The Teacher As Curator Part Two: Collect
The teacher as curator metaphor begins with collection. In this post, the second in The Teacher As Curator series, I explain how I collected materials and strategies for my unit on multiplication and division this past fall. The steps I took can be used for planning any unit. As I mentioned in my last post, I certainly am not the only experienced teacher in the world and many of you are already doing what I am sharing in this blog series. Some of you, I’m sure, are doing this collection process more efficiently than I am. My hope is that we all share what we are doing in the classroom in order to teach, remind, affirm, and inspire each other.
Before making any decisions about how I would teach my multiplication/division math unit using the workshop model for the first time, I gathered as many ideas and materials as I could. This included all the materials provided by my district (see last post). Beyond what my district provided, I collected a plethora of model units, professional books, etc. Some of the best ideas came from my many hours of listening to podcasts and participating in online workshops and summits. Thank you to Christine Tondevold for her amazing work with her website and podcast, Build Math Minds. The resources and training there made me rethink the role of the teacher in the math classroom.
So what information, materials and ideas did I gather? I feel that I should give you a little background before I continue. For the last two years, the third grade team used Engage NY to teach most of the multiplication and division standards and supplemented when appropriate with Math in Focus and other materials. There are pros and cons to Engage NY which I will not explore in this post. It includes long scripted direct teaching lessons that can not be used to fidelity for a workshop model, which my district adopted for math this year.
Please click here for a description of the components of the workshop model.
Now that you have some background on what my district and team had “collected” in the past, let me share my steps in collecting what I needed for this unit now that I was using the workshop model.
My first focus was collecting information about my students’ prerequisite skills that will prepare them for this unit. To do this, I referred to the Build Math Minds website and podcast and found amazing resources such as Dr. Nicki Newton’s Math Running Records. In collecting student data, the addition running records allowed me to assess what strategies my students were using and I was able to evaluate their number sense. It gave me a clear view into what my students would need for the multiplication/division unit. The running records are time consuming and I did a quicker version for my more advanced math students. If you have a lot of students and are crunched for time, I recommend doing Part 1 and then just a few of the questions in Part Two. This way you get an idea of their strategies and how they approach a problem. I did the entire running record with my students who were struggling during our addition/subtraction/place value review work from the beginning of the year. The big goal in doing these running records is to record the strategies your students are using. Collecting this information helped me plan my approach for the unit including small group work.
Click here to see more about Math Running Records.
I also learned about Cognitively Guided Instruction through Build Math Minds and I highly recommend checking into it. I can say for sure it has already transformed my teaching for the good.
If you want to look into it, I recommend starting with this link.
My second focus in collecting for this unit was looking at the MA Curriculum Framework Standards that the unit would address and my district’s report card standards. I will not list all of these in this post. I did find it helpful to have all of these standards in front of me to define where I needed to go in this unit.
The third focus was the essential questions for the unit, provided by my district. These were my treasure map for collecting resources that align with the relationships I want students to make with multiplication and division. They also were vital in the “present” part of curation which I will delve into in blog post four of this series. These essential questions are below:
How are multiplication and division related?
How can multiplication be used to solve real-world problems faster than addition?
What patterns can I find with multiplication facts that I can use to help me uncover the answers?
What are the properties of multiplication and how can they be applied?
How can my knowledge of the relationship between multiplication and division help me fluently multiply and divide
How does understanding place value help me understand multiplication
What is special about multiplying by 10?
What strategies can be used to solve multiplication and division word problems?
As mentioned earlier, another focus for my collecting process was researching professional books and online resources, as well as listening to lots of podcasts. I am not going to list all the resources I found. Here are a few highlights of what I collected, and eventually selected, that were aligned with my unit standards and with cognitively guided instruction.
Sieve of Eratosthene Click here for resource.
I struggle to find math ideas/resources on Teachers Pay Teachers that are aligned with cognitively guided instruction and best practice. The above image on the left was a resource that cost $5.00 and was an amazing tool for students to explore patterns together. I took the picture above while observing my students completing the sieve. An extension to this that my third graders loved was the read aloud The Librarian Who Measured the Earth, which is about Eratosthenes’ life. It is available on Amazon.
2. Build Math Mind Website, Podcast and Online Summit Click here for resource.
Build Math Minds is Christina Tondevold’s creation. Her teaching story is one in which I relate. This site is where I collected great information and activities about number sense and fluency for my math unit. It is also where I learned about cognitively guided instruction for the first time. The site has a free resources page and the professional development videos are so informative. Some of the videos are available on YouTube. I can’t recommend these resources enough. If you are undecided about paying to become a member, I am so glad that I did join and I love the access to everything that membership provides. The podcast is a small time commitment each Sunday to hear a book recommendation or tidbit from Christina Tondevold. Through the Build Math Minds Summit and Facebook group, I learned about Three Act Tasks (including Graham Flethcher’s resources), Steve Wyborney’s 20 Days of Number Sense and Rich Math Talk (including Splat, Estimysteries, and Cube Conversations), and Andrew Stadel’s Estimation 180 resources and podcast.
3. Marian Small’s book Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Math
My district bought us this book and it is an amazing tool. I “collected” or you could say “selected” the open questions that fit what we were learning and typed them up for students to pick one and get to work. In later posts and podcasts, I hope to share more about this book, as well as how to help students with math dialogue.
I would love to hear what works for you when collecting and selecting materials and strategies, as well as hear the decisions you make for presenting lessons and units.