Now is the time … it’s almost the new year. Do you have any plans for your winter break? I love to check out for that first week and then in the second week of break, first week of the new school year I like to get a PLAN together. So, today we’re going to talk about how you might prepare for building math thinking in your math class.
This is going to be a quick and actionable podcast because this is a VERY busy time of year and I want you to get what you need and get back to your to-do list or relaxing!
In This Episode on Preparing for Building Math Thinking:
- establishing a classroom community that allows students to problem solve
- structures and routines to make the community feel predictable and safe, AND allow for deep thinking
- do more with less
Let’s Start with a New Focus
Are you ready to make some shifts in your practice in the new year? If you want to move toward a more sense-making, THINKING classroom in 2024 then let’s start to put a plan together now for how you can do that. Today we are going to:
- Establish a classroom community that allows students to problem solve– take risks and feel safe being wrong
- Talk about structures and routines to make the community feel predictable and safe, AND allow for deep thinking
- Do more with less– Use word problems to help students practice MULTIPLE standards at once.
Here’s a quote from Peter L talking about research from Kerkhoff (2018), “Her research showed that after doing just 18 rich tasks over the course of 18 classes, the students encountered almost all of the curriculum outcomes for her grade, along with numerous curriculum outcomes from previous and future grades.”
I’ve said it and I’ll say it again. When you teach skills in finite sets of time and lessons students learn to only apply those skills in that context. However, when you allow students open tasks to problem solve they apply everything they know. You practice MANY standards in one problem during the grapple and the discussion and reflection.
Let’s Move to Sense-Making, not mimicking in 2024
How do we do this? Let’s start here.
- Reset your classroom norms
- Use structures to get every student participating – keep it simple and try the same thing for a few weeks
- Turn and talk
- Partner work– 2 minutes of grapple, 5 minutes of partner.
- Talk moves– revoicing
- Establish a routine for warm ups. Stop going the first few minutes of class without getting students immediately involved in thinking. Use one of my favorites
- Create a problem solving routine -The reality is you don’t have time. So what you need is a routine or framework. Then, you can plop in the lesson content into that routine. Stop over thinking the HOW of your lessons and start spending more time on planning the WHAT- the math content and understanding. Create a routine that will make the how so easy because its the same each day.
Using BTC?
Thin Sliced Problems are ready for you here.
Not ready for thin sliced but you want a word problem of the day… I got you covered. Get a full year of problems here– all editable and for your grade level 1-5th
Mentioned in this episode on Preparing Math Thinking:
🔥 My favorite warm ups:
✏️ Problem of the Day Bundle
✅ Thin Sliced Problems
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