Online Professional Learning Modules

Supporting Teachers in Developing

Mathematical Understanding for Students
http://www.middlegradesmath.org
 About this Webinar
• Presented by:
Steve Best
Middle Start (Academy for
Educational Development)
• 60 minutes
• Handout resources available at:
http://middlegradesmath.org/webinar
 About the Tool(s)
Online
Collaborative
Learning
Opportunities
for Teachers
Focus on
mathematics
content and
instruction
 Purpose of Webinar
• Review research and samples that address
the need for the tools.

• Receive an overview of the online PD

community tools of the Mathematics
Improvement Toolkit

• Experience activities and resources from

this tool

• Learn about how you might use this tool in

your school or district
 Why This Tool?
Unlike the other tools,
which focus on the
needs of special
learners, this tool was
designed to address
the general needs of
mathematics instruction
in rural communities.
The Challenges
Teachers have little
time left for content
specific
professional
development.
 The Challenges
The curriculum for
many schools is
perceived to be a
“mile wide and inch
deep”, but little is
done to encourage
deep understanding
of mathematics
concepts
 The Challenges
What is the
most
challenging
aspect of
teaching
mathematics?
 The Challenges
What is the
most
challenging
aspect of
teaching
mathematics?
Teachersʼ Greatest Challenge:

Teachers must decide “what aspects of a task to

highlight, how to organize and orchestrate the
work of the students, what questions to ask to
challenge those with varied levels of expertise,
and how to support students without taking over
the process of thinking for them and thus
eliminating the challenge.”
NCTM, 2000, p. 19
 “... without eliminating the
challenge.”
• Is the “challenge” the problem we have
with students?
• What aspects of the mathematics and
the tasks we engage in (or the work that
we ask students to do) present a
challenge?
 Our Goal
To focus attention on a core
challenge in mathematics
instruction:

Maintaining high-level cognitive

demand when using complex tasks
 An Example in Practice
Find a pattern for the sum of the interior
angles of a polygon.

xº
xº
xº

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 Find a pattern for the sum of the
Method 1: interior angles of a polygon.

• Teachers pose the problem and ask students to

measure angles in various triangles, quadrilaterals, and
polygons.
• Students are shown that any polygon can be “broken
down” into triangles by drawing diagonals from one
“corner” of the object, making two less triangles than
sides.
• Students are told that there are 180º in a triangle, and
so the sum is 180 x (the number of sides - 2)

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 An Example in Practice
Find a pattern for the sum of the interior
angles of a polygon.

xº

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 An Example in Practice
Find a pattern for the sum of the interior
angles of a polygon.

xº

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 Find a pattern for the sum of the
Method 2: interior angles of a polygon.

• Teachers pose the problem and ask students to

measure angles in various triangles, quadrilaterals, and
polygons.
• Students are asked to identify possible patterns in their
data for different polygons.
• Students predict the sum of interior angles for polygons
that they did not measure or diagram.
• Students try to generate a rule for the sum of all angles
based on the number of sides.

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 An Example in Practice
Find a pattern for the sum of the interior
angles of a polygon.
vº
yº xº wº
xº zº wº yº yº zº
v + w + x + y + z ≈ 540˚
x + y + z ≈ 180˚ xº zº
w + x + y + z ≈ 360˚

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Higher Order Thinking Skills

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 Higher Order Thinking Skills
• One way to look at this:
Bloom’s Taxonomy Evaluation
Synthesis
• Tasks vary in their
cognitive demand Analysis
• More complicated Application
tasks need to be Comprehension
practiced and
internalized. Knowledge

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The Mathematics Task Framework
from Stein and Smith, 1998

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 The Mathematics Task Framework
from Stein and Smith, 1998

Tasks as
they
appear in
curriculum
materials

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 The Mathematics Task Framework
from Stein and Smith, 1998

Tasks as
they Tasks as
appear in set up by
curriculum teachers
materials

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 The Mathematics Task Framework
from Stein and Smith, 1998

Tasks as Tasks as
they Tasks as enacted by
appear in set up by teachers
curriculum teachers and
materials students

middlestart
 The Mathematics Task Framework
from Stein and Smith, 1998

Tasks as Tasks as
they Tasks as enacted by
appear in set up by teachers
curriculum teachers and
Student
materials students
learning

