We have been talking a great deal about a strategic plan for helping school-based administrators understand how to support mathematics instruction that features a balance of conceptual understanding for procedural knowledge. The demands of site-based leadership are numerous and, as instructional leaders, they must possess a deep understanding of exemplary instruction for multiple content areas. With the emergence of the Common Core State Standards, mathematics leaders will have the attention of this leadership group and it will be critically important to make the most of this opportunity. In this post, I will share some ideas for supporting the professional development of these important stakeholders.
Supporting mathematics instruction at the secondary level can be challenging considering that we have 32 schools and over 300 teachers. Even if your school district is smaller, coordinating the vision for mathematics instruction can present challenges. In Howard County, our first order of business was to establish a district-wide vision for exemplary mathematics instruction. This vision began with a set of classroom behaviors (standards) for teachers (NCTM’s Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics) and for students (CCSC Standards for Mathematical Practice).
Our team introduced NCTM’s Professional Standards for Teaching (courtesy of Jon Wray) in 2008. As a new leader in a new district, I wanted to establish coherence across schools regarding mathematics instruction. Selfishly, I wanted to know what mathematics teachers and school-based leaders saw in their minds when they tried to respond to, “What does exemplary mathematics instruction look like?” We asked every secondary mathematics teacher and every school based and central office leader to grapple with this question. Once we had feedback from the question, we shared the NCTM standards as a consolidation of their ideas and asked for feedback. The overwhelming response from administrators went something like this, “What does all of the technical language mean? If you say our responses re reflected in these standards, we’ll believe you, but this language looks different that our ideas.” The response from teachers was, “Yep, this is what we do already…no changes here.” The truth is that some standards were evident in every classroom…but the degree of fidelity or effectiveness of implementation varied greatly. With the NCTM standards in full view, we began a sort of marketing campaign. We shared these standards obsessively wherever we went. The standards appeared on the front and back of our look-for documents. They became the focus of our professional development. They were on opening slides of every PowerPoint presentations. Every time we observed a classroom, we would link teacher behaviors to these standards (and identify resulting student actions) in order to build a working knowledge of these expectations.
Over time (3 years now), we have branded the NCTM standards as “the” set of teacher behaviors associated with exemplary mathematics instruction at the secondary level in our district. Now that there exists a heightened awareness of these expectations, administrators began asking for support for classroom observation and ideas for teaching improvement at the school level. Our team responded by launching the most comprehensive school support initiative in recent times.
We developed a plan for informally observing every secondary mathematics teacher in our district (300+) over a period of three months. We invited the mathematics instructional team leader (dept. chair) and school-based administrators to serve on the observation team. On the day of the visit, the observation team would meet to discuss the visitation schedule and protocols for the days. Smaller teams of two observers would see each teacher for about 25 minutes, taking time to record teacher and student behaviors on an observation tool that features NCTM’s teaching standards. Each team member was encouraged to provide individualized feedback (although our team owned this responsibility for administrators that wanted to learn to use the tool instead of focusing on feedback). At the end of the day, the team would meet and develop a set of commendations (5-10) and recommendations (no more than 2) that would be shared with the mathematics team. The results were nothing short of extraordinary. School-based administrators (we had about 80% participation) reported that this experience helped to sharpen their understanding of mathematics instruction and would serve to inform the school improvement planning process. They also reported that they would use the feedback to shape goal conferences at the start of the next school year. Mathematics teams generally appreciated trend feedback (especially the focus on what was been done well) and were charged to develop lesson experiences that featured a balance of conceptual understanding for procedural knowledge. The team leaders mentioned that the experience provided focus for their dept. professional development planning for next year
With the observations up and running, our team developed a series of experiences that would extend this training. We used commercial video cases to train administrators. The process and resources (look-for tools) were the same but the instruction was showcased from teachers around the globe. This initiative is in its infancy but we plan to extend this practice to focus keenly on student behaviors defined by the Standards for Mathematical Practice. (See next post)
School-based administrators have an awesome responsibility as the Common Core approaches. It is the responsibility of the mathematics leadership community to ensure that these leaders have the tools to help support and improve mathematics instruction. We also must ensure that they have the tools to communicate this complex change to parents and community. An instructional shift in the mathematics classroom will result in shifts in expectations for students. The focus will shift from rote memorization of steps and fact, to critical thinking, innovating, communicating, and problem solving. This will be uncomfortable for all of us…but school-based leaders will bear a large portion of that burden. Let’s commit to working together to make this reform a valuable learning experience for all.
Until next time, take care!
Bill
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