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Chapter 1 – Option 3:

01/04/2019 8:16 PM | Anonymous

Each of us has a history with the Standards for Mathematical Practice in our teaching; tell us (briefly) about your experience so far with the MPs.

Comments

  • 01/06/2019 4:36 PM | Anne Pember, Ed.D
    My experience with the SMPs, as a provider of professional learning, has been that educators do focus primarily on the content standards and the SMPs get lost. The example of Ms. King at the beginning of this chapter is a pervasive concern. I believe because we focus so heavily on the content standards, and not the SMPs which "beautifully summarize the ways mathematicians work"(p.1), our students are missing out on becoming wonderful mathematicians. I look forward to reading this book and using this information to design ways so that I might support educators of mathematics to weave in the SMPs naturally into their students' mathematics experiences.
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  • 01/08/2019 9:39 PM | Susan Lukianov
    As a math specialist (coach, interventionist, professional development provider) I have had different "experiences" with the SMPs. Initially, I had to make sense of these myself for myself as a math coach. But I also had to find ways to communicate the beauty and necessity of these to teachers. The latter has been the more challenging aspect. There are some teachers who have difficulty seeing (through no real fault of their own) the bigger picture of how mathematics works and therefore paid more attention to the content standards. Many did incorporate the SMPs with the content standards but not to their fullest (myself included), and often treated them as additional "content" standards. The opening page alone of Chapter 1 captured my attention and gave me pause about my past and current use os the SMPs. I look forward to gaining a greater understanding of the SMPs so that I can use them more wisely and support teachers in their curriculum/lesson design.
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  • 01/09/2019 5:36 PM | Timothy Hebert
    When I first read the SMP, I was still a teacher. I fully agreed with their value, and I saw them as good descriptions of the diverse and deep kinds of thinking students should do while learning mathematics. But I had a problem: As a teacher, I lacked training, instinct, and imagination where the HOW was concerned. All my teacher moves were built around teaching to a narrower understanding than what the SMP represents.
    I have become a professional learning provider, and I've noticed many teachers share the same problem. Worse, even if teachers see or experience a good, deep lesson that accesses some of the thinking described in the SMP, there's still the question of HOW - "How do I generalize what was so good about that model lesson, and teach like that all the time?"
    I have come to see instructional routines as the main part of the answer to this problem: if teachers can learn some instructional routines that are DESIGNED to support student access to the SMP, then we can begin to "teach like that all the time."
    I'm working with some teachers implementing some of the routines for reasoning, and they and I have noticed that some of the teacher moves in the routines are spilling over into other teaching situations. That makes me optimistic that these teachers and their students will move closer to the model of mathematical learning envisioned by the CCSS authors.
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    • 01/19/2019 3:27 PM | Amy Lucenta
      Great news that 'some of the teacher moves in the routines are spilling over into other teaching situations'! And, are you starting to see students transfer their thinking developed from the routines as well?
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  • 01/11/2019 10:52 AM | Anonymous
    My experiences with the SMP first emerged while I was teaching. I taught 1st, 2nd, and 4th grade for 12 years before becoming the K-2 math coach. I was never really introduced or paid attention to the SMPs until I entered 4th grade (the last 3 years of my teaching experience). I struggled to adapt them into my instruction, however with guidance from my math coach I was able to see how they were implemented in my everyday instruction and helped my students apply the strategies I was teaching them outside of our Math program.

    As a K-2 math coach now, I am working to help my teachers recognize, understand, and embrace the SMPs into their math instruction.
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  • 01/13/2019 2:42 PM | Anonymous
    As a classroom teacher my experience with the SMPs was very limited. I knew about them but saw them as an add-on to the Core Standards, something that I could work at "when I got the chance." I didn't realize until much later in my career that these practices actually went alongside the standards and would enhance my students' understanding of math. Now that I am an interventionist I have had the opportunity to delve deeper into my own math practice and I have looked at how I can become a better math instructor. In order to help my students become good math thinkers and problem solvers I need to incorporate these mathematical practices into my instruction and help my students begin to notice how they can use them as they problem solve.
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  • 01/20/2019 4:57 PM | Marianne Springer
    In our departmental discussions of curriculum and instructional practices, we generally focus on content standards as opposed to math practices. When we do discuss the math practices, we all feel that we have incorporated them into our instructional styles, but in very different ways. The structure in this chapter could provide a better way of improving our incorporation of math practices in our daily instruction.
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  • 01/22/2019 8:17 PM | Laura Larson
    Ever since the SMPs were released as part of the Common Core, we have grappled with how to interpret them ourselves, and also how to make them more transparent to students.

