Professional learning communities in Math

1. Michele McKinney, Jessica McCurdy Monarch School. Santa Cruz City Schools Professional learning communities in Math

2. 8 step process: PLC – 1 POM per trimester Staff chooses based on strand focus and student need Staff does the POM together in Staff Dev Mtg Review Teacher Notes together after struggling with the problem Plan how to differentiate for different grade levels Staff implements POM in classroom (ind., sm. gr. or whole class) Cross Classroom Gallery Walk Staff reviews student work and critiques the process Professional Learning Community and School Wide Problem of the Month

3. POM provides opportunity to apply CCSS Mathematical Practices 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others Critical thinking, group work, have several days to work on the problems Progressive cognitive load is modeled in the CCSS assessments example Links to Common Core – George Polya“A problem is not a problem if it can be solved in a single day.”

4. Smarter Balanced Test Question

5. Students struggle with complex, rich problems. Increased perseverance. POM problems are differentiated. Opportunities to explain their thinking, share strategies, and critique each other’s thinking. Poster/gallery walk provides opportunities for anonymous feedback, different solving strategies, and multi-format expression of solutions. Impact for Students

9. Try, try again. Allow for individual and small group time to work on problem. Scaffolded process – teach a new step each time you do a POM. Student choice – poster levels and partners. Lessons Learned

10. svmimac.org – MARS and POM Illuminations.nctm.org Insidemathematics.org for videos of POMs Mathsolutions.org Kise, J. A. G. (2010). Creating a coaching culture. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press Jessica Branch – jbranch@sccs.net Michelle McKinney – mmckinney@sccs.net Resources and tools