What if you had a math lesson plan that built your community with little effort. If just the way the lesson plan was structured it strengthened the relationships and developed students’ self efficacy. On today’s show we’re going to chat all about the lesson plan you need to do just that.
Building your classroom community… What does that really mean? Building community means students have a voice, they are equals in the community. We don’t want to build a community with a cast system, right? One where some people have more or less status than others?
Community:
-everyone is welcome
-everyone is safe to be themselves
-everyone is safe to participate and take academic and social risks
-everyone’s voice is heard
-everyone’s voice is valued
So, how can you do this through your lesson planning?
The reality is we don’t have tons of time to sit around and play games, initiatives to build teamwork, so we have to integrate these SEL, community building tasks and skills throughout our lesson plan.
I whole heartedily believe that math is the perfect place to help our students be not only mathematicians, but better people.
So, today I’m going to show you how you can use a lesson plan that will help build your community everyday on auto pilot.
The Math Lesson Plan
The lesson plan I’m going to talk about today is for Word Problem Workshop. It is based on decades of research- from Pat Smith & Mary Stein’s 5 Practices for Orchestrating Prodcutive Math Discussions, Principles to Actions from NCTM, specifically the 8 effective teaching practices, and the work of Cognitively Guided Instruction. You can find links to all that research in the show notes.
However, the most important thing to know is this is student-centered, math instruction. This lesson plan centers the students’ thinking and voice.
Why? But why do it this way?
Why not just use the typical I do- we do- you do method?
Because remember at the start I said I was going to give you a lesson plan that developed your classroom community on autopilot?
This lesson plan not only helps students develop math proficiency, it also develops community (engagement, motivation, a sense of belonging, and a purpose of voice)
But how does this lesson plan develop community?
Engagement.
Every child is asked to word independently for just 8-10 minutes, then back to talking. The transitions between launch, grapple, share/discussion, and reflect allow students movement and short amounts of time keep students engaged. When students feel engaged, they feel like they are part of something.
Everyone is welcome.
When we use strategies to keep students engaged and excited about math, we communicate that we want everyone here. The ones who might struggle with this concept, the ones that are wiggly, the ones that are shy, the ones that always have their hand up. When we use engagement strategies like turn and talk, hand signals, and intentionally plan for how each child will solve through anticipating we are communicating that no matter where you’re at in your understanding and your journey to becoming a mathematician… we want you here.
A student once said to me, “I understand math better here because sometimes kids explain it better than adults do.” YES! This is what it’s all about. When students see that their peers ideas are worth listening to because it might make more sense coming from them. THAT builds community.
Motivation.
The community begins to motivate students. Why do students participate in turn and talks, why do they solve the problem with their own unique strategy, why do they share their math ideas? Because the community is counting on them. The community becomes the reason they share, solve, and listen to others so they can respond.
I often hear teachers say that students are unmotivated to do their work. They don’t see a purpose. So, we have to create that purpose for solving the problem. And in our classroom, which is our real world right now, we’ve got these problems to solve together sow e can better understand math and deepen our understanding… and that is exciting stuff.
Purpose of Voice
Your voice matters in our classroom because it is the WAY we learn. When we’re building a community we want every child to feel like what they have to say and contribute is important and valued. Students start to hear themselves talk and realize that they DO know what they’re talking about and that their words help others. That gives them purpose to talk and share more.
This happens because we have daily math discussions where students share their strategies and the class discusses those strategies. Where the teacher steps into the facilitator role and relies on the expertise of the students, the mathematicians, the do-ers of math.
Which builds their…
Self efficacy.
When students KNOW and believe they can do things in math. They believe they have what they need to do well in math, that they are in fact a mathematician.
Grapple time shows students that they CAN do things on their own. It gives them a short amount of time to work through their thoughts, with the comfort of knowing the share and discussion are just around the corner. Also, the idea that we will come back to this day after day is reassuring to students and build their self efficacy. The pressure is off to get it right today and commit it to memory today. Instead, we walk the talk… we know you’re on a learning journey. Some days you’ll get it and other days it might take longer. I’m not scared of learning things over time and you shouldn’t be either. That’s normal. I believe you can learn this, even if it might take lots of tries.
Sense of Belonging.
Ultimately every community is striving for this… the sense of belonging. When you truly feel like you belong in a community you feel like you’re a part of it, no longer an outsider. The reality is, so many students feel like outsiders in math class. They question their abilities, and have developed habits of letting others do the thinking for them while they mimic and repeat the steps they’re told to do.
However, with the Word Problem Workshop lesson plan students are brought into the community through discussions, sharing, listening of THEIR ideas. When you’re valued in a community for the ideas you bring, you feel like you belong.
The belonging doesn’t happen because of a bulletin board or a cute activity (I like those too), btu the real belonging happens when students are valued for what’s inside them.
So Now What?
So as you start to think about what you’re doing in your math classroom this year. Consider building community on autopilot with a lesson plan that leads the way in the community building, with a WHOLE lot of math proficiency building too… but that part is for another time.
I hope you can see that by intentionally building a lesson plan that provides students with a predictable routine where they grapple- tinkering and learning over several days, then sharing & discussing their thinking to build common understanding and deepens their own understanding while sharing to help others deepen their understanding.
A community learns together and grows together.
So, step into the facilitator role, allow your students to grapple, share, discuss the math.
Let’s chat more about Math Lesson Plans!
And if you want more information about this or have questions send me a DM on instagram hellomonamath or an email at hellomonamath@gmail.com
This is truly my favortie thing to talk about and I’d love to chat more with you.
Related Episodes & Articles
Episode 32 Research Based Instruction for Math Class
What is a Student Centered Math Classroom