On Today’s Episode 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Planning for the Year:

• Focusing on the wrong content
• Misunderstanding “rigor”
• Leaving conceptual understanding till the end once kids “get the procedures” 

What truly matters when planning for your year?

What comes to mind when you reflect on that question? I think it will be different for all of us… but for me these are the 5 things that pop into my brain. 

1. Math vision 
2. Community 
3. Standards 
4. Major Work
5. Progressions 

I wanted to share with you the 3 mistakes I notice teachers making when planning for their year and HOW to avoid them. Are ya ready? Let’s do this! 

Mistake #1: Focusing on the wrong content 

Often times we teach what our curriculum includes or what we think is most important without really being informed of the “major work” for our grade level. 

Every grade has Major Work. In the adoption of CCSS in 2010 the standards outlined major work of each grade level. Achieve the Core.org has it clearly labeled for each grade on their website. You can check it out here.
If you’ve never thought about what the major work of your grade level and those below and above yours this is a valuable use of your time. 

So, here’s how we’re going to approach this mistake differentlY:

1. identify the major work 
2. plan your year to address major clusters in 65% (⅔ of your year) 

Mistake #2: Misunderstanding “rigor”

What comes to mind when you think of the word rigor?
I bet if everyone listening which is usually around 400 of you sent me a message (ooo this could be fun– do it @hellomonamath on Instagram or at gmail.com) and tell me what you think of when you think rigor. We would have a lot of different responses. If you send them to me I’ll share on my instagram stories and in an upcoming email!

But the thing is Rigor is a big education buzz word because of the major shifts in the adoption of the Common Core. Now, even if your state has made their own standards, almost all are based on these big shifts that were brought by CCSS. So, your state probably has also adopted this approach for rigor in math.

Rigor doesn’t mean harder or more difficult. Instead it actually means instruction that touches on these 3 aspects of rigor: Procedural, Conceptual, Application. 

You can find more information about that here.

How we’re going  to approach rigor differently:

I am not suggesting that we make math harder, but instead that we make math more rigorous through thoughtful instructional approaches. We need to match the rigor of the standard to the instructional approach. So, if the standard we are teaching is an application standard, then our instructional approach needs to ensure students are applying their skills. If the skill is conceptual, then we need to ensure that students are getting enough practice conceptually. There are certain instructional approaches that support each of the aspects of rigor.

Mistake #3: Leaving conceptual understanding til the end once kids “get the procedures” 

Too often we wait for the application and the conceptual because we want our students to get it first, right? This feels like the right move. It helps students build confidence because they know how to do it. However, we have to remember that we build procedural fluency on a conceptual understanding.

In fact Math proficiency has 5 strands. Each of those are woven and inter-dependent. We must have ana approach for instruction that allows students to develop their mathematical proficiency that is balanced in all 5 of these aspects.

How we will approach this differently:

We need to use class time to build conceptual understanding using instructional methods like Student-Centered Instruction, Math Tasks, Math Discussions, or my favorite combination of all of that is Word Problem Workshop. This allows us to build all 5 strands of proficiency while teaching the standards. It’s ambitious teaching that results in meaningful proficiency for our students.  

So, in order to make this happen this year… here are a few things you can do: 

• Do not try to teach everything (cut the crap!) 
• Pre-assess and skip the shit they already know, the goal is challenge everyday for every students. So, if they already know it and you have the data to prove they know it, skip it! 
• When you skip the extra stuff… it makes more time for building community, shift math mindsets, slowing down to teach in student centered ways. 
• Math vision– What matters most? Why are you doing this job? What’s your goal for your students?
  • Fidelity to your students, not your curriculum 
• Shows how you can do this and stay “on pace” 
• There might be anxiety of not “following the rules”, but if you can back your decisions with student data, research, and best intentions… then you can engage your administrator or leadership in a conversation about you why.

If you’re interested in planning for your year through a virtual on-demand PD…

If you’re interested in planning for your year through a virtual on-demand PD specifically for math teachers like us… I’ve got you covered with this $27 PD full of resources to help you avoid these mistakes and get a solid plan put together for your whole year of math!! 

Links Mentioned in This Episode

• Planning for a Year of Math ($27 PD)
• Major math work for each grade level (achievethecore.org)
• Rigor in Mathematics

🤩 Math Word Problem Workshop

• engage every student in problem solving, daily.
• create a daily structure that allows students to collaborate, reflect, take risks, and use mistakes as opportunities.
• a system to plan for problem solving, simply and efficiently.
• confidently facilitate a students lead problem solving workshop

Join today by clicking HERE!