SREB - Another new journey in math curriculum for seniors

I had the opportunity to attend SREB Math Ready training for 3 days recently. I am excited to be piloting this course at Etowah High School this coming school year. It is another problem-based curriculum so I am looking forward to teaching it. I hope to have time to write blog posts about it like I did when I got to pilot the IMP Meaningful Math curriculum (which I am still teaching!!).

Here are the points of interest for the course that were sent to us to share with parents:

Alabama’s Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Readiness Course Pilot Initiative

(Points of Interest)

• In order to decrease the percentage of students entering community college requiring developmental courses, the Alabama Community College System (ACCS), the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE), and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) have partnered together to offer two senior-level, ready-for-college courses: The Essentials of College English and The Essentials of College Mathematics.
• The courses are designed for students scoring below college-and-career-readiness benchmarks. These courses are not dual-enrollment courses.
• To be eligible for the courses, rising seniors must score within the following ACT score range: Math ACT 16-19, English ACT 14-19, Reading ACT 15-19.
• Students who successfully complete the course or courses with a B or above are exempt from taking the highest level of corresponding developmental courses (Math 098, RDG 085 & English 093 or ENR 094) at participating two year community colleges.
• Currently, the following community colleges are participating in the partnership: Wallace (Selma), Wallace State (Hanceville), Wallace (Dothan), Jefferson State, Calhoun, Gadsden State, Northwest Shoals, Lawson State, Snead, Bevill State
• The long-term goal is for all Alabama community colleges to become part of the partnership.
• The Essentials of College English and The Essentials of College Mathematics can replace the fourth year of English Language Arts (ELA) which is English 12 and the fourth year of mathematics.
• Please be aware that this is only a partnership with the two year community colleges, not four-year institutions. Because of the entrance requirements for four year institutions, students planning to attend a four-year institution should not be enrolled in these courses.
• Four year institutions require Algebra II for freshman college entrance and will not accept The Essentials of College Mathematics course as a replacement for Algebra II. However, if a student has 30 plus hours in a community college, then most four-year institutions do not require the Algebra II for admission.
• The Essentials of College English and The Essentials of College Mathematics currently will not meet the requirements of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Clearinghouse (NCAAC). School systems may apply to the NCAAC for acceptance but there is no guarantee that they will approve the courses.
• Although The Essentials of College English can count for English 12, it will not meet the requirements of admission for four year institutions.
• The Essentials of College Mathematics course emphasizes an understanding of math concepts, as opposed to memorizing facts. Students learn the context behind procedures and come to understand the “whys” of using certain formulas or methods to solve a problem. By engaging students in real-world applications, this course develops critical-thinking skills that students will use in college and careers.
• The Essentials of College English course utilizes a disciplinary literacy approach that teaches students strategies for reading and understanding complex texts in different subject areas. Students learn to develop and defend ideas from textbooks and write about them in college-level formats for English, history, and biology.
• Teachers selected to teach The Essentials of College English and The Essentials of College Mathematics were required to attend training specific to the implementation of the courses.
• Successful completion of the The Essentials of College English and/or The Essentials of College Mathematics courses has the potential to save your child time and money at his/her local community college. (Hint: Parents successful completion of the Essentials courses mean you will not have to pay for costly developmental courses that do not count toward a student’s

program of study)

• Students completing The Essentials of College English and/or The Essentials of College Mathematics courses will complete an exemption request form. The form should be submitted to the community colleges registrars’ office.

What not to do in algebra class...read if you want to laugh!

I think that I decided to write this blog post because I feel that the last 2 days I am a shining example of what NOT to do when you are teaching a problem-based curriculum. I think that everyone should have the ability to laugh at yourself so here I go...

So...I was in the middle of a discussion with my algebra class about the unit problem for IMP Fireworks which involves a celebration where a rocket is shot off of a building and the fireworks need to be set on a timer that allows the fireworks to "go off" when the rocket is at it's highest height. The problem is GREAT because some smart student (who obviously was an ace at physics) has already determined the equation for the height of the rocket with respect to time. My students have to find the answers to the following questions:

• How long will the rocket be in the air?
• When will it reach it's highest point?
• What is the height of the rocket when it is at its highest point?
• ...there are a few more but these are the ones we were mainly discussing...

So...I am supposed to be letting them determine how they might use the equation to answer these questions and I was getting this from my students:

• How are we supposed to know, Mrs. Owens?
• But...we don't know how high the rocket goes...
• So...why don't they just shoot the fireworks off the top of the building instead?
• I plugged in 3 seconds and got _____ for my answer. So, that's the highest point.
• ***I can't even remember what all this one student kept asking me...he was so bothered by the situation and the way they were doing it. He was also bothered by the fact that "quad" means 4 but for an equation to be quadratic the variable has a power of 2. I had another student to help me out and say that the power of 2 means that it is squared and a square has 4 sides.