    We have come a long way in our understanding of what each SMP looks like in student work. I recall that we used to get mixed up when trying to differentiate between MP4/MP5 as well as MP7/MP8. Now I can see how different they truly are, but at the same time there is so much overlap between all eight practices, and I love using the avenues of thinking to organize them in my own thinking.

    A couple of years ago, we tried to directly teach students what the math practices were and what they looked like. I suppose we may have reached a couple of students who were already in the habit of reflecting about their own mathematical thinking, but for most students, our lessons were likely just overwhelming -- too much information at once with no suggestions of how a student might use them.

    I really like how the Routines for Reasoning strive to call students' attention to why they work the way they do in math class: what they should pay attention to, how to reformat a problem for better understanding, what habits are good for them to cultivate, etc.
    --Laura
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  • 01/27/2019 1:06 PM | Katie Chuchul
    The first time I was introduced to the mathematical practices was in college when I was studying to be an elementary teacher. After that one math methods course, I did not hear about them again until working with the Routines for Reasoning leaders early last year. My school uses Investigations for our math curriculum, so we also were told about the mathematical practices by an instructor during one day of professional development.

    Much of my experience has been reading about the practices but not about observing what these practices look like in a classroom for students on a daily basis. This year, I have been working towards teaching and working with students through a lens that targets specific mathematical practices on a daily basis. Investigations uses MP checklists to help teachers evaluate students' success throughout different units. These checklists have been helpful but also difficult to consistently use without utilizing a support teacher to help me get to all 60 students within a short window of time.

    I also have the mathematical practices posted in my classroom as a reminder to students and to myself that math isn't solely about getting the right answer but it is about the process and gaining different skills while learning the content.

    Lastly, this year, my school has added two of the mathematical practices (perseverance and attends to precision) onto the report cards. I appreciate this shift because even though it is important for students to be successful with the content, it is also important for them to be able to persevere and solve problems accurately and carefully.
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  • 01/28/2019 3:27 PM | Hala Sahlman
    Before beginning to incorporate Routines for Reasoning in my classroom, the SMP's were simply words on posters in my room. The one I would refer to heavily, however, was MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. As a middle school special educator I find that students at this age level have very low tolerance for challenging tasks. Reminding them of the math practice to stick with the problem and persevere has been very beneficial. I would always pass right over the other SMP's when looking at the content standard because I didn't find any need to focus heavily on them. I now see how important they are for the success of teaching the math content.
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    • 02/09/2019 9:53 AM | Cindy Noftle
      I too find that the students want to skip difficult problems. Some only do the skill sets in the homework and they wait to have the word problems done in class. Even when the word problem is basically a skill problem they avoid it.i do think that perseverance is a great skill for us to instill in our students. I have been trying. My hope is that the routines will aid in this.
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  • 02/10/2019 7:02 AM | Anonymous
    Moved from Welcome section:
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    01/29/2019 11:46 PM | Cesar A. Llontop

    For questions 2 and 3, in terms of the Mathematical Standards of Practice 1, my experience tells me that students who had never been exposed to mathematical reasoning type of questions since elementary schools to middle school, they will definitely struggle as they navigate through the standard. To address this issue, at the end of each unit, the students in math classes are to complete a Math Portfolio, which includes a performance task question, that enables the students to demonstrate their problem solving skills. The last section of this portfolio is for the students to write a reflection of their performance and the steps they will take as we continue in the next unit.
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