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 MTF in Action

Tasks as Tasks as
Tasks as set
they appear enacted by
up by
in curriculum teachers and
teachers
materials students Student
learning

Method 1
Method 2

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 MTF in Action

Tasks as Tasks as
Tasks as set
they appear enacted by
up by
in curriculum teachers and
teachers
materials students Student
learning

Method 1
Method 2

Curriculum Teachers Enactment Understanding

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 MTF in Action

Tasks as Tasks as
Tasks as set
they appear enacted by
up by
in curriculum teachers and
teachers
materials students Student
learning

Method 1
Method 2

Curriculum Teachers Enactment Understanding

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 MTF in Action

Tasks as Tasks as
Tasks as set
they appear enacted by
up by
in curriculum teachers and
teachers
materials students Student
learning

Method 1
Method 2

Curriculum Teachers Enactment Understanding

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 Focusing on Tasks
• Mathematics instruction is generally organized and
orchestrated around mathematical tasks.
• The tasks that students engage in determines the
mathematics they learn.
• Teachers’ facilitation of tasks determines how
students learn.
• The inability to enact challenging tasks well is what
distinguished the U.S. from other leading countries.

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Examining Tasks
Decimal/Percent Task A

• What are the decimal and percent

equivalents of 1/2 and 3/5?

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 Examining Tasks
Help teachers
see how the Decimal/Percent Task A
task can build
understanding
• What are the decimal and percent
equivalents of 1/2 and 3/5?

middlestart
 Examining Tasks
Help teachers
see how the
task can build
understanding
 Examining Tasks
Help teachers
see how the
task can build
understanding
 Examining Tasks
Help teachers
see how the
task can build
understanding
 Examining Tasks
Help teachers
see how the
task can build
understanding

Provide
examples of
high-level
tasks that
teachers can
use in class
Examining Student Work
Examining Student Work
Provide the
lens for seeing
what students
think, and how
they form
misconceptions
Help teachers
reflect on
student
performance
Examining Student Work
Provide the
lens for seeing
what students
think, and how
they form
misconceptions
Help teachers
reflect on
student
performance
Examining Student Work
Provide the
lens for seeing
what students
think, and how
they form
misconceptions
Help teachers
reflect on
student
performance
Examining Instruction
Examining Instruction
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Module 1 - Case 1: David Orcutt

Case studies focusing This mini-case provides an introduction to the use of cases as a reflective professional development tool, and is not intended
for sustained use. This also uses student work examples to explore understandings and misconceptions around fractions,

on issues at hand
percents, and decimals.

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT

David Orcutt is one of two 7th grade mathematics teachers in the lone junior high school for this
district. The district serves students from a largely rural agricultural and recreational area which
includes two villages. The school is a 7-8 school in a small school building next to the district’s
high school. In fact, a number of teachers are on the faculty of both schools to provide appropriate
coverage for topic areas. David has four classes among his other duties as the 7th grade advisor

Research summaries and a track coach.

In his three years of teaching, he has learned that students coming in from the two K-6 schools in
the district (as well as a small but growing migrant labor population that is becoming a more

for educators
permanent fixture in the area) often have varying skills and understanding in mathematics. To
understand each of the student’s abilities and conceptions about basic topics, he has devised a
two week introduction to his course which addresses a different topic from the grade 4-6
standards each day or two, and uses this to establish norms for classroom participation, work
expectations, etc. The following sample of classroom interaction starts by asking students to take
out the homework task from the previous day, which was really a pre-assessment of sorts to
understand student knowledge of decimals, percents, and fractions.

Reflection on oneʼs CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

David starts class by greeting all students at the door as they come in, and has a problem on the
board, which he reminds students to get a paper out and copy the problem down after they have
taken their homework out from the previous day. Meanwhile, he checks attendance and missing
assignments from the previous day, and then begins wandering through the aisles to see what

own instruction students are doing with the problems on the board, and whether they have their homework out.
He quickly scans the homework for each student, noting whether they have all twenty problems
done, and whether they have them numbered, the problem written down, and the answer
underlined for each. Most do, which results in him writing a “10” on the top of the page, but a
couple did not finish, receiving 5 and 7 points respectively, and three others had 3 points deducted

through artifacts from these for not organizing their work properly. For these, David underlined a few of the answers
they had in their work that were not already underlined, and had jotted down the words “show your
steps” on some of these papers. While doing this, he marked on a copy of a grade sheet the
points for the homework assignment for each student.