So...my response was finally something like this:

O. My. Goodness!!!!!!  Just do the math!! You have the equation so the hard part is already done for you. JUST SUBSTITUTE TIMES IN FOR T AND MAKE A TABLE!! Quit getting so bogged down in the context that you forget how to be a math student!!!! You can use the table to estimate the highest height and the time that the rocket hits the ground!! Just be quiet and DO IT!! Use your algebra skills!!

I am laughing as I write this. I had one student to say, "No Mrs. Owens. We are learning how to apply this math in the real world!"  It is funny to reflect back on this because I was so frustrated trying to move them forward. We had worked on introducing the unit for way longer than we were supposed to and I was just trying to motivate the need to find the exact values...which we will learn how to do as we study the unit. I did have a good conversation with them about how the ACT and other standardized tests have portions (especially science reasoning on the ACT) where you are sometimes given a formula and even told what each variable stands for and all you have to do is plug in the values and simplify!! OR that they are given charts and graphs where the information is right in front of them and they have to just interpret what it means. You can sometimes get too bogged down into trying to "figure something out" when you can just read the chart/graph and find the answer!!

Math Classroom Conversations - IMP Making Friends with Standard Deviation

Math classroom conversations

#mathtalk

The things I have been hearing my students say during this activity...

"Why is the standard deviation the same?!?!"

"Why is the mean so high this time?"

"What?!?!"

"The mean for Set C is...."

"I disagree."

"I agree."

"Is this what you got?"

"Andrew shut up!" - I had to include this one just to "keep it real."

"It says explain why your pattern..."

"No pattern occurred." to which I did a loud "AHEM" and they said "Are we supposed to get a pattern?" 

So...my students had this group investigative task and I helped them to get started. BUT...in this case I made them read the directions out loud and then I asked another student to repeat the directions in their own words AND we did an example with a data set on the board. (This sentence might make more sense if you read this post entitled "Read and Follow Directions!") Then I told them that I was going to sit down and if their group had a question the ENTIRE GROUP had to come to my desk. I usually roam around the room but I believe that I sometimes have students ask me questions that they should really be asking their group members (just because I am close).  I did have a couple of groups come to me to settle an argument...isn't it awesome that they were arguing over math concepts!

Read and Follow Directions!! #justdoit

Today I had a realization that I way too often take away my students' opportunities to read and interpret directions. In most cases I have them read the directions for a problem or an activity and then I restate them in a step by step order so that they will "do it right." (Please don't judge me! I teach algebra from a problem-based curriculum and my intention is just to get them going in the right direction...) 

So...today we were doing an activity where we had 4 sets of data that all had a mean of 20. They were given 3 different ways to measure the amount that the data spread from the mean. (The activity talks about 3 different students and their ideas about how to measure the spread of the data...range, adding the differences from the mean, or one other method where they just needed to follow steps!) The 2nd and 3rd methods totally threw them for a loop (even though there was an example to go by). So...I gave them about 5 minutes to get started and noticed as I walked around that most of the papers were COMPLETELY BLANK. They kept saying..."Mrs. Owens I need help." "Mrs. Owens will you come show me how to do it?" "I don't know what to do!" Today I replied to all of this with, "I'm not helping you! Follow the directions!" Then they asked me why I was yelling at them to which I answered that they have to quit sitting there during their "work time" waiting on me to go over the problems with the class. They should make an effort. Read and follow the directions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Try it first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Ok...sorry about all the ranting. I can not fully explain this to you without telling the directions they were supposed to follow. They were supposed to take off the lowest and the highest data items and then fine the ONE data ITEM that was the farthest from the mean and assign that number (difference from the mean) as the spread. The directions were very specific. Almost every student did fine taking out the lowest and the highest but they were doing some crazy stuff with what was left. Some were averaging the data items that were left, some were adding together their differences from the mean, yada yada yada... They were getting so frustrated that I wouldn't TELL them what to do. I would just ask questions like, "Does it tell you to find the mean?" To which they would say, "I don't know." And I would say, "Read the directions!!" So...I finally had a couple of students start to figure it out and when they did they were all mad saying stuff like, "We did all that math and working it out and we didn't have to?!?!" And I said..."All you had to do was FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS!"

I take full responsibility for my students' dependence on me to "reread" and "reword" directions. I will do better!

(I may have the opportunity to write a blog about a lesson in particular but just in case I thought I would count this one toward the MTBoS Blogging Initiative...this is certainly an example of a "recovery plan" for what I did today when I realized my students depend on me way too much!)

My Favorite Thing...my textbook (surprise!!)

I was thinking about the prompt for this week's MTBoS's Blogging Initiative during my first block class today. I was also watching them draw sketches for the unit problem in The Pit and the Pendulum unit of our Algebra text. I went down to Mrs. New's room after class and was talking to her about how much fun it is to have these days where my students get to do something that is "outside the box" of what usually happens in algebra class.

