Unit+5-Day+1-Leadership+in+Mathematics

Day 1 Reflection:

How did our discussions and your math work today relate to changing mathematics instruction in your school?

I want to first say that yesterday was a great day at NISL. Through experiential learning it was clear what a math class should look like. As I think about completing learning walks, evaluations and teacher supervision, I will be able to draw form my own experiences with Dr. Chen. For our math teachers it would be great if they could have the same experience that we shared. They would see how Andrew was able to scaffold each student at our various levels, create a suppportive learning environment where it is o.k. to take chances and fail, create a lesson that meets the needs of all learners, had a solid grasp of the content, as well as celebrating with students the multiple ways of solving problems. I believe the best way of learning is to participate and experience the process. Providing our teachers with opportunities for "real" professional development experiences such as what we had a NISL, will go a long way in improving math instruction. Bob C

Through problem solving in mathematics, students can learn thinking and reasoning skills that are transferable to other academic areas as well as life in general. With that said, students need to have opportunities to develop and fine-tune these skills. Math instruction that leads to problem solving activities, where the teacher facilitates and gives timely feedback needs to occur more often than we observe in the typical math classroom. Students require guidance through effective questioning techniques by the teacher facilitator, thus creating opportunities for students to work logically through the problem solving process. Completion of the process is marked by the student's ability to explain his/her reasoning which led to the solution. Mary S.

I call it the “Chen Effect” and it amazes me every time, how a class full of teachers with varying degrees of mathematical proficiency are all still able to learn and takes something new and useful from the class. We are encouraged, and made to feel that we can contribute to the class no matter the level of expertise we bring. The “Chen Effect”, needs to be incorporated into all of our classes and classrooms, not just math class. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s class, and hopefully we can use important statistics and data from a Patriots’ win. Go Pats! PS – still waiting for the ELA version of Chen. Thanks, Mike

Today's discussions and work, although at times confusing and even daunting, are reflective of our student's experiences. The guidance of a "master teacher" like Andrew Chen was the difference between panic and perseverance. His expertise with the subject matter had a calming effect, at least on me. It is this thorough knowledge of one's content and the ability to both sense the anxiety in students as well as the creation of a climate that was conducive to taking risks, including making mistakes, that resonated the most with me. Obviously we need to "clone" Andrew and hire these clones as our newest Math teachers. Short of that, we need to encourage a few things. First, that the math teaching in our schools is real world connected. Second, that students are allowed to make mistakes, and learn from one another. Third, that we view Math as a way of thinking, a thought process that will lead to higher academic achievement. Lastly, that we encourage all of our teachers across the content areas to support mathematics teaching at every grade level. Every lesson, in every content area presents an opportunity that must be seized. Jim White

Among the many things that spring to mind, the issue of focus on the process rather than the solution is what sticks out most to me. I definitely grew up in schools where the focus was the answer – I think this deprived me of furthering my thought processes in math. I was always ahead of the curve in elementary and middle school, always taking math with students two years ahead of me. My math teachers loved me because I could always produce an answer accurately and quickly. I did this through number sense, not process. I faked my way through years of math because working with numbers came naturally to me. After doing well in my first two years of high school math, I ran flush into a wall of calculus where I couldn’t fake my way through anymore. In retrospect, I think I had the skills to be good at the process because I was creative with it, but receiving no support with that type of thinking stunted my growth. This thought process led me back to the discussion we had early in the day about the “I’m just not a math person” phenomenon, particularly discussions that focus on how ‘creative’ people are English/Arts people and ‘structured’ people are math people. Math provides great opportunities for creativity, yet we haven’t used those opportunities in classrooms as often as we should. -Ted

I think it really make me think about the process rather than the end result and in my case how can you arti culate your answer in a coherent manner. Being taught by Andrew Chen was an amazing experience because I was able to get through my own personal road blocks instead of giving up. How many times do we as teachers get frustrated because our kids "don't get it" on the first pass, regardless of content? I think it may be important that we (at the high school level) no longer think of ourselves as specialists - like a math or social studies teacher - but instead as generalists because we can all contribute to cross disciplinary performance tasks and lessons that have real world connections. Amy