Putting it All Together

A.  What do you think will be your greatest challenge as you lead in the area of mathematics?

As I am not one to lead in the area of math at this point, I'm not quite sure what my greatest challenge would be. If I were still at a school, I would say the greatest challenge would be getting teachers to use effective practices to ensure students are understanding the how and not just getting the "correct" answer.

B.  What obstacles do you anticipate?

With anything else....change is an uncomfortable concept for many to embrace. This is always an obstacle when getting your staff to move from good to great.

C.  What aspect of leadership do you feel most prepared for?

I feel most prepared for providing professional development to teachers and being a data-driven instructional leader.

Case Study

In reading this case study, I think about the instructional coaches that we have at our schools and how they have to divide their time up between so many schools that have different ideas on how to help students be successful. Meeting in PLCs is the most beneficial and effective way, that I see, of providing any type of professional development. At our schools, we follow the process of establishing norms for our PLCs, having defined roles, an agenda, minute taker and time keeper. This helps to keep the meeting moving in a positive direction that is solution oriented. This helps everyone feel like their time was well spent.

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)

• Do you or have you worked in a school that implements PLCs?  If so, how are/were they structured? 

My whole school system currently implements PLCs at every school, although it is left up to the administrator at each school to carry out in a way that fits their school. At the high school I am based at, PLCs are scheduled every two weeks during the teachers 90 min planning block. These PLCs have a focused topic and administrators attend every one. After the PLC, teachers are given "assignments" to work on before the next PLC.

• How have PLCs been beneficial to you?  What are/were the drawbacks? 

Since I am in a different position, I do not attend PLC meetings. In the past, as an administrator of an elementary school, PLCs were beneficial in that we were able to look at data as a grade level and target students who needed to fill some learning gaps in order to be successful with grade level content and group students for enrichment purposes. Some of the drawbacks from teachers was having to "give up" planning time in order to meet.

• Please share any strategies or advice that you have for successfully implementing PLCs.  If you have not worked in or with PLCs before, what questions do you have?

One piece of advice I have is to make sure your PLCs are purposeful or they will turn into a complaining gripe session for teachers. That is not productive and it doesn't get us any closer to having students be successful in their classes.

Instructional Strategies

I have utilized KWL charts when I was in the classroom with students. KWL charts helped me to organize and helped the students see critical elements and vocabulary terms and the relationship between the two. Seeing what students already knew, helped me to differentiate for students who may have already mastered some concepts Having a list of items concerning what the students wanted to know, helped me determine what resources were needed to meet their needs. It was a very useful tool for me and my other students that were visual learners.

I can see where vocabulary strategies could play a key role in helping students understand math content. A lot of times when I talk to students and ask them why they believe they are struggling in a class, it’s because they do not understand what one word or a few words mean. This can make a big difference in being success and understanding math concepts and becoming frustrated. Incorporating a vocabulary strategy to pre-teach important math vocabulary terms would be helpful.

Accessibility Strategies

I also think PLCs would be the most effective way for this type of teamwork to occur. Because content teachers have common planning time, it’s a natural fit for them to talk about different strategies to include in their lessons for differentiation and to meet the needs of individual “pockets” of students. The most important piece I see is conducting the observation and collecting data, then coming back together for feedback.

Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice

1- Make sense of problems and perseverance in solving them

D Anna thinks about another familiar type of problem that could help her solve the current one. She also monitors and evaluates her progress as she works through the problem, and makes adjustments along the way

2- Reason abstractly and quantitatively

H Ricky is making sense of the quantities and their relationship in order to solve the problem

3- Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others

A Noah, Nick, Amy, and Maria are discussing triangles and each is arguing his/her point of view based on previously learned information

4- Model with mathematics

E Rachel created a model to help solve a real-world problem

5- Use appropriate tools strategically

B Mindy used the number line as a tool to solve her problem

6- Attend to precision

F Lin and Ben are discussing a rhombus to one another use precise terminology but Lin also goes back and adds more detail to his argument

7- Look for and make use of structure

C Zoe found a pattern and used it to help her solve the problem

8- Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

G Kelly notices a pattern/strategy (jumping to zero every time the signs are different) in her attempts to solve the integer problems which she uses to solve other problems.

Assessing Cogitive Demand of Mathematical Tasks

After reviewing the reading and re-evaluating the tasks, I would move Task C, I and J to high- level cognitive demand since these tasks either require an explanation, involve multiple steps or are abstract. These require higher levels of comprehension and application. .