1. Dates: Thursday, February 6/March 6 Time: 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Location: Victor Scott School
Aspiring for Teacher Leadership
Handouts needed:
Shifts in teaching survey
Array
Lshape
Classroom look fors – indiv and reg
Plain paper 50 sheets
Scan what is mathematics
Scan concept mapping

2. Aspiring for Math Teacher Leadership
Reflection on Rounds & Coaching
Confidence Survey
Effective Planning & Rigorous Tasks
Coaching around Worthwhile Tasks
5:00 pm
5:15 pm
5:30 pm
6:30 pm
Facilitator: Rebeka Matthews Sousa –
Content Specialist Teacher for Mathematics

3. Key Understandings During this session, teachers will:
Rate their confidence in various aspects of teaching and coaching mathematics
Reflect on their Instructional Round and Coaching Experience
Deeper understanding of the coaching model and the purpose of coaching
Have a deeper understanding of what a rigourous task is.
Investigate how to support teachers through Planning
Slide for me

4. Teacher Leader Confidence Survey
Rate your confidence level according to each of the following statements:
Deeply knowing the mathematics curriculum for the year level that you teach.
Deeply knowing the mathematics curriculum for all year levels in your school.
Planning effective mathematics tasks for your own year level.
Planning effective mathematics tasks for all year levels in your school.
Knowing and using a variety of effective teaching strategies for your own year level.
Knowing and using a variety of effective teaching strategies for all year levels in your school.
Coaching a teacher in your school around planning effective mathematics tasks.
Coaching a teacher in your school around using a variety of effective teaching strategies.

5. Reflection What did you focus on during your Instructional Rounds?
What did you learn from your rounds about the Mathematics at your school?
Discuss your experience of being coached.
What did you learn about your own teaching during the session with your coach?
Based on your coaching experience, what is a goal that you would like to set for your own mathematics teaching?

6. What is the Purpose of Coaching?
To promote reflective practices in teachers
Use questioning techniques to assist teachers through reflection of their lessons.
Teacher Leaders do not have to be experts in everything
Purpose of coaching is to promote reflective practices in teachers, naturally, many of us do this, but we sometimes need guided questions or prompts to see things from a slightly different perspective

7. Coaching Models Who learns from this process? EVERYONE involved
Preconference
Planning
BEFORE
Data Collection
Classroom visit
DURING
Post-conference
Reflection
AFTER
Who learns from this process? EVERYONE involved
Our focus right now, will be on our learning

8. Developing Leadership skills
Coaching and Professional Development
Content and Pedagogy Knowledge
Build on content knowledge
Quality Instructional practices
Develop of a common language for the elements of good teaching (using rubric)

9. Where to begin
Develop our own understandings of the curriculum/content and pedagogy
Begin by supporting teachers through PD and Planning
What does this mean for us?
Build Rapport and credibility
We must be confident with curriculum, effective planning
When we did our Rounds many of us focused on Questioning, student engagements, community,
What this all leads to is the TASK

10. Questioning
Student Engagement
Communication
TASK

11. Effective Planning

13. Checklist for Planning Effective Mathematics Tasks
The Lesson
Has a balance of skills: mental math, conceptual understanding, problem solving, and computational skills
May include the Three-Part Lesson as a vehicle to Teach Through Problem-solving: (Activate Thinking, Working on it, Reflect and Connect)
A good instructional task captures students’ interests and imagination and also satisfies the following criteria.
The Task(s)
Are aligned with the Cambridge Objective(s).
Provides a learning situation related to key concept or big ideas.
Or problem is meaningful relevant and interesting to students.
Cognitively demanding (solution is not immediately obvious) and there may be more than one solution)
Or problem promotes the use of one or more problem solving strategies (multiple entry or exit points)
Differentiated
Requires decision making above and beyond the choosing of a mathematical operation.
May encourage collaboration in seeking solutions.
Resources, materials, manipulatives prepared in advanced.
Assessment
Variety of assessment tools to access students throughout the lesson
Questioning
Questions are prepared in advance to encourage mathematical thinking and communication of mathematical reasoning.

14. A visit to a mathematics classroom:
What (and whom) do you hear when you go into the mathematics classrooms in your building?
What do you see when you go into the mathematics classrooms in your building?

