We are in the thick of a math adoption K-12 in our district. In the primary grades, we've been piloting this curriculum for the last two years, more or less, so much of the content is familiar for us. But one thing our district has been doing a good job of is not teaching teachers how to deliver the curriculum, but rather teaching teachers how to think like mathematicians. This is especially challenging in our K-2 building where teachers are required to be experts in all content areas, not just math.
One learning really stuck with me from Dr. Kris Childs (prof. at Texas Tech, with MathDNA and a consultant for Solution Tree). He was working with our district admin team before school this summer and challenged our thinking around the gradual release of instruction, commonly stated as "I do, we do, you do."
He showed us that by flipping this model, and throwing students right into the independent phase, we can allow them to productively struggle (which makes Charlotte Danielson happy) then they can engage their neighbors by sharing and comparing the different strategies they tried (making me and Doug Fisher happy, because we LOVE student discourse, especially in math.)
We brought back Dr. Childs, Dr. Farshid Safi (one of the authors of Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching High School) and crew for a district-wide PD day with teachers in Oct. Dr. Safi echoed with staff what Dr. Childs told our admin team and I saw several of my teachers begin to change their math instruction. It's a simple transformation that is really paying large dividends in how much students are sharing and growing their math talk.
Like Doug Fisher says, the primary purpose for collaborative learning is to build academic language with students. Like I always say, he who talks the most learns the most.
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