I am great at research and can find some cool activities by Googling or asking the "all-knowing" #MTBoS on Twitter but that takes a lot of time and although I enjoy it there are moments during the school year that I just can't dedicate time to finding the "perfect" activity. This is why I LOVE our IMP Meaningful Math Algebra books. The units are so creative. The students have opportunities to draw sketches, write, perform experiments, and apply the majority of algebra to a context that helps them to wrap their mind around the topics. We still solve algebra problems in class, of course, but if you teach from this text you will already have creative lessons and ways to make connections to history, English, and science within the units.

I know that there is a movement out there to "ditch the textbook" and I get it. However, I am blessed to be in my 2nd year of teaching from a textbook that I can feel good about teaching from cover to cover. I love days like today where my "non-mathy" students come in and realize they will have the opportunity to show off their art skills. I am a math/English certified teacher so I love that 2 of our units use literature contexts to make them more interesting (the other is Alice in Wonderland).

I heard NCTM's president, Diane Briars, speak this past Fall. I remember her talking about how some teachers are trying to piece together resources from here or there in order to teach. I am paraphrasing here and I hope that I don't misrepresent what she was saying that day - but I feel like her intention was to remind us that a teacher's job is not to write curriculum. This made me realize that it is okay that I do not come up with original ideas and activities to use in my classroom! Sometimes I feel guilty about not having that "gift." However, she talked about how we should be careful during the textbook adoption process to find texts that are well written. I had never been shown how to analyze topics in a textbook. That seems silly I guess but until I started teaching from the IMP books I never cared what textbooks we used because I was of the opinion that they were all the same. Definitions, examples, and problems sets... I had never heard of research-based curriculum that had been developed with the "approval" of the NSF (National Science Foundation). After teaching from these books I understand the difference!

So...one of my favorite things that I use in my classroom is our "new-to-me" textbooks!

Hey...I still love math:)

I know this is a strange comment for a math teacher to make. For years I have just taught math. I chose to become a math teacher because I love math but to be honest all the years of teaching math to people who do not really want to learn it had just "sucked the life" right out of my math enjoyment! I was covering the standards but rarely ever used any activities that peaked the curiosity of my students.

Thanks to our "Meaningful Math adventure" (see this blog post for an explanation) I am having fun teaching math again. I see my students having more fun learning math. Last week I had a student to tell me that she had fun in class that day. I also had some students tell me that we do the most work of any of their classes but my class is also the most fun. I read Teach Like a Pirate this Summer and I have come to realize that it is okay to have a goal of having fun with your students...as a matter of fact we need to throw in some activities that the students will consider a "fun break" from "regular math."

Today I also found myself sitting at my desk working on the High-Low Differences activity in Overland Trail's supplemental activities. I was "noticing and wondering" myself! I was thinking that I really need to find some extra time to investigate why this works like it does. Then I was so ambitious that I answered one of the questions (in a survey I had to take) to indicate that I considered myself to be a mathematician! (HAHA!) I have found value in addressing problems from a student's perspective. Our new textbooks from It's About Time give me many opportunities to have fun working on math and then turn it around to my students as an opportunity to problem solve and enjoy themselves while they do it. I asked them a few times last week if they wanted me to "introduce" them to the activities or let them just try to figure it out on their own. I was amazed at the number of students who wanted to try it without any assistance.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still have students who sit there like "knots on logs" and wait for the problems to be presented to the class so that they can write down the answers - they just hope that when I roll the dice to call on someone that their number is not called. And when I do call on them they tell me they didn't do that problem...and then I talk them through it until I pull the answers out of them...in some cases it would be easier to pull their teeth without anesthesia. I also still have students who gripe and whine and ask for help before I even get the page number out of my mouth. However, it is so cool to catch that student who says he hates our textbooks truly engaged and enjoying himself during an activity (because he figured it out by himself!). This certain student that I have in mind was "called on the carpet" when I told him that I noticed he had fun working on the activity for the day - which just so happened to be "Getting the Gold" that I blogged about here.

I would like to end this blog with a funny picture of what some of my students did last year after I had gotten onto them for sitting there like "knots on logs" instead of doing their work.

Comedians!! 

IMP Overland Trail - Getting the Gold

I skipped Getting the Gold when I taught Overland Trail last year. I am so sad that I did! This is such a cool activity because it has such real-world applications. In this activity the students are asked to compare the profits of 2 different ways to gather gold. While discussing this activity it is fun to bring up discussions about making business decisions.

The discussion points that are a part of this activity include:

1. Business start up costs
2. Profit
3. Breaking even
4. BONUS...This is the first activity where the starting point is negative so it is fun to watch the students say..."the starting point is negative this time!" 

