I was recently chatting with a teacher who is frustrated that every year her students seem to make tremendous progress with the grade-level content they are learning, only to later score Standard Not Met on the CAASPP in Spring. Particularly vexing, she said, is that her students learn the lessons, successfully complete the exit tickets, and even […]
UPDATE 4/17/2025: Read this post. ORIGINAL follows… In September of 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1705 which would have fully phased in by Fall, 2025. AB 1705 would have created rules that mostly prevent colleges from offering remedial courses such as Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus. Essentially, AB 1705 would have made Calculus the lowest possible course for students with a STEM-related […]
Preamble: Many years ago I first read a report called The Opportunity Myth. Its findings were eye-opening and I vowed to apply the findings in the report to my work in Merced County. For the past six years I have done exactly that…with varying degrees of success. I am unwavering in my belief that the […]
Adapted from these two sources… Source: 5 Coaching Strategies That Help Coaches Connect with Resistant Teachers Source: Working with Reluctant Teachers: 5 Tips for Instructional Coaches As coaches, we’ve all encountered resistant teachers. Resistance to coaching can take many forms. You might encounter a teacher who is direct, making it clear they don’t want your help. […]
Here we are in January, 2025. As you have likely heard, in July, 2023 the California Board of Education unanimously approved the new revision of the California Mathematics Framework (this in itself should be a series of blog posts, but I’ll save that for another day), which means school districts throughout Merced County will soon […]
When it comes to transforming mathematics instruction, one approach stands out for its effectiveness: curriculum-based professional learning (CBPL). This method, especially when combined with the expertise of a mathematics instructional coach, has the potential to elevate teaching practices and improve student outcomes. It is a great time to be thinking about CBPL since many districts […]
The other day a teacher invited me into her classroom to help her facilitate the first Focused Interim Assessment Block (FIAB) with her 3rd grade students. She asked me to teach her how to… find a relevant FIAB to use create a test session for her students to access the FIAB view the resulting scores […]
What CAASPP already? Well…yeah…sorta. If you haven’t already started using the FIABs and IABs freely available at the CAASPP website, then now is a great time to get started! At the end of each chapter that you teach, consider using an FIAB to wrap up the instruction prior to giving your test. Better yet, don’t […]
Let’s start with the TL;DR in hopes that you will actually read this blog post: Moving forward CALCULUS is the lowest math course that can be offered to students entering with a STEM-related academic goal. Do I have your attention? Read on… In the spirit of vertical alignment, I thought I would share some important […]
I was recently talking with several math teachers. We were in agreement that it seems students today are profoundly different from students in the past…or at least how we remember them being in the past. Compared to the “good old days”, the teachers felt students… are coming to their respective grade levels less prepared than […]