, I couldn't help but think about all of the students I have taught over the years – after all, many of my ornaments are ones I received from students – I found one of the first dated 1989!  As I carefully unwrapped each one and hung it on the tree, I began thinking about not only the students I have known but the many amazing teachers with whom I've had the privilege to work alongside. This month's Snack is dedicated to YOU – to every teacher who has dedicated their life to making the lives of students richer through education. 

Whether you celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas, the 8 Days of Hanukkah, the 7 Days of Kwanzaa, Three Kings Day, Pancha Ganapati, Winter Solstice, or the various other winter holidays celebrated around the world, this page is dedicated to celebrating the GIFTS that YOU bring to your classroom each and every day – Thank You!

Our school district has so many amazing educators who work with our students. I'd like to highlight a few to represent the many – the many amazing teachers who bring a wide array of gifts and talents to their classrooms every day.

Ms. Puglisi, Ms. Baker, Mr. Freytag, Ms. Shores, Ms. Roland

This team of teachers has a spirit of teamwork and collaboration that is truly inspiring. They meet with each other every morning to talk through their day and to encourage each other. When I am invited to meet with one member of the team, I am sure to find all of them at the meeting - including the special education teacher who provides services to the students in 2nd grade.  I asked them to tell me the secret to such amazing collaboration – they sent me a group-composed email with permission to change whatever wording I needed – I didn't need to change a word! "We plan and meet together daily. This allows us to share what we are each doing, to talk about what is and is not working, and to discuss ideas for specific students to ensure appropriate instruction. Not only do we support each other instructionally, but we look out for each other's best interest and support each other in the personal aspects of life. We are there to lift each other up and rub each other's back as needed. We set aside time and commit to each other's well-being - personally and professionally." What an amazing gift to students – a whole team of teachers fully invested in each other and the learning of all of their students.

If you visit Mr. Taylor's 3rd grade classroom, you will find that student voices have a prominent role in the classroom. Not only does he give them time and space to talk, but he amplifies their voices (literally!). During Number Sense routines, students share their ideas using a microphone - a real microphone! Student ideas can be heard throughout the room by everyone, and I couldn't help but notice how much more ownership the students had of their own ideas by having their voices highlighted and heard when using the mic. We have so many classrooms where student voices are encouraged and celebrated (even when it's not through the use of an amp!) – allowing students to be heard and celebrating their ideas are true gifts that we give to our students.

If you were a student in Mrs. Murphy's room, you would certainly know the Golden Rule to treat others as you hope to be treated and would definitely understand that your words should be used to lift others, not pull them down. Mrs. Murphy will be the first to tell you that, in her room, learning the content is important but it is secondary to learning how to be a good person and a community of kind humans. Mrs. Murphy helps her students develop a positive mindset each day by greeting every student who enters the classroom with a cheerful "good morning" as she calls them each by name. Of course, every minute of every day is not easy and the room is not devoid of behaviors that may make being kind a bit challenging, but Mrs. Murphy works purposefully to develop true relationships with each student so, when she does need to redirect student behaviors, she knows just the right approach to use with each student while maintaining an environment still rooted in kindness. The gift of kindness is one that all can offer and every one deserves.

Like so many teachers, Ms. Brown brings many gifts to her classroom. One of those gifts is the gift of structure. As a Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Brown teaches some of our youngest learners, and a room full of 5 year olds could easily feel like herding cats, as they say, but in Ms. Brown's classroom, there is a secure feeling of structure – of knowing exactly what to expect and what is expected. As I entered her room, her students were just returning from recess. They went straight to the carpet where a video was playing to help them to transition from the free range movement of playing outside to a more structured type of movement while they practiced counting and getting their minds ready for math time. After a few minutes of counting with Jack Hartmann, they helped each other get dry erase boards and markers to do a "before and after" number activity. The focal point changed several times as Ms. Brown changed her point of instruction with each planned activity. As she moved from place to place, she simply said, "swivel, swivel" and the students tracked her with both their eyes and body position. After a few brief directions about the day's groups, students headed off to four different learning stations throughout the room – there was a lot of movement but it all seemed like a choreographed dance, of sorts. Everyone knew what to expect – these were clearly established routines – and everyone knew what was expected of them allowing it to just flow. It is truly a gift to our students when we provide an environment that feels safe, where students have been taught the expectations, and a consistent structure is in place to help them feel confident and secure.