**I still catch myself wanting to give the student too many hints. I am sometimes excited about how the activities bring in different aspects and I just want to point them out! HAHA!

This activity and Water Conservation are fun "wrap-up" activities that have the students once more create graphs and answer questions. I love to ask questions like:

How do you know how much profit they had on Day 7 according to the graph?

Now, how can you answer that same question using the rule we created?

Could you use a table to answer that same question? 

 

Courageous math teachers

I had the opportunity to spend 2 days last week with some incredible math educators in Alabama. The pilot that was started at Etowah High School last year has expanded through a partnership between AMSTI and It's About Time. There are math teachers throughout the state that are now piloting the full IMP Meaningful Math curriculum. While sitting there listening and learning with these teachers I was in awe. These math teachers are committed to trying something new in order to improve student achievement.

Susan Jeffers says to "feel the fear and do it anyway" and many of these teachers are doing just that. I heard many teachers grappling with the unfamiliar territory of things like assessment and assigning homework within such a different teaching format. It is exciting to be associated with teachers who are willing to get out of their comfort zone in order to try a curriculum that is time tested and has brought results over and over again.

A few years back I came to the realization that I wasn't reaching as many students as I used to and I started seeking a different way to teach math. God directed me down a path that involved coworkers, workshops, Tweets (the MTBoS especially!), and a "chance" meeting of the president of It's About Time in an elevator! Remember that the sky is purple in my world (haha!) but I really believe all these things have lined up to improve math education in the state of Alabama. I am amazed that the small pilot at one school has grown into a state-wide pilot involving many. I am thankful that AMSTI and It's About Time are providing this opportunity for the schools in our state!

AMSTI/IAT training Day 1

Lately I have not been a "person of many words." HAHA! I guess sometimes we hit a busy season and there are some things that have to be "cut" from our daily routine. So far this school year the part that has been cut out of mine has been taking time to blog and reflect. I really enjoy doing it and intend to continue...at some point.

The pilot that was started at Etowah High School last year has expanded through a partnership between AMSTI and It's About Time. This past week we had 2 days of professional development. Again, I have never seen a textbook company invest in the teachers who used their books in this way. They are truly committed to teaching teachers the best way to teach with their curriculum. Thank you to AMSTI and It's About Time for this opportunity.

One of my favorite conversations on day 1 was about "prizing the doubt." Michael Reitemeyer was the presenter for our algebra training and he had a course with a professor named Mandy Jansen who had told them that one "scholarly disposition" is to prize the doubt (Here is Michael's blog about this topic). Below I am going to paste the notes I took during that discussion.

Prize the doubt - to be comfortable with uncertainty, embrace and welcome times of uncertainty, not having everything figured out all the time, people go through "early foreclosure" just to feel certain again 

*assume that I think you are all smart 

*an alternative way to engage is to wonder...or posing thoughtful questions 

*get excited about having things in progress

I am proud to say that I spent the entire year last year dealing with the doubt and uncertainty of teaching a new curriculum (IMP Meaningful Math) that was very different than anything I had ever done before. I truly believed the research and the testimonies of other teachers but it really felt so strange and different. I can relate to the "early foreclosure" part because I remember the first few times I tried teaching my students in groups I thought it wasn't for me. I kind of thought that teachers at other schools with different types of students might be able to teach that way but it just wouldn't work in my classroom. Thankfully...in the 2013-2014 school year I had already spent the year determined to make groups work in my classroom so the transition into teaching using the IMP curriculum (2014-2015) was not quite as hard. Since I trusted the curriculum I was willing to just have the attitude that I was going to do the best I could because I believed it was best for my students. As time went on I was less nervous and really enjoyed teaching with the curriculum. After spending the day with veteran IMP teachers/trainers and other incredible math teachers throughout the state of Alabama I feel like I have so much more growing to do. I just have to take a deep breath and remember I can not completely change my teaching practices in a year. But I will "prize the doubt," remember that I am smart, and get excited about the things I have in progress!!

Other things that stood out to me during our Day 1 training are listed below:

• Wonderment wall/board - when students have good questions write them down and display them in class...then as you have ways throughout your lessons/units that you can address the question you have a visual reminder
• I need a document camera!
• Sometimes when you have a student to "share out" it would be good to sit in the desk that they vacated to have a visual cue that they are leading the learning at that moment
• Give students space to ask questions and have "divergent thinking" - the questions may not be mathematical all the time but they own the math more when they have invested
• According to Michael the #1 quality of a good teacher - listening....compassion would listen, flexibility comes from listening, connecting comes from listening 

Lastly, I was honored to be included on the panel for a brief question and answer session at the end of the day. Brian Lawler facilitated the discussion and afterwards we talked a few minutes. One of the questions during the discussion had to do with pacing and how much time to spend on the units. He said that Sherry Fraser (one of the authors of the curriculum) told them in a training one time that if the pacing guide says to spend 20 days that you should stop that unit after 20 days even if you are not done - which is mind-boggling but I intend to follow her advice! I told Brian that I took forever teaching Overland Trail last year. He said, "I know. I was following your blog and felt sorry for you students. I thought that they would never get to California!" HAHA! 

