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

Math Block in 4 Simple Steps

Looking for more ways to build Math Classroom Community?

The post 77: Math Lesson Plan Can Build Your Classroom Community on Auto Pilot appeared first on Mona Math.

Kristen, from @MooreThanJustX, http://www.MoorethanJustX.com, and host of The Modern Math Teacher podcast.

Joined by Juliana, from @collaborated.with.juliana, http://www.collaboratedconsulting.org, and math coach for teachers of students that struggle,

Both of these fabulous math educators joined me on episode 76 of Honest Math Chat to dive into what it means to be good at math, how we can help students be good at math, and what really matters when helping students see themselves as mathematicians.

You can listen or you can keep reading if you’re more of a visual, text person!

Who do we have here today?

Audio starts at 4:00

When asked what it means to be “good at math” here’s what the ladies said…

• Kristen: Making real world connections & applications. Apply past learning to new experiences and explore math through problem solving
• Juliana: Persevering. You’re willing to put your math trauma aside and you’re willing to give math a try and persevere!
• Mona: Describing your math thinking and really engaging in those conversations about real world math. Allowing students to both develop their math identity and their math proficiency.

How do math discussions help students be “good at math”?

Audio starts at 8:00

Engagement strategies like Which One Doesn’t Belong get students engaged in math.

Last year’s birthday episode all about WODB to increase students’ math identity and their engagement in math class. Check out this article here on Juliana’s website about using WODB in high school classrooms.

We have to shift the focus from the procedure, to the sharing the thinking. When we do this the message is sent to students that we value thinking most in math. Further, that being good in math means you are able to share your math thinking and build on the thinking of others.

Collective understanding builds in the classroom as students share their thinking. The academic language can be increased through social interactions and math discussions.

Which One Doesn’t Belong helps students all have good ideas and are in class with a lot of potential in math. Which, increased students confidence and capability.

How can we help students be “good at math”?

Audio starts at 12:45

Juliana: Be trust to what your students’ need. Using structured tasks vs. open ended tasks. Building your understanding of your students’ learning needs when structuring your lessons.

Kristen: Use ChatGPT to help you develop real world tasks and bring mathematics to life for your students and to have an answer to that ever persistent question, “When will I ever need this?”.

Mona: Routines. Use consistent practice of a routine where students can grapple (productively struggle) and get the structured support while having time to discuss their thinking and learn from their peers to build that collective understanding.
Using a structure of:
Warm Up,
Word Problem Workshop,
Math Discussion,
Exit Ticket

helps students develop a sense of security to engage in rigorous math!

Routines help build our math classroom community

Math routines and classroom management allow students to learn math and be good at math.

Teaching students how to work together and build on each others’ ideas in a discussion are essential, and achieved through utilizing routines.

We have to support students in feeling safe to take risks. We can do that through creating a classroom community where students have a sense of belonging and safety to engage, share their ideas, and take risks.

Math norms are key to supporting our students in feeling safe to describe their thinking and engage in math.

Once you have a strong classroom community you are able to utilize engagement structures to get everyone talking.

What’s one thing you wish math teachers did more?

Mona: Talk less, give more time for students to talk

Juliana: Spend more time community building. Throughout the year, not just at the beginning of the year.

Kristen: Embrace math from the real world- MESSY math! Use authentic learning experiences in math class.

A Poem about being a Math teacher!

Ya gotta tune in to hear the poem Juliana wrote (well with the help of ChatGPT) her math birthday buddies!

The post 76: Beyonce’s Birthday & Being Good at Math appeared first on Mona Math.