Educators Working Together to Identify and

Support Students’ Mathematical Strengths

Dorothy Y. White,

University of Georgia

Overview of Presentation

●  Background of our PLC - Mathematics Pedagogical Problems Solvers

●  Why Students’ Mathematical Strengths

●  Creating the Taxonomy

●  Teacher Stories: Using Students’ Strengths in the Classroom

●  The Power of Collaboration

●  Next Steps

Our Guiding Principles

Teaching is a complex endeavor that requires teachers to tackle many problems of practice.

Problems such as motivating students, differentiating instruction for diverse learners, and navigating new curriculum materials and district mandates, are more likely to be resolved when teachers collaborate with colleagues in a professional learning community.

Our Guiding Principles

Little and Horn (2007) suggest, “talk within teacher communities is likely to be generative or professional learning and instructional improvement to the extent that it invites disclosure of and reflection on problems of practice.” (p. 81)

The Mathematical Pedagogical Problem Solvers is a professional learning community (PLC) designed to provide mathematics teachers and teacher educators with opportunities to:

•  discuss the problems teachers encounter when they teach mathematics

•  examine how these problems signal both the nature of the tasks and students’ understanding, and

•  explore and generate instructional strategies to resolve these problems and to prepare the next generation of teachers.

History of MPPS ●  Established in 2010

●  Members meet monthly

●  Purpose:

○  Address our pedagogical problems of practice

○  Improve instruction of diverse learners

○  Learn to motivate all students

○  Navigate through new curricular resources and district mandates

○  “Normalize problems of practice”

Why strengths?

●  Allow us to look at our students from a positive lens

●  Increase student self efficacy

●  Promote our continued growth and reflection

●  Development of the taxonomy of students’ mathematical strengths ○  brainstormed strengths we wanted to see

○  observed our students

○  found additional strengths and modified our list

Taxonomy of Students’ Mathematical Strengths

●  Challenges of constructing taxonomy ○  Defining strength(s)

○  List was too long

○  Being able to look past behavior to see strengths

○  Getting to know the student as a person not just an individual in the classroom

○  Making time to document strengths

○  Changing focus of lesson planned

Mathematical Knowledge Knows basic facts

Mental mathematics

Motivation Excited about what they solved

Perseverance

Desires to learn and understand – wants to know why

Identity as a Doer-of-Mathematics

Self-awareness of what s/he knows and can draw upon in given situations

Confident in what they know Thinks deeply Generates examples and counter-examples

Communication Explains ideas to other students well Takes risks – willingness to contribute Shows work

Problem Solving Creates a diagram of problem or thinks simpler problem

Remembers context of problem

Pays attention to details Has reasoning skills

Ability to think of alternate methods

Taxonomy of Students’ Mathematical Strengths

Think about the students in your classroom.

What mathematical strengths do they display? How do you know?

Share your thoughts with the person next to you

Think about your behaviorally challenged student(s)

What mathematical strengths do they display? How do you know?

What was the same or different about thinking about the various students in your classroom?

How we use the Taxonomy

●  Infuse students’ strengths during lesson planning

●  Use students’ strengths to reword tasks

●  Recognize students’ strengths that are often overlooked

●  Acknowledge students’ strengths to encourage participation

Teacher’s Stories

Teacher Collaboration How has the collaboration helped improve mathematics teaching practices?

•  Sharing how to incorporate instructional materials across classrooms

•  Knowing your concerns are normal and that the group will discuss solutions

•  Learning what it means to teach in today’s classrooms

•  Being accountable to the group for improving instruction

“Opening up more ways to do math creates more opportunities for more children to see themselves, and for others to see them, as smart in math.”

Featherstone, Crespo, Jilk, Oslund, Parks, & Wood (2011, p. 16)

Our N

ext Steps

Use students’ strengths to enhance group work.

Examine the various ways students in groups interact with each other and how we can incorporate their strengths.

Questions??

Thank you!

Dorothy Y. White, dywhite@uga.edu Fred Rushing, rushingf@clarke.k12.ga.us Nick Hussain, hussainn@clarke.k12.ga.us Kristina Patel, patelk@clarke.k12.ga.us Jason Pratt, prattj@clarke.k12.ga.us Nick Gomez, cgome00@uga.edu