Students teach the class - IMP Mini POW About Mini Camel

Today I decided to do the Mini POW About Mini Camel activity from The Pit and the Pendulum. We decided to skip Corey Camel POW and do this one first. I had not worked through the problem myself prior to doing it with my Algebra IB class today. Please don't judge me on this. Haha! I find that I do not lead the students quite as much when I don't know the answer myself. Actually, the teacher's guide does give you the highest possible answer but doesn't tell you how to arrive there. It does give you the hint to ask the students if the camel has to go straight to the market. (In other words...can he go part of the way and put a portion of his bananas down?)

I knew that the camel had to have some "pitstops" along the way but I had not sat down myself and figured out the problem. I gave the students some manipulatives and gave them approximately 20 minutes to work. I walked around and helped them to model their ideas with the counters. When I had one of  the boys in my class tell me he figured it out I was skeptical and made him show me. He and his partner talked me through the situation (which involves the camel only traveling distances of 1 mile at a time - and is pretty cool!!) I was amazed. I often find that my students are better than me at logic problems. I told the student that he had taught me something today and he was so proud.

Typically if my students do not come up with and defend a solution I will work through the problem with the entire class. If no one had come up with a valid solution I would have done that today. Also, if I model the problem solving process with the entire class and we don't come to a solution right away I just tell the class to help me think about the problem and let's see if we can work on it again the next day. It is so exciting to me when my students do it on their own.

IMP Problems of the Week and Rubrics

For some reason today I have been thinking about how much I enjoyed doing the Problems of the Week (POWs) with my algebra students. (Disclaimer: We did not do them every week...we did about 2 or 3 each 9 weeks). Here is a post with a picture of part of a POW writeup that was good. And this post (toward the bottom) has a portion of one of my favorite write ups from this year. One of my favorite quotes from a POW was "every time we use this I go deeper into thinking than I ever have in math."

When I attempted to grade the first POW writeups I was so disappointed. I had a rubric that I used to grade it that I found at gphillymath.org and it was so helpful. Our Instructional Partner, Dr. Shelley Montgomery (@DrSMontgomery), came by and I was talking to her about my students' writeups. She asked me if I had given my students the rubric when I gave them the assignment. I didn't even find the rubric until I got ready to grade the assignment. I went over each of the categories for the POW Write-up and gave examples...but I did not give them the rubric ahead of time. Don't judge me! HAHA! Please remember I am a math teacher and I was not accustomed to grading writing assignments. I ended up giving the writeups back to the students WITH my grading rubric. The 2nd attempt at the POW writeup was much better. As the year went by my students really improved in this area. It was frustrating how many of them just did not pay attention to details. I am hoping that the experiences they had using rubrics in my class will serve them well as they use them in their future English classes - I know that their 10th grade English teacher uses them often.

If you are teaching using the IMP curriculum please go to the gphilly website. There are many awesome resources which will make your life easier. AND...give the grading rubric to the students on the first day that you go over the POW in class.

As a math teacher I feel that there are 2 different ways to use rubrics. The POW writeups are similar to the types that English teachers use. However, before this year I had mostly used rubrics to help me to grade my tests consistently. Awarding partial credit can get confusing when you can't remember how many points you gave for portions of the answers being correct. I have not included these "rubrics" on the quizzes or put them on the board for my students to look at while they are taking the quizzes but I feel that it would be a good thing to do. Maybe if the students saw the ways in which you were going to award credit they will be more willing to try problems that seem difficult at first.

Even the teachers had to PERSEVERE in problem solving to figure out the POWs - Coach Whitt was cracking me up on this day!

I love that the students learned how to ask for help and find other ways to help themselves via the Internet or asking for help from their parents or friends. I allowed that for POWs as long as they included how they received help in their writeups.

Sonya New's Reflection after Year 1 teaching IMP Meaningful Math Algebra

Once again I thought that anyone who is reading any of my blog posts concerning the IMP curriculum might like to "hear" from someone else. We are so blessed to have 3 teachers at Etowah High who implemented this algebra curriculum at the same time. Having the opportunity to collaborate throughout the year was incredible! 

