School-Wide Math Culture: Model & Nurture

MODEL AND NURTURE POSITIVE ATTITUDES, SELF-EFFICACY AND ENGAGEMENT.

As educators gain the mathematical knowledge for teaching, they become more capable – and confident – in helping students extend and formalize their understanding of mathematical concepts. This can contribute to students’ development of positive attitudes toward mathematics and an increase in their sense of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy, which is an individual’s belief in whether he or she can succeed at a particular activity, plays an integral role in student success. Bruce and Ross discovered that “increases in teacher efficacy led to increases in student efficacy and outcome expectancy and to student achievement” (2010, p. 10).  In turn, strong student self-efficacy can contribute to greater enthusiasm and engagement in mathematics (Ross, 2007, p. 52). (Maximizing Mathematical Learning in the Early Years).

Goal:  Reach ALL Learners.

How?

Create a Math Talk Community by developing students reasoning along with the capacity to articulate and communicate.

• Turn & Talk - "The Worker is the Learner" - get students to restate their thinking & get students to comment on that thinking with the teacher being the lead learner/facilitator.

• Revoice - "Mathematization" - when the students are 'grappling' with an idea/concept and need clarity and then the teacher with 'highlight' the idea/concept.  The 'struggle' will stretch the mind and thus provide a foundation for "mathematization" to build on.

• Slow down - Who heard what?  We are not looking for 'right' answers but 'right' thinking.  The Lead Learners (i.e. teacher) needs to ask more questions when questions are asked, repeat/repeat/repeat and thus hold students accountable for their talk.

• Problem-solving - teach students from a problem-based perspective focusing on the Big Ideas.  Utilizing 3 Part Math as a way to structure our 60 minute learning block is a great starting point.

By incorporating these concepts in our planning & assessment practices, our entire school will see a dramatic change in the mathematical output of each of our students.