We strive to grow in our understanding of the Eight Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. This research-informed framework of teaching and learning reflects a core set of high leverage practices and essential teaching skills necessary to promote deep learning of mathematics.
Establish mathematics goals to focus learning.
Effective teaching of mathematics establishes clear goals for the mathematics that students are learning, situates goals within learning progressions, and uses the goals to guide instructional decisions.
In order to support our teaching teams as they stretch to learn more, we drafted the following learning progressions. We choose to provide a couple of pathways to focus teacher effort, understanding, and action.
When working with teacher teams to establish mathematics goals to focus learning, we refer to 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions by Peg Smith and Mary Kay Stein and Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K-12: What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning by John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey along with Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All by Steve Leinwand.
To deepen our understanding around establishing mathematics goals, we anticipate, connect to prior knowledge, explain the mathematics goals to learners, and teach learners to use these goals to self-assess and level up.
From NCTM’s 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions, we know that we should do the math ourselves, predict (anticipate) what students will produce, and brainstorm what will help students most when in productive struggle and when in destructive struggle.
Once prior knowledge is activated, students can make connections between their knowledge and the lesson’s learning intentions. (Hattie, 44 pag.)
To strengthen our understanding of using mathematics goals to focus learning, we make the learning goals visible to learners, ask assessing and advancing questions to empower students, and listen and respond to support learning and leveling up.
Excellent teachers think hard about when they will present the learning intention. They don’t just set the learning intentions early in the lesson and then forget about them. They refer to these intentions throughout instruction, keeping students focused on what it is they’re supposed to learn. (Hattie, 55-56 pag.)
How might we continue to deepen and strengthen our ability to advance learning for every learner?
What if we establish mathematics learning goals to focus learning?
Cross posted on Easing The Hurry Syndrome
Hattie, John A. (Allan); Fisher, Douglas B.; Frey, Nancy; Gojak, Linda M.; Moore, Sara Delano; Mellman, William L.. Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K-12: What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning (Corwin Mathematics Series). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.
Leinwand, Steve. Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. Reston, VA.: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014. (p. 21) Print.
Stein, Mary Kay., and Margaret Smith. 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
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