The Mom of  2 little ones (like both under age 1 year little) takes a little more time getting her thoughts together. I once again thought you might enjoy hearing from the 3rd teacher (I posted Gary Webb's reflection in a separate post and my reflections in this post) who taught the IMP Meaningful Math Algebra curriculum for the first time this year. Here are Sonya New's thoughts:

Teaching Algebra with the It's About Time curriculum is a much needed complete departure from the norm.  I was always the Algebra teacher that would look at the word problems in the textbook and think wow what a great question and would assign it just to have students not attempt it because "it was too hard" or "I didn't understand what it was asking me to do", so as the year progressed I would resign that kids just couldn't do those problems and basically stick to practice of the most basic problems.  Even after "going over" the "hard" problems my students didn't seem to get it.
When we received our new textbooks my students opened them to discover mostly words, very few numbers, and virtually no "traditional" practice problems.  Students are taught Algebra through situations.  Many students have found Algebra to be a very attainable subject that once thought it was "so hard".  As a teacher and lover of math I have also discovered that Algebra doesn't have to be so structured, formulated, and procedural.  The concepts of Algebra are often "common sense" and when approached from that direction make sense to many students.  By the end of the year my students were no longer afraid of the "hard word problems." They were not intimidated to try them anymore.  They would try to make sense of a problem and work their way around to a solution. Still not all would get the correct solution but at least we had something to work with ;-).
There were times during the year I would question the curriculum.  Are my students really getting it?  What about this formula or this method?  When is this concept covered?  I have learned to relax and trust the progression of the curriculum.  Things are not taught in a traditional progression, but the topics do get covered.  I am still working on my balance between completely trusting and supplementing more practice but I am coming around.  I anticipate each year to get easier for me to understand the beauty of the curriculum and to do a better job of facilitating.  I know this one thing for sure...it may have been my first year to use the curriculum and there were definitely flaws in my implementation but I don't want to teach Algebra using anything else!!!

End-of-Year Teacher Reflections on IMP Meaningful Math Algebra

I have been challenged by Brian Lawler to answer the same End-of-Year Reflection questions that my students answered. He reworded them a little and I am going to paste them into this blog and answer them. They are all very thought-provoking!

1. How was this experience "teaching mathematics" different from your previous work teaching mathematics?  How was the math itself different? Did you learn the mathematics differently?

This teaching experience has been different in numerous ways. First, I have never taught a curriculum that had unit problems or "themes." Having a context for almost every algebra topic that I taught this year truly did make the subject more meaningful to my students. Secondly, the tasks are written in a way that students are given the opportunity to discuss and "struggle" with the problems even if they do not initially understand the math behind it. The teacher's guides always provide you with great "leading questions" that help you to guide your students to discovering the math without you just saying, "This is how you do this problem. Write it down." Having the teacher's guides AND having seen this style of teaching at AMSTI training were huge helps for teaching this curriculum the way the authors intended (or at least close to the way it was intended to be taught). We also received training from It's About Time in which we were able to go through many of the activities as "students."

When going through the training as a student (at AMSTI and It's About Time training) I was reminded often to quit thinking like a teacher. I think that one piece of advice was one of the most helpful. At first I would only see the training from a teacher's perspective and I would be worried about what formula I should use to solve the problems. As I taught this curriculum I have realized that the students are asked to use common sense, repeated patterns, and the context in order to solve the problems. The formulas can also be used (and taught, of course!) but when a student is taught to totally rely on formulas and then they get on the ACT (or other standardized test) and forget the formulas they don't have the problem-solving experiences that will help them to persevere and be successful.

This is my 2nd year to teach the entire year with my students sitting in groups of 4. Although I had already taught with students grouped last year, the majority of the year the only function the groups had were that my students could check to see if they had the same answer on a problem and help each other if someone was confused. This year the IMP Meaningful Math Curriculum provided my students with opportunities to utilize group work in a whole new way. The problems were presented in such a way that the students would start discussing their ideas on the best way to solve the problem. Sometimes a few of them would work quietly until they felt like they had an idea to share with the group. Other times they would sit there and talk about it before they tried to put pencil to paper. The exciting thing was that the groups this year were used for actual mathematical discussions about how to solve problems.

I think what I "learned differently" was that the students will really and truly try different approaches to solving problems if you give them the freedom. When I used to stand at the board and show them how to do a particular type of problem that is the way they did it. However, I have seen multiple times this year that if I give them a task and then give them the opportunity to figure it out on their own (with the support of their group members) they will solve it with various approaches that make better sense to them. I use to teach them the way that I thought was best. This year has taught me that struggling math students do not interpret and work through a problem in the same way that an algebra teacher does!

2. How have you changed personally as a result of your experience? Has your confidence in your own ability grown? How has your experience of working with math-teacher colleagues changed?

I had a day or two that I would kind of go back into my "old teacher" mode and stand at the board doing examples and "giving notes." I would actually stand there and think that I was boring myself to death! HAHA! I have learned a new way to teach that is much more engaging. I do not want to go back to my "old teacher" mode again.

My confidence in my ability to teach math has grown. I have always been a confident math student. I was good at math and so I wanted to be a math teacher. In the past I believed that math was something that some students were gifted at and others were not. The way this curriculum is written gives students more than random "number crunching" in math class. This is a problem-based curriculum in which they are constantly applying the math within a context that gives it a purpose. Using this curriculum literally helped me to reach students that had failed my class in previous years because of lack of interest.

