1. Media Presentation: Increasing Student Success in Mathematics
Submitted by: Erika Walsh
Submitted to: Heather Harris
Submitted on: Thursday, June 13th
Course: ED 6013

2. Increasing student success in mathematics
Developing and implementing a successful math program.

3. Intended Audience
Teachers and support staff at Ranger Elementary School.
Consists of 14 teachers, 5 support staff, 1 principal and 1 vice-principal.
260 students from kindergarten thru grade six.

4. Goals Develop a strong math program for all students K-6.
All academically average and high students will grow at least a full year in their mathematical ability as according to the CAT - 4 test.
All academically low students will grow at least .6 of a year in their mathematical ability as according to the CAT – 4 test.

5. Actions/Timeline
Starting in September 2013 and lasting throughout the two years:
Develop a team of effective teachers (with one or two teacher(s) as the chair/lead teacher) who are able to offer motivation and ideas to build a successful math program. This will include:
Looking for a new program or suggest ideas for increasing student engagement and strategies to improve mathematical learning in each grade level.
Offering PD during staff meetings
Mentoring other teachers

6. Actions/Timeline In November/December 2013:
Search and find a school that has a strong mathematical program to question, and hopefully observe. In the spring observe this school in action and ask teacher leaders from the mentoring school to offer PD during a staff development day.
Seek out mathematical coordinators that are willing to demonstrate and coach teachers within the classroom. Schedule times with the coordinator in the beginning of 2014 to work with our teachers.

7. Actions/Timeline January 2014 and each month afterwards:
Design and implement a math challenge of the month for classes or individual students to compete against each other.
April 2014 and annually:
Plan a mathematical family event to show that math is relevant to everyday life and that it can be fun – If students are engaged they are more willing to be active learners.

8. Actions/Timeline September 2014 and each year afterwards:
Test students using the CAT 4 test and record their test scores, analyze data and focus curriculum on needs of students.
End of May 2015 and each year afterwards:
Test students using the CAT 4 tests, record test results and compare results to those collected in September to measure student growth.

9. Actions/Timeline Starting in October 2014:
Develop a homework club that centers on students helping students learn and offer extra math help to students who complete their homework. This may be in the form of various games. This homework club will run twice a week for an hour session each day.
October 2014, February 2014 and May 2014:
Offer parent math tutoring. If parents understand the programming and curriculum they are more willing to help their children at home.

10. Thoughts to Ponder: Staff:
Will the staff be willing to invest into the extra time and practice to develop a successful math program that will take at least two years to fully implement?
Who will be the key staff to involve in this learning community – who will be supportive in mentoring other staff and which staff will be listened to?

11. Thoughts to Ponder: Mentor school: How do we find a mentoring school?
How will the school afford travel and PD money to spend on watching in-class demonstrations?
Will all staff be sent in to observe, just those in the learning community or will we ask one or two teachers from the mentor school to give PD to our staff?

12. Thoughts to Ponder Budget: Where will we get the money?
If we put money into developing this program will we be taking money from other areas of need?
How will we afford to have a math coordinator come to our school to offer PD, demonstrating and coaching in our classrooms?

13. Thoughts to Ponder Parents:
Will parents be willing to attend a math tutoring night?
How do we get the parents into the school that really need to attend – the parents who have students struggling?

14. Thoughts to Ponder Measurement of success:
Testing students on their year progress. Is the CAT- 4 test the best test to use? Is there a more effective strategy for measuring students’ growth?

15. Criteria for Decision-Making
Selecting the right people for lead teachers
Who has the right characteristics to be the lead teacher on the professional learning community? The lead teacher must:
Have a strong knowledge and understanding of the new Alberta math curriculum
Be motivational to other staff members and willing to delegate tasks and work cooperatively with others
Recognize the vision of the school and work to see it through to it’s success

16. Criteria for Decision Making
Selecting the right people to build the lead team – PLC
Who works together well and has the knowledge and experience to build a successful math program? The members of the lead team must:
Be able to work together. Northouse states that “... failing teams often take their lack of performance out on each other, and fighting teams often accomplish little” (Chapter 10: Team Leadership, pp. 213).
Be willing to help others develop successful strategies within their own classrooms.
Be seen as a role model to others

