The title of this blog post is technically “Improving math instruction at scale”, but if I was allowed a subtitle, it would be “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” When I ask various important people what is their vision for mathematics in their community, I generally get some sort of vague answer that refers to better CAASPP scores, engaged students, and lately a reference to 21st century learning (although we are already 25% of the way through the 21st century). Essentially, they have a goal without a plan. They just have a wish.
You know who had a goal AND a plan? Alabama. That’s right.
In a recent NAEP Mathematics report, Alabama was the only state where fourth-graders’ average math scores surpassed 2019. How did they do it? They had a plan and carried it out.
Their plan is remarkably easy to understand and is one few would disagree with. The great news for Alabama, however, is they systematically carried out that plan on a statewide basis.
What was their plan? They essentially implemented the major recommendations of our own California Mathematics Framework.
The made the math more engaging by…
- Reducing the emphases on worksheets and rote memorization
- Increase the focus on teaching strategies that build, and make use of, number sense.
- Implemented concrete manipulatives as a regular teaching tool
- Prioritizing student-centered instruction with lots of academic discourse by the students
Despite being an easy-to-understand plan, it is rather difficult for a district, let alone a state, to maintain an unwavering focus on this plan for a sustained amount of time.
This is where the Merced County Office of Education Math Team comes in. We have a Comprehensive Improvement Plan (CIP) that we adapted from the work of Jackson & Cobb to guide our work in systematically improving mathematics instruction at scale. The CIP has five components that I’ll briefly share here:
- Ambitious Instruction
- Curriculum-based professional learning and embedded coaching
- Professional Learning Communities
- Leadership support
- Improvement Science
Ambitious Instruction
Our CIP begins with a clear vision of the ambitious instruction we are aiming for. Our definition of ambitious instruction comes from the five layers of the Math Hierarchy. Students must experience instruction that attends to all five of the essential NEEDS of ambitious instruction:
- Material Needs: Students need access to a teacher with a profound knowledge of mathematics and mathematical pedagogy.
- Mindset and Culture: Students must be immersed in a mindset and culture that believes all students can learn. Mistakes in this culture are normalized, even expected as a necessary part of learning.
- Student-centered instruction: Students must experience instruction that centers the student as an active learner, rather than someone who passively regurgitates whatever the teacher says. Academic discourse utilizing the math language routines should be commonplace.
- Equitable assessment: Students should experience assessment feedback that is far more useful than a score. Feedback should provide the student with a clear understanding of where he is in relation to the grade-level expectation. Sustained, non-punitive intervention should be available to all students. Assessment is not used to filter students into accelerated or remedial coursework.
- Math literacy: Students are treated as confident problem posers and problem solvers.
Ambitious instruction is made possible by the THREE PILLARS OF SUPPORT. Like the three legs of a stool, each pillar is essential. If any pillar is missing, then the ambitious instruction will not take hold.
Curriculum-based professional learning and coaching
All teachers must receive professional development and in-class coaching grounded in effective instructional strategies and the district-adopted materials. Who should do this PD and coaching? The person MUST be an expert in math content and mathematical pedagogy. (Pulling random teachers from the classroom and declaring them general instructional coaches does NOT improve math instruction.)
The professional development is short (generally no longer than 2 or 3 hours) and should adhere to the principles of andragogy – the method and practice of teaching adult learners. The professional development is relevant to the adults, honors their existing experience, and allows the teachers to actively craft the flow of the professional development.
The professional development must be followed by in-class demonstrations and coaching to ensure an implementation of the ambitious instruction envisioned by the school or district. It has long been recognized that mathematics-specific instructional coaching leads directly to improved math instruction in the classroom and to increased student achievement. General instructional coaches cannot provide the in-class demonstrations of math lessons that are essential for teacher growth.
Professional learning communities
Historically, PLCs focus on collecting student data (often in the form of tests and quizzes) and then analyzing the data. Instructional decisions ostensibly are made based on the student data. Our approach is to ALSO include protocols for teachers to improve their instruction by
- Developing a collective understanding of the instructional initiative being implemented;
- Determining data collection and analysis protocols to ensure teachers are implementing the instructional initiative with consistency and integrity;
- Employing equitable assessment techniques to determine whether the instructional changes result in increased academic performance of students.
Leadership support
An MCOE Math Coach might be on a school site up to 20 times per year, but this averages out to working with each teacher 3 to 5 times. How are teachers supported the other 160 school days that the math coach is not on campus? SITE LEADERS.
It is unrealistic to expect a site leader to be an expert in every academic area, so we see the value in a distributed leadership model in which the site/district math coaches and our team are responsible for supporting teacher growth, while the site leadership is responsible for ensuring the new instructional practices are being effectively implemented in the classroom as anticipated. In fact, there is evidence that this shared responsibility improves the effectiveness of the coaching provided to the teachers.
The MCOE Math Team supports site leaders:
- Understand the instructional improvements and what they might look like in the classroom
- Effectively and realistically support teachers to improve the quality of instruction
- Provide feedback to teachers that communicates expectations for ambitious instruction
- Clarify the roles of site coaches, teacher PLCs, and our team in supporting teachers’ development
- Analyze and align adopted curriculum and assessment tools to the frameworks and interim assessments (IABs and FIABs).
- Support both vertical and horizontal alignment in mathematics throughout the school and district
Improvement Science
Throughout the entire implementation of the Comprehensive Improvement Plan, the school, district, and MCOE Math Team evaluate the progress of the initiative implementation. When barriers to the implementation naturally arise, we use the guiding principles of Improvement Science to identify pinch-points and adjust accordingly.
The challenge of focus and patience and persistence
All five components of the comprehensive improvement plan must work together to improve math instruction in your community. Moreover, the district must maintain an unwavering focus on these things and not get distracted by the newest shiny educational object that happens by. It will also take patience and persistence on the part of district leaders. Adult learning is a slow process in an American education system that requires teachers to be in front of students up to 75% more minutes than teachers in Japan and Finland (two countries that outperform us by far). To see the sort of instructional change a district might dream of will take years of concentrated effort to see the change filter throughout ALL classrooms.
In conclusion
- We know how to improve student achievement. Alabama has provided us with a wonderful existence proof.
- We also know the changes necessary to improve student achievement: the five components of the Comprehensive Improvement Plan
- It will take focus, patience, and persistence.
Let’s get working on it.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the work we do in Merced County.
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