{"id":2660,"date":"2025-02-04T21:44:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T05:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/?p=2660"},"modified":"2025-02-04T21:44:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T05:44:24","slug":"the-last-mile-protocol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/the-last-mile-protocol\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Mile Protocol"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0Standard Not Met<\/span><\/em>\u00a0on the CAASPP in Spring. Particularly vexing, she said, is that her students learn the lessons, successfully complete the exit tickets, and even pass the chapter tests her grade-level team co-creates each year.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a frustration I hear frequently! How is it possible that we often students who do so well with the math they are learning in the textbook, pass the teacher-created chapter tests, and yet they do not do well on the CAASPP? Almost as s survival technique to live with such frustration, we demonize the CAASPP saying test scores don’t matter. Or maybe the students didn’t take the test seriously enough. Or perhaps the student was just having a bad day.<\/span><\/p>\n

While some of those reasons might be true, the real reason there seems to be such a gap between the success of “textbook math” and the lack of success with “CAASPP math” is due to the famous Last Mile problem<\/strong>. Once we learn what the last mile problem is we can then identify solutions to it and thereby see the CAASPP results we have always been hoping to see.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the last mile?<\/span><\/h2>\n

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In the contexts of telecommunications, transportation, and delivery, the last mile is the last leg of a journey. It is often the most complicated and challenging portion of the entire journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shipping widgets thousands of miles across the ocean from the factory to the warehouse is remarkably simple with huge ocean liners. Trucks and a highly-effective highway system move those widgets to smaller warehouses closer to the folks in suburbs and cities who purchase those widgets. It is the final phase of the delivery process in which a delivery person navigates his cargo van through congested surface streets, hunts for homes with addresses long ago obscured by a bushes or trees, comes across locked gates, or has to avoid unleashed dogs\u2026in order to finally deliver the widget.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last mile of delivery is far more complicated than the first several thousand miles!<\/span><\/p>\n

The Last Mile problem is so vexing that Amazon\u00a0sponsored a challenge<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to encourage participants to create novel solutions to reduce the cost of the last mile of delivery. The winner received $175,000!<\/span><\/p>\n

It turns out that education has its own Last Mile problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does the last mile look like in education?<\/span><\/h2>\n

There is a rigor gap that exists between the rigor of the textbook and the expected rigor of the CAASPP. As a result, students who seem to be “on track” during the year with the textbook suddenly score below proficient on the CAASPP.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Teaching a new concept for the first few weeks seems simple enough. The last mile problem becomes very evident when the teacher notices a significant gap between the math knowledge the student learned from the textbook and the math knowledge the student is expected to know on the CAASPP exam. We call this gap the “rigor gap”.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do we solve this last mile problem of closing the rigor gap?<\/span><\/p>\n

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How to solve the last mile problem<\/span><\/h2>\n

We have created a five-day protocol\u00a0using the FIABs<\/span>\u00a0that are freely available on the CAASPP website. Use this protocol once you have finished your textbook chapter and before moving on to the next chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Prior to using the Last Mile Protocol, you will first teach the math content in your math textbook. At the end of the chapter, prior to moving on to the next chapter, you will do the following 5-day protocol. It does not need to be Monday through Friday, but that is the most common approach we have seen teachers use.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Select FIAB\/IAB and create a testing session (select\u00a0non-standardized<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

administration). Students will work with a partner on the FIAB. Each student will have their own laptop and are expected to\u00a0work together<\/span>\u00a0on each problem. It is recommended that students use\u00a0scratch paper folded into BOX 6<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to show partner thinking!<\/span><\/p>\n

Use CERS to view your data. Identify the most-missed questions that you will use on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Video:\u00a0How to create a test session and then view the results<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Students work on most missed questions (MMQ). Have the students work in groups of three to increase interaction and thought process. (Building Thinking Classroom<\/span>\u00a0model or some other student-centered inquiry is recommended.)<\/p>\n

Video:\u00a0How to print the FIAB answer key<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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This is an optional step, you can extend \u00a0your most missed questions (MMQ) and \u00a0follow the same instructions from Tuesday \u00a0or you can proceed to instructions for Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Cleanse the palette. Use Thursday to teach \u00a0concepts that were most missed using materials\u00a0other<\/span>\u00a0than the FIAB.<\/span><\/p>\n

This could be a Desmos activity or a Kahoot or any other non-FIAB resource.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Create a testing session with the same FIAB\/IAB from Monday. This time you will have students complete the FIAB\u00a0individually<\/span>\u00a0(select\u00a0standardized<\/span>\u00a0administration).<\/span><\/p>\n

The FIAB scores from Monday and Friday will be available to you in CERS.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Benefits of the Last Mile Protocol<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first four days of the Last Mile Protocol is an exciting mixture of instruction AND assessment\u2026all at the same time. As students are working with their partner on Monday, the teacher observes the class, noting on a clipboard which students seem to understand the mathematics and which students need help. On Monday, the teacher is welcome to help students with any problems they are struggling with. Sure that means the student will get the answer correct, but the teacher will have ALREADY received the assessment data needed: the student did not know how to solve that problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another benefit (especially for younger students) is they get to experience the user interface of the online CAASPP exam. It is during the Last Mile Protocol that students learn<\/span><\/p>\n