It’s a dark secret in America that most adults - even teachers - don’t remember much of the math they learned beyond what they did in elementary school. Even if they got good grades, they never really understood it enough to explain it. They could repeat or solve with it, but not unpack it to uncover the why. 

This is true of most elementary teachers, who will often admit their struggles with math. It is harder, but often still true, for secondary teachers to admit this. They can teach procedures, but they’re not facil and nimble with all the ways in which those procedures connect across the math disciplines (geometry, trigonometry, algebra, calculus, are all connected). 

Perhaps the greatest thing we can do to raise student achievement in mathematics is to re-engage teachers with mathematical content. If they can have opportunities to make new discoveries, prove more ideas, and get energized with new connections, they will pass their excitement and knowledge on to their students. 

Imagine a music teacher teaching the same songs again and again who feels her content has become route and procedural. Now imagine that same teacher joins a new jazz group on the weekends which pushes her to maintain her own musical learning and growth.  It’s easy to see how she would be recharged by that experience to share her learning with her students. 

We need to recharge teachers as to why math is exciting and help get them excited again about mathematics. We need to give a space for folks (consider it a version of an AA meeting) to admit the struggle (that for some has been almost a lifetime's worth) and be liberated from the fear of failure. They are not alone, nor are they wrong to need time as a learner to unpack new beauty in mathematics.

High Quality Mathematics instruction includes multiple components (see Recommendation 5 for more in-depth explanations on this topic.)

Teachers must understand the content of their grade level and the progression of their standards before and after their grade level in each of these three areas: 

1. Conceptual Topics 

2. Foundational Math Facts 

3. Problem Solving Skills 

Not only must teachers understand these areas, they must then guide students to deeply understand these math concepts:

“Teachers generally agree that teaching for understanding is a good thing. But this statement begs the question: What is understanding? Understanding is being able to think and act flexibly with a topic or concept. It goes beyond knowledge; it is more than a collection of information, facts or data. It is more than being able to follow steps in a procedure. One hallmark of mathematical understand is a student’s ability to justify why a given mathematical claim or answer is true or why a mathematical rule makes sense (Council of Chief State School Officers [CSSO], 2010.”

Teaching for understanding is no easy feat as it requires methods of instruction and experience in proving math concepts that most teachers have not themselves experienced as learners. This work with teachers - supporting them to develop deep conceptual, foundational, and problem solving skills as adults for their content areas - is crucial to making progress with any mathematics reform and student attainment.

See here for more resources to support teachers in unpacking content standards and their progression

1. REGULARLY DO MATH TOGETHER.  Build Joy in mathematics and allow for teachers to have ah-ha moments about complex topics as they experience and reflect on learner-centered instructional practices. 

   • Example Tasks

     • Youcubed Tasks

     • Maren's Garden Task

     • The Tax Collector

   • When doing math together, facilitator should: 

     • Model preplanning for ALL methods of solving using an anticipatory framework.

     • Model facilitating a inclusive yet focused discourse that allows for all strategies to be honored while still focusing on a clear synthesis goal that supports deepening content knowledge. (See Recommendation #7 for more on how to do this work. 

2. Ensure teachers are on the same page about the need for this work (See Recommendation 2 and Recommendation 5 for more on building this belief with teachers). 

   • Discuss openly previous experiences, and teachers’ “math stories” (again, see Jeff Heyck‐Williams’ work at Two Rivers charter school) to build trust in staff’s openness to need development in content. 

   • Find ways to assess teachers content knowledge 

     • Co-plan units of study

     • Do challenging and meaningful math tasks together

3. Intentionally build in professional development time to development teachers’ math content knowledge yearly. This can take on any of the following possible forms:

   • Whole Staff or Yearly Big PD

     • Standards session to start every year where teachers do work unpacking the standard language and matching it with appropriate tasks, targets, and assessments. 

     • Benchmark assessment PD to review the priority standards, concepts, problem solving, and fluency goals of the grade level and ways in which those can be tracked and supported all year 

   • Common Planning time with Math Culture Lead or other math support to unpack the conceptual, fluency, and problem solving goals of an upcoming unit. Additionally reviewing or co-creating common assessments to ensure the teaching goals of the unit are uniform and truly assessing the level of rigor and understanding of the unit of study.

   • Data unpacking time with teachers after a unit of a benchmark assessment window to support teachers analyzing the learning success of students from common assessments. 

4. Reflect before, during, and at the end of a school year regarding teachers content knowledge and plan for ways each year (even if it is not a work plan priority goal) to continue to support this growth within teachers.