Supporting Teachers to Learn the Practice of
Ambitious Mathematics Teaching
Summer Learning InstituteTeacher Education
WorkshopJuly 17, 2011
Megan Franke & Angela Chan, UCLA
Hala Ghousseini, University of Wisconsin
Elham Kazemi, University of Washington
Magdalene Lampert & Heather Beasley, University of Michigan
What do we mean byambitious mathematics teaching?
What do we mean byambitious mathematics teaching?
Mathematics teaching which aims to produce
• competent performance• in complex domains• for all students
Ambitious Mathematics Teaching
Teaching which aims to produce– Competent performance
• Acquire• Understand• And be able to use knowledge
– In complex domains• Communication• Providing evidence for conclusions• Connected structures
– For all students• Attention to differences in what students bring• Teaching is continuously calibrated to learning
What do we mean byambitious mathematics teaching?
What do we mean byambitious mathematics teaching?
Literacy and Mathematics
Teacher K-12 students
The social and institutional context of schools and classrooms
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23
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The work of Teaching is in structuring relationships
What do we mean bythe PRACTICE of ambitious mathematics teaching?
What do we mean bythe PRACTICE of ambitious mathematics teaching?
Practice 1– doing, thoughtful doing– not the opposite of theory but the use of theory in action in a particular
contextPractice 2
– “high leverage” practices– things that teachers do regularly to support learning
Practice 3– deliberate repeating of an action with feedback until you get good at it– integration of routines with good judgment about when and how to use them
Practice 4– collective activity expresses shared commitments– using common tools and common language– commitment to common principles
Why might it be important to support teachers on all of these fronts at once?
Why might it be important to support teachers on all of these fronts at once?
TURN AND TALKShare with whole groupPractice 1
– doing, thoughtful doing– not the opposite of theory but the use of theory in action in a particular
contextPractice 2
– “high leverage” practices– things that teachers do regularly to support learning
Practice 3– deliberate repeating of an action with feedback until you get good at it– integration of routines with good judgment about when and how to use them
Practice 4– collective activity expresses shared commitments– using common tools and common language– commitment to common principles
The practice of teaching
Teacher educators Novice teachers
The social and institutional context for learning teachingThe social and institutional context for learning teaching
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The work of Teacher Education is in structuring relationships
How can we design teacher education to structure the relationships among teacher educators, novice teachers, and teaching practice so that novice
teachers are likely to develop competence and identities as
ambitious teachers?
How can we design teacher education to structure the relationships among teacher educators, novice teachers, and teaching practice so that novice
teachers are likely to develop competence and identities as
ambitious teachers?
• Instructional activities can be crafted to• enable children to learn important mathematics• enable novices to learn
• Routine practices• Enactment of principles• Use of knowledge in action
• enable teacher educators to learn “responsive” coaching
Hypothesis #1:
Instructional Activities are designed to be “containers” for knowledge, principles and practices underlying ambitious teaching
PRINCIPLES
KNOWLEDGE
PRACTICES
Practices the IAs enable coach to work on
• Launching/beginning an activity• Managing space• Managing time/pacing• Using body and voice• Managing student engagement• Eliciting and responding to student contributions• Orienting students to one another• Attending to student thinking• Attending to student errors• Assessing student understanding• Closing an activity
Principles the IAs enable the coach to work on
• Children are sensemakers. • Teachers must design instruction for all children
to do rigorous academic work in school and to have equitable access to learning.
• Ambitious instruction requires clear instructional goals.
• Teachers must know their students as individuals and as learners.
• Teachers must be responsive to the requirements of the school environment.
The coach is also engaging teachers in learning mathematics for teaching
• Mathematical processes, e.g.– Making sense of problems– Reasoning quantitatively– Constructing viable arguments– Looking for and expressing regularity– Etc.
• Mathematical content, e.g.– Operations on whole numbers, fractions– Understanding and using place value– Understanding, comparing, and representing fractions– Representing and solving problems with operations– Etc.
Where does coaching fit in relation to enactment?
Cycles of Enactment and
Investigation
Common Instructional
Activities
Coaching through
Rehearsals
Hypothesis #2
• Instructional activities can be used most effectively and efficiently to support teachers in cycles of observations and enactment in designed (“applied”) settings
• Professional education is immediately responsive to actual problems of practice
• Formative assessment can occur throughout the cycle and in repeated cycles and development can be responsive to what teachers need to learn
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NEXT CYCLE
Enact the Activity and
record teaching & learning
Collective analysis of teaching &
learning
CYCLES of
ENACTMENT and
INVESTIGATION
SAME ACTIVITY ACROSS MULTIPLE TEACHERS AND SETTINGS
SAME ACTIVITY ACROSS MULTIPLE TEACHERS AND SETTINGS
Coaching through
Rehearsals
Observing an Instructional
Activity
Collective analysis of math and teaching
Prepare to teach an
Instructional Activity
Hypothesis #3Hypothesis #3
• We need to design (new) settings for Teacher Education to happen– Places where the cycle can happen– Places where there are more capable and
articulate colleagues to identify with– Time for teachers to watch each other– Technology for collecting records of
practice and making them available– ?