Want to come see a nice quiet classroom where students are sitting neatly in rows and listening intently to the lesson being delivered by the teacher? Then look somewhere else because that is not the type of learning community that Mr. Cox is striving to build among his students. In Mr. Cox's classroom, you will find a variety of flexible seating options that include some desks, some tables, and some hightop counters where students might even opt to stand instead of sit. Students are encouraged to talk to each other and Mr. Cox has been known to stir up a mathematical debate or two by posing questions that he knows will make some of his students analyze their own thinking. Last week, I found his students using cut up pieces of old overhead projector sheets (you know, the clear plastic sheets that have been long forgotten since the era of SmartBoards) to make "sliders" as they worked with decimals and multiplying by powers of ten. A few weeks prior to that, students were building rectangular prisms with Unifix cubes to create a structure that matched the details on their task cards in order to discover the missing dimension of the structure, and today I walked in to see his students moving throughout the room solving a variety of error analysis problems that centered around multi-digit multiplication. When we engage our students in their own learning, we give them the gift of ownership of that learning. It is well-documented that engaging students in the learning process increases attention and focus and motivates students to practice higher-level critical thinking – a gift that is certainly worth giving!

I just love visiting Ms. Torres' 1st grade classroom. It is a place that is filled with hard work and high expectations – but it is also a room of smiles and positive language. In Ms. Torres' room, students are embraced each and every day with words of encouragement that makes them want to strive for higher goals and achieve more. I recently spent just 10 or so minutes with Ms. Torres' class – actually, I was just passing through the library and they were there. Ms. Torres was working with students one-on-one offering personal feedback and instruction before making her rounds to those who were on the computers fully engaged in Dreambox learning. As she stopped by every single student's work station, students clicked on their progress monitoring button as Ms. Torres helped them to self-check their progress  – she offered just the right type of encouragement whether they were lagging behind or right on track. As she left each student's station, I couldn't help but notice two things: (1) every student seemed to work even harder to either meet the goal she set with them or to continue gaining her approval and (2) every student was smiling from the words of encouragement she had offered. When we encourage our students and help them to realize their own potential, we give them a gift that will last throughout their lives.

One of the most essential gifts that we can offer our students is the gift of patience. They are young – I mean, think about it... I have t-shirts that were born before most of our students. They are new to most things, and they really do want to do their best – but they may not always know how to do that, just yet. Patience is certainly a key ingredient when you work in education. So how do we give our students this important gift? I asked Ms. Brunner, a special education teacher working with several grade levels, because she always seems to take things in stride no matter how difficult the situation. Her approach is to begin by recognizing and celebrating all student growth because it allows her to focus on the positive and "when you are focused on the positive, you can't help but to be more patient." If focusing on the positive doesn't seem to do the trick, Ms. Brunner knows she just hasn't found the right fit (yet!) and it's time to start brainstorming for a new strategy or tool that will help her students learn and grow. And when all else fails, she says, "just take a few deep breaths and focus on moving forward."

Ms. Broussard is most definitely one of those "lifelong learner" types (I say this with the utmost admiration and respect!). Ms. Broussard is a phenomenal teacher – just ask any of the students that she has taught over the past 18 years or colleagues who have had the pleasure of teaching alongside of her. Despite her years of experience and success, she is still (and always) on a mission to learn more. Like others, she regularly attends the Wednesday night planning sessions – not to share what she knows, although she shares her knowledge freely – but to learn from her colleagues. She is equally eager to talk about an amazing lesson she taught yesterday or to learn about another approach or activity that she might try tomorrow with her students.  When she learns something new, it is difficult to contain her obvious excitement – but truthfully, why would anyone even try? An excitement for learning is contagious! When you think about it, lifelong learning is actually a double gift to our students: They "catch" our excitement for learning and because we now know more ourselves, we are even better teachers for them.

It is likely that as you read these vignettes, you recognized these gifts as ones that you and your colleagues bring to your students, too. You were, in fact, also a part of this story. Your photo may not have appeared in the article, but, as you are well-aware, it is simply not possible to teach without offering our students the gift of ourselves: our time, our talents, our hearts. As we head into the gift-giving season and then into the new year, let's unwrap all the gifts that we have to offer because the best gift we can give our students is being a caring adult whose goal is to help each student in our care become their best self 🎁

How Do You Know?

The POWER of 4 Little Words!

I am pretty sure that I am not the original author of this powerful saying, but I am absolutely positive that I say these words more than any other words during mathematical conversations with students.

