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As we start the new year we often want a fresh start. We set goals and help students reflect on what they want to accomplish in this new year. However, resetting math classroom norms is often what we need in the new year.
The winter holiday season is a lot and often the month of December ends up feeling a lot different than the other months of school. By the time students return in the first weeks of January, it’s been a long time since they had a “normal” school day. With that big break of time, it is essential we do some revisiting of norms before we hop back into our normal routine.
Listen to even more about this on the Honest Math Chat Podcast
Resetting math classroom norms will help your students be more independent in taking ownership of their learning. The ultimate goal is that our students are invested in their learning, right? We want our students to be motivated to learn, take initiative, and engage with their learning activities. Therefore, it is our job to create the conditions where this type of learning can happen. By creating strong norms and using them to guide everything in your classroom you’ll be able to create a community that provides the perfect container for your students to be independent leaders of their learning.
When resetting our norms in the new year you’ll want to look back at the norms you established in the beginning of the year. Those math classroom norms are important because I know you spent a lot of time establishing them and reflecting o them. Your students also remember those norms. Start with those norms. They may include “mistakes are important” and “thinking matters more than answers”. Math Norms Blog Post
Grab these math norm posters here.
Norms are positive statements that help guide our students toward the behiavors that are beneficial and productive. These statements can be referred to during class, guide individual conferences with students, and used to talk with parents.
However, in the new year you may need new math norms. Remember the math classroom is our special place. The place where we are simultaneously responding to our students math trauma while also building positive math identities. We want to encourage our students to build a growth mindset about math, while also challenging them daily to step out of what is comfortable. Our math norms must support the work we do in our math classrooms. So, as your math classroom is changing in the new year you may need to add more math norms.
For example, maybe your students are now comfortable with grappling and getting uncomfortable in math. However, they tend to have ownership over their answers and are resistant to sharing their ideas with their peers. Then, you might need to add more norms around participation in math discussions.
We just want to jump into content because it feels like FOREVER since we’ve actually taught them anything.
I know. But please, trust me that if you spend the time ensuring your classroom community is healthy and strong, then you’ll be able to teach your students WAY more. Have you ever heard of the phrase “go slow to go fast”? The idea is that spending time “going slow”– laying a solid foundation of the classroom community will allow you to “go fast” later. It’s like, you know make sure your car is in good running order, the gas tank is full, and you have everything packed properly in the car so that when you take off on your road trip you will be able to GO instead of stopping for car troubles or to get the things you need that you forgot.
Spend time being proactive– by establishing the classroom community with norms, a clear vision, and teaching students HOW to collaborate, participate, and engage… so that you don’t have to stop your teaching to be re-active.
Does this sound familiar? You’re teaching your math lesson, wrapping up the math warm up when you tell students to take out their materials turn to page 45 and share their strategy for the problem you solved yesterday with the person sitting next to them. You send them off to get started. Then all of a sudden you have students get up to sharpen pencils, ask to go to the bathroom. Some students just simply slide their paper inf ront of their partner without speaking. Others are having a conversation about a game they played at recess.
You have to bring everyone back together to remind them of HOW we have a conversation with a partner- how we participate. You go through a list of the things we don’t do. You may even have to take a point away or mark down the class score.
But what if there was a different way?
What if you could TEACH students before hand how to do all that and you don’t have to stop the class mid-work time because they already know what is expected of them. What it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to collaborate, share, complete work, move int he classroom, get out materials, etc.
So if that has been you (because it’s DEFINITELY been me, lots of time)…. You can change it by resetting your classroom norms.
If you’re a teacher looking for ideas on how to engage every student in your classroom then you need this guide!
Grab your copy www.monamath.com/discussions
