The Math
Lea
dership Team met for the first time this year with teacher representatives from K-12. The team is led by Instructional Math Coaches Shannon Bogart and Marissa Premus who began the day with an introductory activity to introduce new members to the team. We watched a Ted talk video, “How Mathematics is the Sense You Never Knew You Had”. The team then transitioned into a conversation on how students view their own relationship with mathematics and how they should persevere rather than see it as something that is genetically defined.
To prepare the team for Instructional Rounds, we reviewed the district protocol as well as the focus for the visits. The process for Instructional Rounds is to collect information across multiple classrooms and schools by looking at the activities students are engaged in and what they are doing and saying. We also looked at the classroom environment to gather information about support and resources both within the classroom and online that students can access to support their learning. The focus or lens for the visits was to experience the launch of the math workshop, period, or class, which included looking at activities, materials, resources, and state standards. The visiting teams regrouped and debriefed sharing commonalities or themes of best practice across the classes that were visited. These ideas and themes were charted and a K-12 curriculum and instruction perspective was generated.
We ended the day by planning how to share these ideas with the rest of the staff in each school. The group also discussed upcoming conferences and possible topics for future Math Leadership Team meetings. Our next meeting is at the beginning of February.
