ISD Grade 3 Recap + Reflect
Dabbling and fumbling in personalized learning...
Things we dabbled in...
- Collaborated to generate ideas, questions and needs for Personalized Learning, documented our thoughts in an still-in-progress Google Slide and Doc
Engaged in BIG IDEA discussions, including teacher teams to turn-key ideas to staff on digital tools and technology, and use this as means to increases understanding, use, community
Became increasingly more aware of giving choice to students and being intentional about it, observing that choice helps students who are comfortable with math, pacing helps those who are gaining comfort-level
Used Khan Academy to support, help practice, and extend mathematical thinking, and the analytics to gather student data and form instruction
Attended PD, and tried out Accelerated Math to personalize math skills
Created Math Projects to extend learning while giving with choice in presentation and student pacing in completion
Intentionally used Math IXL to provide additional support on skills on route to mastery
- Embedded Greg Tang's mathematical problem solving strategies, including Greg Tang Math online and offline games
Blended Math Exemplars in making mathematical thinking visible: gave students a choice of tools for recording thinking, creating online media gallery on Schoology to share thinking with everyone, and used discussion threads to reflect on each other’s posting. Noticed various routines help all learners see multiple ways to solve problems, improve ways to sharing thinking and knowledge
- Used Math In The City, led by Catherine Twomey Fosnot, resources, such as number strings and math situations, that focus on context, representation and discourse as critical learning components of math instruction
Provided students with purposeful, meaning and actionable feedback in regards to their mathematical thinking and mastery of concepts
Gave students agency throughout their continuum of learning
Increased our own and our students' awareness of growth mindset vs fixed mindset and used intentional language to foster lifelong learning
Gave students more opportunities to make, create, tinker, prototype,...
Engaged in mindfulness routines to help students increase self-awareness in the way they communicate with, including giving feedback to, each other as learners
Engaging learning moments we created...
3Ps: Play, Passion, Purpose.
Embracing the three foundational principles that play a critical role in developing next generation innovative learners for the world we live in, we invite experts in their field to share how what they played early on in their childhood turned into a purpose in their everyday lives.
Sport of Thinking
Using critical thinking skills to engineer solutions for real-life issues, students face challenges to develop their own prototype to generate answers to problems they identify.
iTime
Cultivating highly-engaging, student-centered, and authentic personalized inquiries (personal choice, voice, creative and investigative opportunities) with clear criteria and guidelines, measures of accountability, opportunities for self-assessment and reflection in a growth-minded classroom.
Reflections on our explorations...
Letting kids pace themselves, using voice….
Kids who have a positive relationship with math excel in an environment where they have choice
- Kids who are developing a relationship with mathematics, and/or have a negative attitude towards math, excel in an environment when flexibility in pacing is the norm
The usage of flexibility in seating provided kids a warm, barrier free environment that maximized their learning potential.
Letting go of teacher control was liberating and freed up students to take charge of their own learning in an accountable way
We need to start at the beginning of the year to build a classroom culture of agency, productivity, self-management and accountability
We want to create an environment where we can let kids be creative
If we could start at day one with management, building classroom framework about how this class will run, if we could start the year like that and develop the space that’s conducive to learning
Uncertainty is uncomfortable and it’s hard to find the balance where you are OK with it
Being OK with that your ideas are going to be challenged and not knowing the answers
Needing to teach and share examples of “grit”
Failure is not an “option” it’s part of the learning process
Failure is comes in many forms - we need to be flexible to overcome
Fumbles along the way...
Having assumptions that kids are more savvy in technology than they actually are in academic environment
Assuming that kids internalized the role of a student and how it looked like in a learning environment and how to interact in a learner community
Buried underneath piles of paperwork to personalize learning when technology is not utilized to its best outcome
Developing the confidence that this is not only doable but successful
Our action plan- past + present...
We have read and reflected on strategies from:
Strategies for Common Core Mathematics by Leslie A. Texas and Tammy L. Jones
Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karen Morrison
Immersed in ECRISS power-user training
Completed Harvard online math course Improving Math Instruction Through Feedback, honed our craft in giving feedback to each other, using the MQI protocol
Attended Teachers College Reading & Writing Workshop PD on Growth Mindset
Familiarized ourselves with The Core Four of Personalized Learning
Used self-design PD opportunities to reflect on our work
Attended Mary Truxsaw's PD: Making Math Instruction More Relevant
Worked with instructional coaches to plan units of study
We have implemented and will continue to do so:
- Using and exploring a variety of small group modeling
Leveraging the use of math manipulative to move students from concrete to pictorial to abstract in thinking about mathematics
Presenting at ISTE2017 STEM Playground as a grade-level team, making meaningful connections with educators, and also, discovering new math teaching and learning opportunities
Attending Summer Curriculum Institute
Participating in Math Pilot PD opportunities, especially with Karin Hess
Exploring ECRISS to tap in the potential of student learner profiles
Visiting schools that implement personalized learning
Planning the initial weeks of 2017-18 school year, creating a personalized learning environment boot-camp
Exploring accountability tools for our community of learners
On our Bookshelves...
Sampling of some of the books we're reading...
Amplify: Digital Teaching and Learning in the K-6 Classroom
Muhtaris, Katie and Ziemke, Kristin
Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools
Horn, Michael B.
Conferring with Young Mathematicians At Work
Fosnot, Catherine
Krakower, Billy
Disrupting Class, Expanded Edition: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
Christensen, Clayton
Lahey, Jessica
The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve
Brock, Annie
How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
Ellenberg, Jordan
Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student
Spenser, John and Juliani, A.J.
Learning Personalized, the Evolution of the Contemporary Classroom
Zmuda, Allison, Curtis, Greg, and Ullman, Diane
Boaler, Jo
The Space: A Guide for Educators
Hare, Rebecca Louise and Dillon, Robert
Students at the Center: Personalized Learning with Habits of Mind
Kallick, Bena and Zmuda, Allison
Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning
Rickabaugh, James
O'Donnell Wicklund Pigozzi and Peterson
Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning
Hattie, John
About us...
Email: ISDStaff@greenwich.k12.ct.us
Website: https://www.greenwichschools.org/international-school-at-dundee
Location: 55 Florence Road, CT, United States
Phone: (203) 637-3800