My journey:
When I was in high school I remember being scared of my math teachers. I got the feeling that some people could do math and others couldn’t. Sink or swim. I saw no creativity. There was no peer-collaboration and my math teachers were the center of the lesson.
My Early Teaching Years (Years 0-7) Students in rows. Sitting quietly, I would review homework from the night before, deliver a 25 - 40-minute lesson and then give them the rest of the class to practice what I taught. I would buzz around the room trying to fill in the learning gaps of all the hands that were in the air...
Early Beliefs (Years 0-7) Holding kids’ attention for 30-40 minutes is nearly impossible if they don’t like me. The better my relationships with students, the better they will listen and learn from me. Since they liked me, I could show them how to do something, and then they could reproduce it later. My strong relationships also created a strong working environment during seatwork time. This allowed me to be the center of the lesson. I did a lot of math and they did a lot of listening. I was definitely doing more work than my students in class.
Getting off the Stage (Years 8-16) I was getting tired of being the answer guy. I also realized that math is about problem-solving and if I am solving kids’ problems, then they are not. I did not want to be the only problem solver in the room. To get kids more involved, we moved from rows to pods of three. I strategically placed a strong math student in the middle of every pod with the hope that this would give all students more immediate support. It worked well. Fewer hands went up and kids increased peer to peer support.
A few years later I realized that teaching them how to do it in the first place was the same as solving their problems for them. Once again I was the only problem solver in the room. This is where the concept of MathBeacon workbooks began. My new lessons began with ensuring we all had the same prerequisite skills to participate in the day’s challenges. The challenges were simply the questions I would have directly taught them in the past. This was an incredible shift. Now kids were problem-solving. They were trying the problems first and before I went over them. They were using their brains.
My job shifted from directly teaching, to observing individual and class needs. My new challenge was how to do this new dance of supporting without doing it them. I would check in with kids on each challenge and go over any problems that the students were unsure of. Since the kids had already tried the problems, they knew if they needed help or not. I became a needed resource. When I spoke, they had a natural reason to listen and engage. This model was a profound shift and I was still happy to be the center of their learning experience.
I was pretty confident at this point that I had arrived. My system was simple, prime students for the lesson, give them the lesson through targeted questions in the guidebooks, circulate and interject as needed. It felt much more like a conversation with me than a lecture. It was a much better conversation before, but it still left many students listening to questions that they do not have. They were eavesdropping on a conversation they didn't choose.
Real-World Skills (Year 16+) My lessons and outlook would change again when I began asking myself what transferable skills was I teaching. I now start the year by googling, “What skills are employers looking for?” My goal now is to provide students with as many of those transferable skills as I can through the content and lessons we engage with. Most of the characteristics that employers are looking for, we can teach in our math classrooms. Problem-solving, critical thinking, analysis are pretty straight forward for most math teachers.
The greatest shift in my classroom has been supporting students to collaborate with peers, influencing their peers, developing leadership skills, and working with diverse social groups. To support this needed change, we changed the seating arrangements. We shifted from 3 in a line to groups of 4 facing each other. This is a positive social shift. When you are problem-solving, you want to be able to look at all the people you are working with. To prepare them to work with diverse social groups, students sit with a randomized group every day(Flippity.net works like a charm.). I present a context, a proof, or a tension and then pair them off in twos. They work with a different partner every day. In doing this they learn to collaborate with new people to solve problems. Students receive a scaffolded lesson on their devices and work through it with their partner. In partnerships, they stand around the room at whiteboards and windows to work through the lessons.
My direct teaching time has gone from about 40 minutes to about 7 minutes. My students are actively solving problems/making meaning for themselves for 30 to 40 minutes every class. They are needing to do less practice at home because they did it themselves rather than watching me do it. I have effectively moved from the center of the lesson to the center of the room. I stand in the middle and watch the learning happen. Students have moved from passive observer to active presenter and debater as they work through the scaffolded lessons in partnerships. I was sold on this method when one of my students reflected, “When my body is moving, then my brain is moving.” Others comment on how they are growing in social confidence. Still, others say they are learning different ways of approaching the same problem. This has been the best season of my teaching career. I hope you will join me in it.
Let keep learning together.