Become a Math Instigator

Last weekend, our team attended the California Mathematics Council-South (CMC-S) conference in Palm Springs.  I was excited to run into so many RUSD math teachers at the conference, and I hope you had as positive an experience as I did.

I want to share some thoughts from a session I attended called "My Journey from Worksheets to Rich Tasks", which has had me thinking ever since.  The presenter, Michael Fenton, gave an open and honest account of his own evolution as a high school math teacher.  He asked us to define the job description of a math teacher, and he shared how his view of this role had changed over the course of his career.

A Google search of "math teacher job description" returns the following from study.com:

"Math teachers work in classrooms in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.  They impart required mathematics curricula to their students, which might include helping them prepare for standardized tests and college entrance exams."

  

Not the most inspiring of descriptions, is it?  I think we can all agree that our job is bigger than that.  But if that's not it, then what exactly is the role of a math teacher?

In the first part of his career, Michael Fenton saw his role as "explanation-giver" and "answer-provider".  But no matter how hard he worked, he could see that all of the thorough, clear explanations he was giving and the neatly presented answers he was providing were just not enough to reach many of his students.  He was exhausting himself, and not getting the return he wanted on his effort.

Michael reached out to Twitter to try to get some help with this situation. In doing so, he discovered a community of math teachers who, like him, were looking for another way to work.  A little at a time, and with support from the Twitter math community, Michael began to redefine his role by presenting tasks that his students could think about, make sense of, argue over, and ultimately learn from, building their own mathematical understanding instead of depending on his.  He could clearly see the positive change in his students.  He now sees himself as "question-poser", "thought-provoker", "discussion-starter" and "math-instigator".  I'm not quite sure exactly what a "math-instigator" is, but I do know that this is the kind of job description I can get behind.

One of the toughest parts of moving from "explanation-giver" to "question-poser" is finding the right questions to ask.  Luckily, there is a large community of math educators working on this same journey, and many of them share their work for free.  On his website, reasonandwonder.com, Michael Fenton lists some of his favorite places to find rich tasks for students to tackle.  This list can be found under "My Journey" on the CMC-S page of his site (link here).  If any of you would like help getting started in using these resources, your RUSD Math Staff Developers would love to take that journey with you.

If All Else Fails, Read the Instructions

When I was growing up, I thought that this was my father’s original saying.  But it turns out that it is attributed to the poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s really such a simple idea. But how many times have we tried something, and then, as a last resort, gone back to the instructions? I think we can all relate.  

As we’re embarking on this Common Core journey, particularly in the courses using the MVP curriculum, we may feel pressed for time and overlook the “instructions” that are in the Teacher Notes.  

What we’ve learned about the Teacher Notes is that they contain a lot of helpful information that isn’t evident when looking at just the task itself. There have been a number of times when teachers have shared that they were initially unclear about the purpose of a task or how to lead it and then they went to the Teacher Notes and discovered a wealth of ideas and strategies.

There are several features in the MVP Teacher Notes that our RUSD colleagues have reported as being very helpful. Here’s a partial list:

• They give the purpose and standards for the task.
• They help write a learning goal for my students.
• They help me plan to orchestrate the task.
• They talk about possible ways that my students will approach the task.
• They give the talking points for student discussions.
• They sometimes have the answers to the problems in the task.

So - the moral of the story is - read the Teacher Notes.  Read them carefully and read them more than once. You’ll be glad you did!