Indulge me as I tell a little side story to offer some background information: When working with teachers, I regularly talk about my "Teacher Wall" because it is one of the things in my career that was very simple to implement, and yet, has had some of the greatest impact on my own instruction. My Teacher Wall held a simple 8-1/2 by 11 piece of paper with the words "How Do You Know?" for an entire school year and eventually these words fell out of my mouth before I even thought about it when I was teaching - especially during math time. 

...so what is a Teacher Wall? 

Early in my career I realized that I often answered my own questions in class – who knows if my students knew the answers or not – it seems that I was just too impatient to find out. Somewhere around my fourth year of teaching, I had a principal who was amazing at using Wait Time (on students and with staff!). If you went to her with a problem, she would listen and let you talk it through and, by the time you left, you had a solution – she, however, had hardly said a word.  I began to notice that I did not give my students the same kind of time and space that my principal gave me to work through things, so I went on a mission to become skilled at Wait Time. It seems, though, that the hardest part of a mission is remembering that you are on a mission. What to do?

I decided to make myself a simple sign to remind me to use Wait Time – it simply said, in big block letters (all CAPS) on a piece of white copy paper, WAIT TIME! And that was the start of my teacher wall – where a single sign hung every year after that year. The sign was not the same, but the intent was: What do I want to do better this year?  

WAIT TIME stayed on the wall for three years (!) until I finally felt like I had mastered the art of using it during instruction. For the fourth year of my Teacher Wall, I posted a sign that said, "ASK MORE THAN YOU TELL" which eventually gave way to the specific question of "HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

Signs have followed, but "How Do You Know?" has become somewhat of an anthem for me.

Last week I was visiting a first grade classroom where one of the activities during Math Workshop was to place numbered cards in the correct place on a 100s chart.  As I watched the student placing cards and then rearranging cards that had already been (mis)placed, those words just fell out of my mouth, "How do you know that number goes there?"

Student: I just know.

Me: (Undaunted and always intrigued to discover more about students' thinking, I pressed on)
How do you know the 41 goes there and not in this pocket?" (I point to the spot where 42 would go).

Student: Because that isn't the right spot.

Me: How do you know it would not be the right spot?

(Long pause.Very long) 

Student: Because it's a pattern.

(I had to work hard to contain my excitement as I was hopeful that a conversation about mathematical patterns was beginning to emerge ... patience, Dawn, patience ... use what you know about Wait Time!)

Me: (I remain silent)

Student: See... all of these numbers have a 1 (he points to the ones place of each number in the first column). The numbers in this row (column) will have a 2, so 41 can't go in that pocket - that would be 42.

Our conversation continues for a few more sentences - I can tell he is beginning to formulate new ideas in his mind about the patterns he explained to me and the ones he was not (yet) able to explain. The classroom timer goes off and my new 100s chart friend moves on to his next workshop station where he will be building numbers with base ten blocks that he rolls on a pair of dice.

... 

The Progression of Place Value

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Teaching Place Value Concepts by the National Center for Intensive Intervention
• Progressions document for NBT by the Common Core Standards Writing Team
• Number and Operations in Base Ten by the Common Core State Standards Initiative
• 3 Super Tips for Teaching Place Value a blog post by Greg Coleman at Mr. Elementary Math
• Place Value: How to Assess Student Understanding by Marilyn Burns
• Subtraction with Place Value Disks - mini-PD video by Heather Boschen
• Multiplying Decimals on a Place Value Chart - a video by Worksheets and Walkthroughs

A special "snack" for PAC-1

• Eight Munchy Math Activities
• Goldfish Graphing

Mathematical Discourse

8 Moves to Harness the Power of 

Mathematical Discourse

Which "teacher move" do you think is the most powerful
for generating mathematical thinking and discourse? 

Below are 8 strategies that you can use right away in your classroom to promote deeper thinking and richer discourse for ALL students – and for my own entertainment, I thought it would be fun to use some well-known (and lesser known) sayings as a way to categorize and remember each of the eight strategies. 

1. A Goal Without a Plan is Just a Wish
2. Be Careful What You Ask For Because You Just Might Get It 
3. The More the Merrier
4. Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
5. RBF – No, Let's Call It "RMF": Resting Math Face
6. A Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal
7. The Mind Needs More Space Than the Body
8. Keep the Home Fires Burning

INTRIGUED? Keep Reading....

