A Lot Like a Sneeze
Contributed by Mardi Knudson
Sauk Rapids-Rice Public Schools
MCTM Region Six Director
It’s cold and flu season and I can’t help but see the correlation between a sneeze and teaching math. Your nose is perfectly fine when you are healthy and you go about the business of breathing. However, you introduce one tiny piece of dust or pollen and immediately your nose sends a signal to the brain that sends out numerous signals to your body to facilitate a sneeze and rid your body of the culprit.
It is approaching spring and we have enough data to know where our students’ strengths and weaknesses are in math. As you back-map to the end of the year, how are you delivering standards to ensure your students get the healthy dose of math they need?
Two recent occurrences gave me pause as I continue to try and promote the eight principles for teaching math that help ensure mathematical success for all. (Principles to Actions, NCTM, 2014)
The first occurrence was when, as an instructional math coach, I was asked to present at a Title One conference on math. Teachers of grades 3-5 specifically wanted me to address how to teach multiplication and division so that kids would finally “get it!” The second occurrence was a recent conversation with our oldest son who is a math major in college and now a cost analyst for a pharmaceutical company. He was wondering if I was encouraging teachers to go back to presenting information lecture style and then having students practice a bunch of problems.
Both events were similar in that somebody needed to sneeze! Get the unhealthy math thoughts out and move on to the healthy common sense approach to teaching math conceptually as well as procedurally.
If you have not taken time to reflect on how your instructional practices are helping or hindering your students’ math success this year, you are long overdue. As I observe in classrooms, I realize it is not about THEM not getting what we are delivering. It is US not getting THEM.
Some participants at the Title One conference were disappointed when I said there was no magic pill for helping students have fluency with math facts. I pointed out that lack of fluency should never inhibit a student from moving forward with other concepts that require fact fluency, such as division. (I have talked to middle school math staff who would love to have all their students fluent with facts.) The reality is it won’t happen overnight, so give students a multiplication table or calculator. AT THE SAME TIME teachers need to be helping students understand what multiplication is all about conceptually with manipulatives and arrays. Not a quick fix.
With my son’s comment, I talked him through how he uses math in his job. Do all the situations he comes across look the same and can he apply the same formula – assuming there was one that worked? Or, does he need to apply what he knows about math conceptually and apply it to different scenarios?
When I was in the classroom and let go of the lecture/practice method of instructing math and instead had high levels of discourse, manipulatives and positive affirmations for my struggling math students, they made huge gains. All it took was a sneeze! I had to rid myself of instructional strategies that just weren’t effective and were probably making my less-than-confident math students ill. I had to make healthier instructional choices so my students could have a more positive, and in fact healthier, view of math.
When you are analyzing your data to figure out where you need to focus your energy for the rest of the year, look at the classroom norms that you have set. Can your students articulate that their classroom is a place where they look for multiple ways to solve problems, where they are expected to justify their work, where the environment is safe to critique answers and look at misconceptions, and when they are in your math care – they know they are a mathematician?
Spring is coming and the cold season will be behind us. Changing your instructional practice is nothing to sneeze at, but for the sake of healthy math students – we owe it to them!
If you find yourself with a sick day, here are some sites to peruse:
Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All (NCTM, 2014)
Ted Talk: The Power of Belief – Mindset and Success Eduardo Briceno
Frameworks for Minnesota Science and Mathematics Standards –“ go to” site for standards and misconceptions
Stay mathematically healthy!