17. Criteria for Decision Making
Selecting the right school to use as a mentor
Which school has a successful math program that will be able to meet our school’s goals and visions? Which school will be willing to mentor us in developing and implementing a program? The mentor school must:
Demonstrate a key math program that focuses on student learning and instruction.
Be willing to work alongside our school; be welcoming to our staff and be able to send their staff members to our school for PD
Understand that we will tweak any program to fit into our school program and to meet our needs

18. Criteria for Decision Making
Deciding on math resources to implement
Math resources and program must be able to fit into our budget while offering teachers the ability and the knowledge to successfully implement it into the classroom.
Are we able to fit these resources into our budget?
Which resources do we already have that we can continue to use?
Have support from users and research that states these resources are useful and helpful in the classroom.

19. Possible Trade Offs
Do we send one or two teachers to observe the mentoring school, or all teachers?
Option 1: Send one or two teachers from each division. Division one consists of teachers from ECS thru grade three. Division two consists of teachers from grades four thru six. These teachers will be responsible to lead a PD session and sharing session to the rest of the teachers.
Option 2: Send all teachers over a few days to observe and work alongside a teacher in their grade level. Substitutes will be required and the mentoring school will have to be willing to have a disruptive class schedule for a few days.

20. Possible Trade Offs
Due to time constraints and budgetary costs we will only be able to send four teachers. Two per division level. They will be responsible to share the new information with the rest of the staff during a school PD session, staff meeting or after school. These teachers will act as in school mentors for the rest of the teachers. If possible they will go twice during the school year.

21. Risks Possible risks include:
Choosing the wrong lead teacher as a chair and/or members for the PLC team
Choosing the wrong program to meet our school’s and teachers’ visions and goals.
Take a long time and lose interest
Student engagement stays stagnate or decreases

22. Rewards The rewards of this program change include:
School climate: When people work together on a common vision and accomplish their goal a bond is formed. Staff will build school climate as they collaboratively work together to build better teaching practices and thus raise student achievement levels.
Student achievement: Students will increase their engagement and active learning in math which will raise their mathematical ability and academic levels.

23. Role of Participants
Administration: Will oversee that teachers are confirming to the vision of increasing math levels within their classrooms and the school.
They will select lead teachers who will be mentors and will lead the professional learning community towards achieving better math practices.
They will select teachers to sit on the PLC team.
They will be a sounding board for the lead teachers and help build the gap between ideas and action.
They will provide time for teachers to meet, resources for teachers to review and implement and adjust the budget to accommodate for professional development (which include visiting a mentoring school, having a math specialist come into the school for coaching and demonstrating).

24. Role of Participants
Lead teachers: Will meet once a week to build review resources and to research new math ideas and programs.
They will be the lead teachers in the change to ensure that Ranger Elementary increases their math instruction and builds a stronger program.
They will work alongside teachers, especially new teachers, to help build classroom instruction and student engagement.
During PLC’s they will lead discussions and ensure staff stay on topic. These teachers will decide who observes the mentoring school and brings PD back to all the teachers.

25. Role of Participants Teachers: are a central part to this change.
Must be willing to work towards build stronger math instruction for their students.
They will work alongside lead teachers, offer suggestions and implement ideas into the classroom.
They will discuss the strategies that are successful and those that need to be reviewed and revised.

26. Role of Participants
Students: Will be the driving force behind this curriculum change.
Will be motivated to participate in the various math activities throughout the year and will hopefully take the initiative to continue with their math programming.
Older students may be given the leadership opportunity to lead mathematical challenges and homework club.
Teachers will speak to students about their math experiences and survey students to find answers to what motivates students; what they like about math and what they don’t like.

27. Role of Participants
Parents: Will be given the resources and knowledge to help their children succeed in school by offering a safe environment to learn and to complete math activities (i.e. homework or games night).

28. Evidence of Success
Increased parental involvement in mathematical activities – as seen through taking attendance at family math night and parent tutoring sessions. Did attendance improve over time with the parent tutoring nights?

29. Evidence of Success
Student engagement in math. Did students increase their participation in mathematical activities? This will be measured through participation in math challenges, family math night and student tutoring sessions.

30. Evidence of Success
Did student achievement level in math rise over the first year? Second year? During the first year of implementation students will be measured with the CAT-4 test at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year. Did students achievement increase? During the second year and each year after students will be tested using the assessment CAT-4. It will be expected that students continue to grow in the area of mathematics.