1. A Goal Without a Plan is Just a Wish 

As you prepare your lessons, plan for a variety of possible paths and possible misconceptions that your students will have. Design the tasks so that rich student-to-student discourse and productive struggle are inevitable. Plan for specific questions ahead of time – before you are standing in front of students. Some of the questions that you plan will get used, others will not. 

2. Be Careful What You Ask For Because You Just Might Get It

As you plan those questions (see #1 above), plan to use a lot of open questions, rather than closed questions. If you ask a closed question, you will get a closed response. When you ask open questions, students have room to think and explain and expand their ideas. You will learn more about your students' thinking and they will make more mathematical connections and will develop their mathematical vocabulary.  Win-Win! 

To learn more about creating/using open questions, check out this video from Jo Boaler

3. The More the Merrier

In our classrooms, we must become more intentional to include more student voices. Honestly, we (teachers) talk WAY too much in our classrooms. Our students should be doing much of the mathematical talking, not us. Our job is to facilitate their discussions by asking questions that focus them to ideas that they may not stumble upon without us. We need to encourage student-to-student mathematical discourse – a lot of it! We have to increase student voice in the classroom. Let's teach our students to rely on one another as sources of information rather than the teacher always being the only one with the answers and good ideas. We don't intentionally do it, but we steal students' opportunities to learn pretty regularly in a typical classroom. Want an easy first step for changing this pattern? Try this: Pose a question (an OPEN question as mentioned in #2 above). Have students think about their own ideas (we'll talk more about this one in #4). Then have students rehearse their ideas with a partner – I like to use Peanut Butter Jelly Partners. 

After a minute or so of partner discussion, ask the question again and ask a student to share his/her response out to the whole group. The student-to-student talk takes less than 2 minutes and the benefits are worth every 120 seconds of it! Think about it: Every student had a chance to share and listen to ideas as they talked with a partner. In a traditional ask and respond classroom, if 8 questions are asked, only 8 students talked about their ideas - which means most students in my class had zero opportunities to process the information, formulate a response, and talk about math. By adding a simple turn-n-talk teacher move, EVERY student interacts with EVERY question... AND... because students have rehearsed their ideas with a partner, student responses are more refined and classroom discussions are much richer and deeper. 

4. Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

In 1986, an article by Mary Budd Rowe came out in The Journal of Teacher Education on the topic of Wait Time. I was in college at the time and one of my classes required us to subscribe to the Journal as our textbook. I have a clear memory of reading that article during the second year of my teacher prep program. I'm not sure why, but I saved that volume even after I graduated. In 1986, I didn't fully understand the power of Wait Time, but during my third year of teaching (after a disastrous second year), it would become one of the most powerful tools in my teaching arsenal. That year, I established my "teacher wall" which I have had in every classroom since that year. My teacher wall was a place on the back wall where I looked most often during instruction (it was not an out-of-sight/out-of-mind spot next to my desk). Each school year, I decided on a skill I wanted to professionally develop then I posted a sign to remind me to practice that skill every day. For three years straight, my sign said "WAIT TIME". In year three, I revised it to specifically include both Wait Time I and Wait Time II.

So what exactly is Wait Time I and II? In short, it's one of the most powerful tools you'll possess as a teacher. It's an easy concept to explain – but honestly, it takes practice to perfect in the classroom.  

• WAIT TIME I: After asking a question, pause and expect students to think about the question before any discussion begins. I consistently remind students that I am not looking for hands or discussion in the first 5 seconds after I ask a question. I remind them (and myself) by putting my finger to my head to signal 5 seconds of think time. I then cue them to discuss their ideas with a partner or to raise a hand to share. In my classroom, these 5 little seconds improved the quality of the answers that students gave ten-fold, and I noticed that I had a larger pool of student hands from which to call and a wider variety of students who were willing to share. Now that's a powerful 5 seconds! By my second year of practicing this teacher move, I was pretty good at it. As I was sharing the idea with some colleagues, I realized that I had completely ignored Wait Time II, so during that third year of working to improve my use of Wait Time, I took steps to intentionally include Wait Time II. 

• WAIT TIME II: Every time a student gives an answer, pause. You may want to silently count 1-2-3-4-5 to help you remember – I used to use my fingers hidden behind my back to count down. Do not nod in agreement or make one of those typical "teacher faces" that indicates the answer was not what you had hoped. Instead, just wait... for just 3-5 short seconds allowing everyone in the room to process the answer given by their classmate and to begin deciding on their own if they agree, disagree, or even understand the response given. 