I am blessed to be a part of a terrific team of math teachers at Etowah High School. Sonya New and Gary Webb were also implementing this algebra curriculum. Sonya and I were able to discuss our lessons on a daily basis because we had the same planning period. It was harder to have discussions with Gary but we did have lunch with the entire math department so we were able to talk to him some during lunch. I do not believe we would have been as successful without the opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other.

I also reached out to other IMP teachers via email and Twitter throughout this year. I have found so many helpful teachers who have shared their teaching ideas and resources.

3. What are your mathematics-teaching goals for next year? How have those goals changed over the past year and why?

My main goal is to keep improving. There are many times I felt that I was blindly going through the curriculum this year. I would sometimes hesitate to introduce a particular "math formula" because I didn't want to "steal the thunder" of a future lesson. There are so many concepts that the curriculum kind of allows the student to develop his/her own understanding instead of a teacher just telling them how to perform the problem using a formula or particular process. Another goal I have is I want to do a better job teaching my students how to present their work next year!

My goal of teaching students to present their work is different because the types of tasks that they do in this curriculum are different. For example - If a student is asked to solve a system of equations where they are already given the 2 equations there is not a lot to discuss. They can go to the board and tell the class the method they chose (substitution, elimination or graphing) and then work it out. In the IMP curriculum the students would be given a scenario in which they have to write their own equations and then solve the system. They would have the opportunity to discuss how they assigned their variables, wrote the equations, solved the problems mathematically, and verified that the solution was viable within the context. There is so much more to discuss!

Gary Webb's reflection of 1st year teaching Meaningful Math Algebra

There are 2 other math teachers who have gone through IMP Meaningful Math Algebra with for the first time this year. I have mentioned them both from time to time in my blogs. One of them is Gary Webb. We were asked to write a testimonial about our first year's experience. I thought another teacher's perspective might be interesting. Here are his thoughts:

I really enjoyed teaching from the Algebra I Meaningful Math book this past school year. It was quite different than traditional math text books. The books have few examples, fewer problems, require deeper thinking, and don't have answers in the back either.

One takeaway I have is that your best students will do whatever you ask them to do. Some of the students are not going to do anything no matter what. These are the ones who complained most about the book. However, these are the same students who might do 5 traditional math problems in 30 minutes and complain about having homework.  The many students who are in the middle were the ones that I was able to reach. Students were more engaged because they were able to use their creativity in the math classroom, were in groups much more often, and were encouraged to discover mathematical concepts on their own.  I loved watching my students think and not be a robot and follow set procedures.

Gary Don Webb
Etowah High School

IMP Fireworks - A Lot of Changing Sides

I really enjoyed doing this activity with my students. It starts with a background story of a housing developer wanting to change the lot sizes for a new housing development. Instead of all the lots being square the city planner wants some of other types of rectangles. The questions tell the students exactly how to change the dimensions of the lots. The first 4 are situations where they increase the size of the lots and the last 2 involve a decrease in the length of at least one side.

Mrs. New had already taught this lesson and showed me the way the teacher's guide recommended the sketch of the lots be drawn. These diagrams will look like "the box method" that they will use to multiply and factor polynomials. The activity asks the students to express the area as the product of the length and the width (which will be binomials) or as a sum of smaller areas. Since the 2 areas are equivalent the students are led to realize that the 2 expressions are equal. I aksed them to look for connections between the sum and the product and a few of them saw it.  I love that the authors have once again provided a context for the formal math to make sense to them!

I led the students through #1 so I could model how to sketch the diagram with the original side length of X. In #5 and #6 I let them come up with their own diagrams to represent the situation. Also, just for the sake of organizing, I labeled the bullets as A, B, and C so that it would be a little easier to organize and discuss.

IMP Fireworks Day 1 - Victory Celebration

I am excited to be "switching gears" and starting a new unit today. We did the Victory Celebration activity which introduces students to the unit problem for Fireworks. I love that the activity asks students to sketch the situation - this gives students with an artistic flair the chance to "show off" in class! There are 4 questions in the activity so I had each group split up. In my 2nd block class I had groups of 4 so I told them to let 2 people sketch the situation while the other 2 started working on the other questions. This worked out well because there was not more than 1 or 2 students in each group who were interested in drawing.

Some groups took longer than others on their sketches so I had everyone who was finished to get a graphing calculator and showed them how to enter the height equation into the calculators. It was necessary to also talk about how to adjust the window for the graph. We played with the tracing features on the calculators in order to look at approximations for the maximum height and the time the rocket was in the air.

