or processes that support them, and deciding on common pacing for the unit. These elements need to occur before the unit begins in order to take full advantage of instructional time during the unit. In the case of the content standard cluster Understand properties of multiplication and the relationship between multiplication and division in the domain 3.OA, without teacher team focus on unpacking the learning standard, students might not be urged to move past drawing pictures of groups of objects to multiply. Instruction might be limited to moving directly from drawing pictures of groups to memorizing basic multiplication facts. Both of these options do not meet the learning standard “Apply properties of operations as strategies to multiply.”
Your collaborative team may need to use outside resources to make sense of the mathematics involved in the unit. The background information in your school textbook teacher’s edition and digital resources can be a good source for this foundational knowledge, as can resources from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (www.nctm.org), such as the Essential Understanding series.
In general, your team can use figure 1.4 (page 14) as a planning discussion tool to help you better understand the essential learning standards in each of your grade-level units.
Thus, unpacking your own understanding of the essential learning standards, narrowing the more specific daily learning objectives, and identifying appropriate Mathematical Practices and processes to support those standards are crucial steps to providing a clear path to impact student learning. This will ensure your students will benefit from opportunities for deeper understanding during the unit.
Consider the sample unit plan for grade 3 in figure 1.5 (pages 15–17) to help students develop strategies based on properties of operations to multiply (supportive of domain 3.OA and essential learning standard 3.OA.5).
Figure 1.4: Discussion tool for making sense of the agreed-on essential learning standards for the unit.
Visit go.solution-tree.com/mathematicsatwork to download a reproducible version of this figure.
Figure 1.5: Sample unit plan progression of content for applying properties of operations as strategies to multiply for grade 3.
*While some Mathematical Practices are pervasive throughout the unit, such as Mathematical Practice 3, it is important to target specific practices for planning purposes.
Source for standards: NGA & CCSSO, 2010, pp. 6–8, 23.
Visit go.solution-tree.com/mathematicsatwork to download reproducible versions of this figure.
Notice how figure 1.5 also provides guidance for the common pacing expectations of the unit. While unpacking the essential learning standards, your team will need to reach agreement on the total number of days needed for the unit, the expected date for the end-of-unit assessment, and the timing of your review for student performance on the end-of-unit assessment (discussed further in chapter 3, page 121).
Your Team’s Progress
It is helpful to diagnose your team’s current reality and action prior to launching the unit. Ask each team member to individually assess your team on the first high-leverage team action using the status check tool in table 1.1. Discuss your perception of your team’s progress on making sense of the agreed-on essential learning standards and pacing. It matters less which stage your team is at and more that you and your team members are committed to working together to focus on understanding the learning standards and the best activities and strategies for increasing student understanding and achievement as your team seeks stage IV—sustaining.
Table 1.1: Before-the-Unit Status Check Tool for HLTA 1—Making Sense of the Agreed-On Essential Learning Standards (Content and Practices) and Pacing
Visit go.solution-tree.com/mathematicsatwork to download a reproducible version of this table.
Your responses to table 1.1 will help you determine what you and your team are doing well with respect to your focus on essential learning standards and where you might need to place more attention before the unit begins.
Once your team unpacks and understands the essential learning standards you are ready to identify and prepare for higher-level-cognitive-demand mathematical tasks related to those essential learning standards. It is necessary to include tasks at varying levels of demand during instruction. The idea is to match the tasks and their cognitive demand to the essential learning standard expectations for the unit. Selecting mathematical tasks together is the topic of the second high-leverage team action, HLTA 2.
HLTA 2: Identifying Higher-Level-Cognitive-Demand Mathematical Tasks
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Developing your team’s understanding of the essential learning standards for the unit helped you answer the first critical question of a PLC, What do we want all students to know and be able to do? The mathematical tasks you and your team choose to use every day during the unit help you answer this first critical question as well.
The mathematical tasks you choose each day and for every unit also partially answer the second critical question of a PLC, How will we know if they know it?
|
|
= Fully addressed with high-leverage team action |
|
|
= Partially addressed with high-leverage team action |
The What
