1. 7th Grade Mathematics
Conceptual Development Related to Upcoming Curriculum Topics
Caddo PDC Seminar Room
February 2nd, 2016
Hello 7th grade math teachers! This is Roger Vance, secondary math guy for Caddo Schools and welcome to the video version of our recent collaborative meeting entitled, “Conceptual Understanding Related to Upcoming Curriculum Topics”. The session was held on February 2, 2016 in the Professional Development Center Seminar Room. We had 6 participants from 5 different schools and it was a great time of discussion and sharing ideas that will benefit our students.

2. Introductions Agenda Snacks
Welcome
Introductions
Agenda
Snacks
After some introductions and a look at the agenda…

3. State Assessment State Assessment Guidance PARCC Evidence Statements
…we started off with a discussion of this year’s state assessment.
If you received this video by , the state assessment guidance and PARCC Evidence Statements were attached. If you found this video on our caddomath.org website, you probably noticed these documents (and all others related to this video) posted alongside the video file.
These assessment documents are very important and are not overwhelmingly long, so I strongly encourage every Caddo teacher to take the time to at least skim through them and familiarize yourself with the information. This could lead you to change the way you teach some of the content to your students.
The next document we looked at was the latest draft of the new Louisiana Standards for These had just been release about a weekrvan prior to our meeting and it was interesting to see how similar they are to what we have used for he past few years since our state GLEs were replaced. There are minor differences in wording, and the classification system looks more like our old GLEs, but this will not be much of a shift in what we have been working with.
State Assessment

4. Next, we moved on to what I thought was the most exciting part of the meeting…
We looked at a revised version of the Scope & Sequence (that actually was not the most exciting part, but it led us to the exciting part) The order of things in the Scope & Sequence is the same, but the document was originally developed around 2 phases of testing. Sometime in November, we found out that there would only be one phase of testing (the week of April 25th), so we took out the week designated as Phase 1 and then shifted content based on that.
As you can see, we didn’t go back to the beginning of the school year, but started with the current time frame…
Caddo Scope & Sequence

5. Here, you see Week 28 (March 14-18)… this is when Phase 1 of state testing was originally scheduled. Now, that’s a regular teaching week, and all content from this point was shifted accordingly.
Caddo Scope & Sequence

6. Now you see what was Phase 2 of testing (April 25-29)… this is now the only week scheduled for state testing.
This gives us a bit more breathing room, which is really helpful since most teachers at this meeting admitted to being at least a couple of weeks behind on the pacing guide.
Caddo Scope & Sequence

7. Upcoming Go Math! Chapters
Chapter 9, Circumference, Area, and Volume
Chapter 10, Random Samples and Populations
Chapter 11, Analyzing and Comparing Data
Chapter 12, Experimental Probability
Chapter 13, Theoretical Probability and Simulations
So based on that, here are the chapters that most teachers had left to cover on February 2nd (the date of this meeting).
Just like we did at the original meeting, now would be a good time for you to pause this video, get out a pencil and paper, take a look at these chapter titles and jot down some common struggles within these chapters that you always seem to have.
Upcoming Go Math! Chapters

8. Common Student Struggles
After some discussion among small groups of teachers, we spent most of the remainder of our time discussing some of those common struggles and sharing strategies that some teachers have found to be helpful.
There was some discussion about the age-old problem of adding and subtracting integers, which goes back to chapter 1 of the textbook. Some teachers shared how they tackle that in the classroom.
We also had some conversation about conceptual understanding, which, by the way, was the title of the meeting. One topic that came up was solving equations… we looked at the connection between solving 2-step equations and order of operations. This was a great example of the kind of discussions we need to be having as often as possible. We learn so much from each other.
And this is the part that I hope to document and even video at future meetings so the information can be shared with everyone. We are also planning in future collaborative meetings to have some of you come prepared to demonstrate successful strategies in more detail. Then we could build a video library labeled by topic and this would be a great place to turn when we need some help preparing for an upcoming lesson.
Common Student Struggles

9. Sharing / Brainstorming
So the feedback from this session included things like:
“I think it was a wonderful meeting of minds!”
“Great testing info!”
“I am glad I am not alone in being behind on the pacing guide”
…sometimes just knowing that you’re not alone in the battle to help your kids be successful is a great encouragement. This was something that made me feel like it was a worthwhile meeting.
From the 6th grade session, there were comments such as:
“Please provide samples of the problems we discussed”
“If there were some specific ideas for upcoming topics already prepared, it may have helped”
“Once a nine weeks, have more meetings to be able to provide ideas for upcoming topics.”
So the feedback was very positive and teachers expressed an interest in making this a common occurrence. As we plan for future PD opportunities, I’ll be applying that feedback. I hope that all of our meetings in Caddo will be collaborative, where you don’t just come to listen, but you come to share. We have great 7th grade math teachers in Caddo and I get excited to think about what will happen when we begin to work together on a consistent basis.
Sharing / Brainstorming

10. Evaluation / Closure State Assessment Tools Revised Scope & Sequence
New Louisiana Standards
me at…
So thank you for watching!
Please use the documents that are connected to this video – those state assessment documents and the revised Scope & Sequence for 7th grade math, and be sure to check out the latest draft of the new state standards whenever you begin to plan for next year.
Also, please me anytime you think of a suggestion, concern, need, or anything at all that might lead to a benefit for our Caddo kids.
Evaluation / Closure

11. If you would like to receive a CLU credit for viewing this video, please go to
and click on the Evaluation link associated with this video file. When you have completed your evaluation, you will need to send me an at
with the subject line, 7th Grade Evaluation.
Oh, and one more thing…
If you would like to receive a CLU credit for viewing this video, please go to and click on the Evaluation link associated with this video file. Once you have completed your evaluation, you will need to send me an at with the subject line, “7th Grade Evaluation”. I will send your CLU certificate as soon as I receive that and I’m able to pull up your evaluation.
Thank you for watching! I hope to see you soon! Take care!
CLU Credit