Posts tagged as: coaching

Peek into a math classroom, virtual or physical. What are students doing and saying about their math learning? Are they engaged? Are they thinking critically – evaluating solutions assessing their understanding, revising their strategies, explaining concepts, and connecting mathematics to real life? Excerpt from Learning Forward, June 2020, Vol. 41, No 3 by Sue Chapman…

We know it’s important to encourage our students to adopt a growth mindset towards their mathematical abilities. But when we draw a smiley face on a student’s paper or say “good job,” are we building a growth or a fixed mindset? These types of feedback are meant to encourage but they fail to give students…

An effective math coach possesses a multitude of skills, but the ability to ask purposeful, targeted questions is one of the most vital to the coaching process. As coaches, we want to allow teachers to reflect on their practice and on the impact they’re having on students, as well as to think about how they…

I recently joined a 5K training group. There are people in the group who volunteer to serve as coaches to individuals who seek to move themselves from a sedentary lifestyle toward a more active one. In my role as a math coach, this was a great experience for me. It really got me thinking about…

Educators know what a good mathematics classroom looks like (see the Math Solutions Instructional Practices Inventory) and we want to provide this type of learning environment for every one of our students. Unfortunately, implementation of research-based instructional practices across all mathematics classrooms has proven challenging. This is due, in part, to a phenomenon known as…

In her book Faster Isn’t Smarter: Messages about Math, Teaching, and Learning in the 21st Century, Cathy Seeley talks about the importance of providing students with opportunities for constructive struggle through problem-solving experiences that are both engaging and challenging. As students engage in constructive struggle, they construct deep personal understanding of the mathematical ideas that…

Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our “Coaching for a Mathematical Mindset” blog series. Below are two conversations between a teacher and a coach. How are they different? What might the teachers’ observations and explanations reveal about their mathematical mindsets? Conversation 1 Coach: You’ve been trying some new instructional practices…

  “Math has always been difficult for me to understand. Word problems are the worst. Every time I see a word problem it scares me. I already know I won’t be able to solve it.” These are not the words of a student in elementary school or even high school. They were written by Kimberly,…

There’s a lot of talk these days about the importance of mathematical mindset and its impact on student learning. In About Teaching Mathematics, Fourth Edition, Marilyn Burns identifies six dispositions that are important for students to develop in the math classroom: Interest to figure out solutions to problems Willingness to persevere when solutions are not…

In Part 1 of our 3 part #MathCoachChat live Twitter series, we discussed how purposeful questions can maximize a coaching partnership, and how we can think about obstacles to a coaching relationship so we can focus our questioning.   We had a lively discussion with wonderful input from coaches and teachers alike. Here are a…