5. RBF – No, Let's Call It "RMF": Resting Math Face

If you Google RBF, you will likely get images of a scowling Anna Kendrick or Kristen Stewart or perhaps an article touting that science has proven that RBF is real. RMF, on the other hand, has no photos of contemptuous megastars, but I assure you, Resting Math Face is very real and very powerful in the classroom - and having it is a GOOD thing! 

Do your students seem to stop short of the perfect complete answer? In many cases, it's because we have sent them the message that they have said enough when we do not maintain our Resting Math Face and allow facial expressions and body language to slip out too soon. Consider this common scenario: You ask a question. You remember to use Wait Time (hooray!). You call on a student. The student begins with an answer that you just know is going to be perfect by how it starts off. You begin nodding and smiling to encourage the student to keep going. And the student suddenly stops talking. Wait! She started off so strong and it seemed she would have so much to say. Why should she continue? You have already given her the praise she was seeking for a good answer by nodding and smiling. Now let's say a student does not start off with what you know will be a perfect response, so you crinkle your nose and tilt your head ever so slightly. Oops! The student knows his answer has started off on the wrong track by your expression and body language. So he stops talking - which means he stops thinking and processing. He has shut down (perhaps for the rest of the class period). The best way to encourage students to keep going and to expand their ideas is by maintaining a Resting Math Face (RMF). Let's say the answer calls for a simple number as the response. The student says, "12". While maintaining your RMF, you ask, "How do you know the answer is 12?" The student stumbles and falters thinking that she must have answered incorrectly since you did not immediately nod and praise her correct response, so she changes her answer to "11". Using the same tone and continuing to maintain your RMF, ask, "How do you know the answer is 11?" This forces the student to consider why that answer is correct. Yep, it'll be awkward at first because we have conditioned our students through the years to look for teacher cues, but they'll soon catch on that they need to fully explain because they'll be initially met with the teacher's Resting Math Face every time. 

6. A Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal

Okay, forgive me for the quirky little title of #6, but, according to my children, I use these types of sayings more than I am aware😏. When asking students questions, it's true that we are often a few questions short of getting to their deeper understanding (or their misunderstandings) because we don't use questioning to push their explanations (and their thinking) farther. When students answer, we should push/probe/challenge their ideas. Part of our job is to help our students develop their ability to engage in mathematical discourse. To do this, we need to encourage them to explain/elaborate/clarify their thinking. Remember the "teacher wall" I mentioned earlier? The sign I had hanging on my wall in more recent years said "How do you know?" – I wanted to remind myself to ask students (often) to explain their thinking. Students will become so accustomed to every answer they give being followed by the question "How do you know?" that they will automatically begin giving an answer AND a reason as part of their initial response.

Love my new laptop sticker designed by my daughter Erin

7. The Mind Needs More Space Than the Body

I heard this saying somewhere and it has stuck with me, especially when I'm working with students. As we ask students to talk to each other about their ideas, it is critical that we give them time and space with their partner/group to play with those ideas. We will gain great insight into our students' thinking and understanding as we listen to their discussions – but it is important that we do not hover or interject our own ideas as we walk around from group to group. [An alternate title for this one could be "A Watched Pot Never Boils"]. Just listen. Take notes. Let the students grapple with the learning. Let them talk and really listen to each other's ideas. Give them space to reason, question, debate, and yes, even to stumble and struggle a bit. Then use what you heard as you walked around listening to their mathematical ideas to orchestrate productive math discussions. 

8. Keep the Home Fires Burning

This one may be last on my list, but it is perhaps the most important one! If we hope to create powerful mathematical discourse in our classrooms, we MUST begin by establishing a supportive learning environment. And once established, we must continuously "stoke" the fire to keep it burning. I find that the best way to get the fire started is by being genuinely curious about students' ideas. We sometimes get so wrapped up in the "right" answer and the specific procedure that we fail to listen to what our students know and what they are ready to learn next. There are many ways to foster a supportive learning environment. Want a few more ideas to help stoke the fires? Try these: 

• Promote student-to-student discourse every day 
• Encourage students to be mathematically curious 
• Help students focus and form new ideas by asking questions that probe thinking  
• Model a growth mindset 

So... which "teacher move" do you think is the most powerful for generating mathematical thinking and discourse? And more importantly, which move(s) can you begin cultivating right away to increase mathematical discourse?

Check out the highlight notes on my summer page for the books I read from my Summer Stack!  I'm not done, yet....

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!