Our vision Statement

I have spent the last two days with Chris Shore (math projects journal) working with other math coaches exchanging ideas on how to strengthening our math programs.

One of our tasks was to create a vision statement.  As a group of secondary math coaches we come up with this; A collaborative student-centered, tool enhanced, task-oriented, teacher-coached classroom where students productively discuss real world mathematics.
Here is the picture of all our ideas that lead us to this vision statement.

We shared ideas of things we need to do and work on over time to get out classrooms to look like this.  We know it will take time but we have a vision for our math teachers and students, and we know we will get there as a team.

Prep Your Rep

As a math coach I'm in many classes, so it's hard to pick a favorite thing. There are so many awesome things that happen in a day, even during a single class period so how do you pick one.  I really enjoy when students collaborate and help each other. I've worked with several teachers this year to help with student collaboration using group roles and a strategy called "prep your rep".
When I walk into any of these rooms students are working together asking each other questions and solving problems together.  They have learned to help one another, share ideas and help make sure all team mates are understanding the task or problem they are working on.
Students "prep their rep" to share out. Since teachers call on students randomly all students need to be prepared to answer and share what their group discussed.  It's great to see how they work together to make sure all members of the team can give a clear articulate answer.
Of course the teacher is circulating and facilitating the class, asking student questions to push their level of thinking.  Sometimes students stumble when giving an answer as the process is still new for students to spend so much time collaborating, sharing their answers and reasoning for their answers.  As the year has gone on students have done well sharing their reasoning and are realizing that their responses and their thinking process is just as important as their answers.
Students score each other's responses based on a 4 point rubric and will later tie in the SMP's once they have spent some time share answers and building up to 4 point scores.

A day in the life of a Math Coach

Thursday, January 14th 2016

5:00am :The first alarm goes off.
5:15am: The second alarm goes off.
5:30am: The third alarm goes off.
I'm not a morning person so I need multiple alarms.
6:00am: A beautiful little girl shakes me and say's momma you need to get up.

Thank goodness for her!
My alarm well, honestly, 5 alarms (my fitbit alarm went off and my alarm went off again at 6) didn't and usually don't work.  I am a determined person I can hit snooze in my sleep.

I final get out of bed and do the regular morning stuff, I make coffee.....Priorities!

Then I do the stuff we all gotta do to get to work; feed the dogs, get kid ready, breakfast,

7:50am: Finally grab all my stuff and take my kiddo to school.

8:00am: I drop Saige off at school and I drive to work check my email well, I glance at them to see if there is anything urgent.
8:15am: Meet with a teacher about an inequalities task we talked about the day before.  Her students were having a little trouble understanding that they would have more than one answer for inequalities and how to graph them.
8:45am: She had first period prep so I went to my little office at the school site and answered emails I glanced at first thing in the morning and looked at what task we could work on next. Her students were struggle with solving inequalities and she mention they struggled solving equations too.
9:50am: Demo lesson in a 7th grade math class. An inequality task from math projects journal
10:48am: Demo lesson in a 7th grade math class. an inequality task from math projects journal
11:47am: lunch time, I go back to my little office reflect and check emails.
12:23pm: The teacher I am working with has an elective class for computers so I go check in with another teacher.  I just hang out in her class walking around and talking with the students in regards to their work with the Pythagorean theorem.
1:22pm: co-teach the 7th grade task on inequalities.  I had to leave by 1:50 to head to our district office for a meeting.
2:00pm: meeting with other k-12 math coaches to get things ready for our LCAP meeting at 4pm. We spent this time discussing the layout of our meeting and getting copies of data ready to share with the committee members.
4:00-6:00pm LCAP meeting at our district office with community members. The district math coaches were there to answer questions for the LCAP committee about how we have implemented the LCAP plan this school year and see if we will maintain the program, expand, eliminate, or down size.
6:15pm: Home! I start getting things ready for the task we will be working on for tomorrow again another task from math projects journal. This time a task on equations to help with solving equations and inequalities.
8:00pm: Finally, I get to lay down and read with my daughter and we fall asleep.

Explore MTBoS

I, Karon Woolsey resolve to blog in 2016 in order to share my experiences as a math coach with other teachers.  I hope to accomplish this goal by participating in the January blogging Initiation hosted by Explore MTBoS


You, too, could join in on this exciting adventure.  All you have to do is dust off your blog and get ready for the first prompt to arrive January 10th!

Key and Peele Teaching Center video.

Key and Peele Teaching Center video

Math the Not-so Universal Language

Academic language is not used in students every day life.  Students need a chance to use the academic language in their classes it gives them a chance to practice the language, make connections and increase their understanding of the topics being discussed.

Could you imagine trying to learn algebra in another language? Think about your foreign language class in high school or college, would you want to learn math in that class? In another language?