I pulled a piece of chart paper and started talking about sketching the graph on the chart paper so we could refer to it throughout the unit. This brought up a discussion about which quadrants were needed. We also talked about labeling the axes and how we needed to be careful about drawing the graph because we didn't know how to scale the axes until we knew the maximum height and the amount of time it took for the rocket to land. (This is when we started playing with the tracing feature on the calculator but we ran out of time.)

Also, we discussed what the height of the rocket was when time was 0 seconds and what the height of the rocket was when the rocket hit the ground. These concepts are common sense really but it takes a few seconds for the answers to "hit" them.

Another cool thing that happened today was that my 4th block came in excited about getting to draw in math class. They took so long with their sketches that we didn't get as far with our discussions...but it was worth seeing them so invested in the activity.

After writing this post today I had an afterthought. I know that many people may ask, "Why are you drawing in a math class?" I told the students today that when people in the "real world" have large problems or projects to solve they often draw sketches or models in order to visualize what is happening. I think it is neat that this activity leads the students to start with a sketch!

A "case" for a problem-based curriculum with group work

As we have gone through Alice we have seen the need to just pull alot of practice problems for each of the rules. I still have students that approach these problems in a variety of ways. At this point there are some that have memorized the rules. I still have some who use expansion . I have explained to them that expansion is not always feasible but hopefully being able to expand problems correctly will help them to remember a rule.

Yesterday I spent the majority of class answering questions and going over examples from a couple of worksheets that I had left for them to work on when I had a sub. We have developed all the rules they needed throughout our Alice lessons but these problems had more "moving parts" for them to work through. After changing my teaching methods this year yesterday was such a "drag." I asked the students if they liked working through the packet instead of the Alice activities and some of them said yes. Today (while we were working through an Alice activity) I asked them whether they would prefer me just tell them the rule and give them practice problems or allow them to explore their way through a problem and help me to develop the rule. Once again I had some that preferred both ways. HOWEVER, when I asked them which way do you think might help them to remember the material 2 weeks from now not one student chose the "worksheet method." I think we will always have students that battle with you over having to think for themselves. There are many times that my students don't actually get ALL THE WAY to the rule or formula or method that they need to do the algebra. However, once they have had some time to "productively struggle" with a concept our discussion is so much more MEANINGFUL than when I just told the students the rule and had them practice problems using it.

One of my first major AHA! moments came when I attended an ACT Quality Core workshop in which Roy Dean was one of the presenters. I actually had to look back for some email communication between me and Roy in order to get his name. This was the first time that I remember sitting through a workshop (I hadn't attended AMSTI at this point) where MATH teachers modeled how to use strategic teaching strategies. He was very patient with me because I was often picking his brain about how he did things in his classroom instead of doing the actual activity assigned. When I found the emails I just wanted to share them because I learned so much from his answer. Below is the email I sent to him:

Roy, 

Thanks for the information and your willingness to share.  So...when I
came back to school and started telling other teachers about the
movement to teach using the methods we discussed I often get the same
question.  Teachers wonder if the group work translates into higher
test scores since the students take the tests (standardized - like
EOC, ACT, etc...) by themselves.  Concerns are also expressed about
having students in our classrooms to learn primarily through the
methods we discussed when most college classrooms are going to be
lecture based.  I didn't want to ask these questions at the workshop
because I feel like they seem argumentative.  However, I wondered if
you have any direction or advice on how I might answer these
questions.  I certainly share their concerns and understand the
questions. 

I have pulled out the "On Course for Success" book and am trying to
skim it to get answers...but I wondered if you could give me some
direction. 

Thanks!
Teri Owens
Etowah High School
Attalla, Alabama

And here is his reply...

Hi Teri, 

Sorry it's taken a couple days to get back to you. The severe weather yesterday had me "enjoying" the Bham airport for most of yesterday.
In answer to your question, I know the "on Course for Success" book has some data that you can use.  I would also think if you Googled reform math scores, group work and test scores, and such if you would find some data on your questions. 

As far as my personal experience, at my school our scores rose 6 points (a statistically significant rise for Colorado testing) the first year and 2 to 3 points over the next 8 when we switched out curriculum to a group/problem solving approach to mathematics. 

I also had a summer school class (not exactly your star students) that I taught with the reform/group/prob solve math for 6 weeks in the summer instead of the usual fraction ws, decimal ws, etc. The students seemed to enjoy the class more.  Of the 24 students I had that actually attended thes ummer classes, 23 improved the test scores the next spring and 8 moved from unsatisfactory to proficient (we have unsatisfactory, partially proficient,proficient, and advanced) and all but one improved their scores a substantial amount. 

As far as students to college, students that returned from college to chat mentioned that the college classes were different (having more lecture) but they weren't hard.  It seemed to me that since they knew the concepts and not algorithms, they could adjust. 

Sorry I don't have any hard data for you.  I at least hope this helps some.Thank you for your hard work during the training. Have a great rest of the year. 

Cheers,Roy