15. Have you ever had this conversation?
Picture links to video Non example of how we talk about “rigour”

16. What is Rigour?
Chocolate A preparation of the seeds of cacao, roasted, husked, and ground, often sweetened and flavored, as with vanilla. Rigour Strictness, severity, or harshness, as in dealing with people
So what is rigour
What is chocolate? Do you know the dictionary definition of chocolate? Do you really know what it is? Right now can you smell it? Taste it?
Did you think of your favorite chocolate bar?
Look at the definitions. Did knowing the definitions help?
So, to know what rigour is you have to experience it. Just like you have to taste chocolate. I can give you the definition

17. What’s All This Talk about rigour?
Using the T-Chart, place the descriptors under the following headings:
Learning Experiences that involve Rigour
Learning Experiences that do not involve Rigour
See article – “What’s All This Talk about rigour?”
T-chart and cards
Give article to read

18. What’s All This Talk about Rigour?
Learning experiences that involve rigour … 
Experiences that do not involve rigour … 
challenge students
are more “difficult,” with no purpose (for example, adding 7ths and 15ths without a real context)
require effort and tenacity by students
require minimal effort
focus on quality (rich tasks)
focus on quantity (more pages to do)
include entry points and extensions for all students
are offered only to gifted students
are not always tidy, and can have multiple paths to possible solutions
are scripted, with a neat path to a solution
provide connections among mathematical ideas
do not connect to other mathematical ideas
contain rich mathematics that is relevant to students
contain routine procedures with little relevance
develop strategic and flexible thinking
follow a rote procedure
encourage reasoning and sense making
require memorization of rules and procedures without understanding
expect students to be actively involved in their own learning
often involve teachers doing the work while students watch
See article – “What’s All This Talk about rigour?”
T-chart and cards
Give article to read

19. What Research Says About Rigour (TIMMS Video Study, 1993)
Most of time in US math classes is spent practicing mathematical procedures and reteaching
The key feature of success is that students engage in active struggle with mathematics concepts and procedures.
In the teaching rubric, it says under task “rigourous”, but what it? What does it look like? When we visit or support teachers do we all have a common understanding of what rigour is?

20. Defining Levels of Cognitive Demand of Mathematical Tasks
Lower Level Demands
Memorization
Procedures without connections
Higher Level Demands
Procedures with Connections
Doing Mathematics
Copy stein pages 13, 16, 19, 21
(Stein, 2000)

21. Levels of Cognitive Demand as Compared to Bloom’s Taxonomy
Highest Levels
Doing Math
Procedures with Connections
Procedures without Connections
Memorization
Lowest Levels

22. Verb Examples Associated with Each Activity Lower Level of Cognitive Demands
Knowledge: arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce state.
Comprehension: classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, translate.

23. Defining Levels of Cognitive Demands of Mathematical Tasks Lower Level Demands
Memorization:
What are the decimal and percent equivalents for the fractions ½ and ¼ ?
Expected Student Response:
½=.5=50%
¼=.25=25%

24. Defining Levels of Cognitive Demands of Mathematical Tasks Lower Level Demands
Procedures without connections:
Convert the fraction 3/8 to a decimal and a percent.
Expected Student Response:
Fraction 3/8
Divide 3 by 8 and get a decimal equivalent of .375
Move the decimal point two places to the right and get 37.5 %

25. Verb Examples Associated with Each Activity Higher levels of cognitive demand
Application: apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.
Analysis: analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.

26. Defining Levels of Cognitive Demands of Mathematical Tasks Higher Level Demands
Procedure with connections:
Using a 10 by 10 grid, illustrate the decimal and percent equivalents of 3/5.

27. Verb Examples Associated with Each Activity Highest levels of cognitive demands
Synthesis: arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, write.
Evaluation: appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, defend estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support, value, evaluate

28. Defining Levels of Cognitive Demands of Mathematical Tasks Higher Level Demands
Doing Mathematics:
Shade 6 small squares in a 4 X 10 rectangle. Using the rectangle, explain how to determine each of the following:
A) the percent of area that is shaded
B) the decimal part of the area that is shaded
C) the fractional part of the area that is shaded

29. Sort the Tasks into the 4 Levels of Cognitive Demand
Be prepared to explain your reasoning.
Lower Level Demand
Memorization
Procedures without Connections
Higher Level Demand
Procedures with Connections
Doing Mathematics
Fold 11x17 into 4

30. Analyzing Mathematics Instructional Tasks
Level of Cognitive Demand
Explanation of Categorization
Features A
Doing mathematics B
Procedures with connections C D E
Pro with F
Pro without G H
Memorization
The task requires the recall of previously learned information. No understanding required
“textbook-like’
Separate teachers into 4 groups and have each group analyze 2 tasks, using the chart

31. How do we Coach Teachers around the Task?
Building Rapport with Teachers
Chart ideas

32. Coaching Ourselves around the Task
Chapter 3 – Content Knowledge and Worthwhile Tasks
Read p.35-38
Planning
Data Gathering
Reflection

33. Coaching around Planning Effective/Worthwhile Tasks
Coaching yourself around worthwhile tasks
Think of your own lesson that you have already taught.
Consider the questions on p. 43. When you were planning your lesson, did you consider these questions?
Using planning tool 3.6 on page to rate your lesson and the task
Use the planning tool on p.47 to redesign the same lesson. Write your answers.
Discuss your lesson and what you would do differently with your group.
Take a minute now to look at the reflection questions.