Following this fairly quick review (which took four minutes from the time he started moving around
the room), he told the students they would review the answers of the homework. He circled the
room as he called out problem numbers, and would look around the room to see who was looking
at him (or not) and would call out the names of students to state what their answer was. Once one
student gave the answer, he would call on two other students and ask if they came up with the
Two Means of Support
 Two Means of Support

• Facilitated professional learning

community (PLC)
 Two Means of Support

• Facilitated professional learning

community (PLC)
• Self-guided review,
implementation, and reflection
Facilitated Collaboration
 Facilitated Collaboration
• Individualized guidance on issues of
mathematics content and instruction
 Facilitated Collaboration
• Individualized guidance on issues of
mathematics content and instruction
• Encourages a collaborative environment
where teachers learn from and share with
each other
 Facilitated Collaboration
• Individualized guidance on issues of
mathematics content and instruction
• Encourages a collaborative environment
where teachers learn from and share with
each other
• Allows for local mathematics leaders to
use the resources and customize to local
needs
Self-Guided Learning
 Self-Guided Learning
• Materials are organized to provide a self-
paced approach to reviewing different kinds
of tasks and situations
 Self-Guided Learning
• Materials are organized to provide a self-
paced approach to reviewing different kinds
of tasks and situations
• Discussion forum and “sharing center” allow
teachers to collaborate with others online
 Self-Guided Learning
• Materials are organized to provide a self-
paced approach to reviewing different kinds
of tasks and situations
• Discussion forum and “sharing center” allow
teachers to collaborate with others online
• Appropriate in small schools or when
teachers need/want support on their terms.
 Self-Guided Learning
• Materials are organized to provide a self-
paced approach to reviewing different kinds
of tasks and situations
• Discussion forum and “sharing center” allow
teachers to collaborate with others online
• Appropriate in small schools or when
teachers need/want support on their terms.
• Starting March 2011
The Modules
 The Modules
• Introductory module on “High-Level
Mathematics” and orientation to online PD
 The Modules
• Introductory module on “High-Level
Mathematics” and orientation to online PD
• Ratios and Proportional Reasoning
 The Modules
• Introductory module on “High-Level
Mathematics” and orientation to online PD
• Ratios and Proportional Reasoning
• Patterns, Functions, and Algebraic Reasoning
 The Modules
• Introductory module on “High-Level
Mathematics” and orientation to online PD
• Ratios and Proportional Reasoning
• Patterns, Functions, and Algebraic Reasoning
• Measurement and Geometric Reasoning
 The Modules
• Introductory module on “High-Level
Mathematics” and orientation to online PD
• Ratios and Proportional Reasoning
• Patterns, Functions, and Algebraic Reasoning
• Measurement and Geometric Reasoning
• Problem Solving and Inquiry
 The Modules
• Introductory module on “High-Level
Mathematics” and orientation to online PD
• Ratios and Proportional Reasoning
• Patterns, Functions, and Algebraic Reasoning
• Measurement and Geometric Reasoning
• Problem Solving and Inquiry
• Family and Community Engagement
 Questions?

• For more information on

implementation, visit the
Mathematics Improvement Toolkit
website:
http://middlegradesmath.org/
 Thank you
• This concludes the webinar
presentation.
• A recording of this webinar will be
posted at:
http://middlegradesmath.org/webinars

• Check for future webinars on the

Mathematics Improvement Toolkit
 How to Use
Contact:

Discuss Implementation Needs

Customized Approach for Individuals,
Schools, and Systems
 The “Developing Student Understanding in Mathematics” module,
and other modules in the MiddleStart Online materials, were
developed by Middle Start and the Academy for Educational
Development (AED).

This tool is part of the Mathematics Improvement Toolkit, a project

of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, and was
supported by The U.S. Department of Education's Comprehensive
School Reform Quality Initiative, grant # S332B060005. Opinions
expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the
Department.