Group L4 Action Plans
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Team Name |
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Arkansas Department of Education |
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Team Leader |
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Charlotte Marvel - Charlotte.Marvel@arkansas.gov Dorie Summons |
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Area & Recs |
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Learning Processes 10, 11, 12 |
Goals for Arkansas on how to incorporate National Math Panel Goals into Revision of Math Frameworks
Goals for the Spring meeting:
Process for Framework Revision Process for Summer 2010
· NCTM documents
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Team Name |
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Reasoning Mind - B |
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Team Leader |
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Alex Khachatryan - ark@reasoningmind.org |
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Area & Recs |
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Learning Processes 10, 11, 13 |
The Reasoning Mind team is developing and implementing effective learning processes through its online education system used as a core math curriculum in elementary and middle grades. Students spend most of their time receiving individualized instruction, but also collaborate and help each other. Over the last three years, the program has doubled student enrollment annually and is currently used by 2,300 students, grades 4-6, in 30 schools in the Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans areas. In the next two years, our main efforts will be dedicated to developing and piloting a curriculum for grades 2-4. Extensive experience accumulated by RM in previous years indicates that students come to 4th and 5th grade with a weak foundation in whole number arithmetic, measurements, and problem-solving skills. These three strands are at the center of the RM curriculum for 2nd through 4th grade, scheduled for release in spring of 2009.
Automatic recall of facts will be practiced through “speed games,” specifically designed for this purpose.
We have three other areas where we would like to increase the instructional effectiveness of the RM system: a) implementing interactive solutions to problems; b) implementing immediate diagnoses of student errors, followed by immediate feedback to students explaining their mistake; and c) providing consistent review of previously learned topics. All of this functionality is currently in development, and we plan to start using it with students in the 2009-2010 school year. Concurrently, we will conduct extensive research on their effectiveness through the analysis of student records in the system as well as student performance on standardized tests and other assessments.
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Team Name |
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Texas A&M University |
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Team Leader |
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G. Donald Allen - dallen@math.tamu.edu |
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Area & Recs |
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Learning Processes 10, 12 |
Repair and Remediation of Fractions for Teachers
Beginning with Developmental Foundations of Students
Preamble. It is well understood that teaching fractions is about the greatest challenges math teachers face. Part of the problem is the teachers’ own understanding of fractions and part is due to the varied backgrounds of the students of their foundational understanding of fractions. These actions are designed to help teachers understand why some of their students have difficulty. It is also designed to help the teachers understand fractions better and improve their pedagogical content knowledge.
Action 1: Professional Development for Algebra I and Algebra II teachers ready for delivery Summer 2009.*
Part I. Show the background of where the students’ fraction learning comes from. (e.g. counting, set grouping, ratios, etc.). [ ½ day PD]
Part II. Guided discovery of how this information impacts the understanding of these teachers vis-a-vis teaching fractions in Algebra. [ ½ day PD—after attending Part I.]
Part III. Helping the high school teacher develop methods and activities with this information in mind. (Are new lesson plans needed? Do methods need to be modified? How can we integrate this into our state standards-mandated curriculum.)[1-3 days PD]
Action 2: Developing vertically aligned activities for K-8 teachers for conceptual understanding and fluency in working with arithmetic fractions and using prior knowledge and connects to becoming fluent with algebraic fractions. Professional development goal is to be ready for delivery Spring 2010.* [1-3 days PD divided K-4 and 4-8, including some information from Action 1, Part I]
*Possible delivery formats are face-to-face and online synchronously with several sessions available for teachers. All online sessions will be video captured for archival purposes.
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Team Name |
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Texas Education Agency |
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Team Leader |
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Norma Torres-Martinez - norma.torres-martinez@tea.state.tx.us
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Area & Recs |
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Learning Processes 12, 10 |
Initial discussion phase – proposed plan:
I. Explore the possibilities of re-aligning the math Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) to Curriculum Focal Points
II. Identify where rational numbers are taught to proficiency
III. Create critical paths (trajectories) for key understandings
IV. Establish indicators I – III as a basis for professional development
V. Identify common means/personnel to communicate the specifics
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Team Name |
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Cincinnati (OH) Public Schools Math Curriculum Council |
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Team Leader |
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Tong Yu - tongyu67@yahoo.com
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Area & Recs |
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Learning Processes 12, 10, 13 |
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Mathematics Educators at Cincinnati Public Schools are involved in math education reform. As practitioners, we are focusing on Mathematics content and learning process. We are going to share and implement content related recommendations from the National Math Panel. Our Action Plan can be done through three different district wide initiatives:
1. Learning Teams: All teachers at Cincinnati Public schools are involved in Learning Team. (A Pearson Seven Steps Model for professionals to discuss students' academic needs in content areas and develop strategic content rich lessons to meet student's needs.) Specific Recommendations can be shared with learning teams of all schools, and teachers can develop lessons based on the recommendation from National Math Panel.
2. Math Curriculum Council: Math Curriculum Council of Cincinnati Public Schools includes one representative from each of our 56 schools in the district of K-12. The representatives meet monthly to have professional dialogue about mathematics content, best practices, and any other math related issues. The representatives will bring the information back to each school. Lessons based on the recommendations can be developed and shared at the council meeting, and representatives can share at the building level.
3. Vermont Math Institute: CPS provide on going professional training for teachers. Vermont Math Institute provides math content training for math teachers. The recommendations can be shared with VMI and implemented through content training.
As it is suggested from the National Math Panel Report, “prepare students for Algebra, the curriculum must simultaneously develop conceptual understanding, computational fluency, and problem solving skills.” Specifically we are going to make the following suggestions to our curriculum council. A) K-2: focus on addition and subtraction; B) 3-4: focus on multiplication and division; C) 5-6: focus on fraction, decimal and percent. These concepts need to be taught for mastery with closure so students can build on these learned skills to learn new concepts and free memory for problem solving.
The curriculum council representatives and learning team leaders will collaborate at building level to define students’ learning objectives and needs in terms of the recommendations. Teachers will use district developed model lessons and VMI content training to teach students for mastery in these core concepts.
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