As PAUSD elementary teachers continue their implementation of the district's new math curriculum, Bridges in Mathematics, it's always important to be mindful of equity and access. Have we ensured that every class received their necessary materials? Do all teachers have what they need in terms of professional development and support structures to implement the new curriculum effectively? Do principals have what they need to learn how to be the instructional leaders at their sites? If there are technical needs, do all teachers and students have the hardware and infrastructure to support the educational technology integration?

One impressive thing about Math Learning Center, the publisher of Bridges in Mathematics, is their math apps. On their website, they offer ten (with one in beta) mobile apps for users to download and install. Not only are they helpful tools for math instruction and practice, Math Learning Center has developed these apps to be cross-platform - iOS, Chrome, Windows, and web-based. Equity and Access.

Not only are these cross-platform apps helpful tools for math instruction and practice, they are apps that can be used with any math curriculum!

Full STEAM Ahead!

What an incredible experience attending the 5th annual California STEAM Symposium. This was my second year attending this symposium (formerly the STEM Symposium). It's always powerful and fulfilling to attend a conference for professional development, connections, and inspiration. Last year's symposium that took place in Anaheim definitely did that for me and my colleague, Mangla Oza. We were inspired by the keynotes (especially Sir Ken Robinson's keynote), made many amazing connections, and attended many wonderful sessions. One of which we were able to share with our district - blog post.

This year's CA STEAM Symposium was just as inspirational. Captain Mark Kelly kicked off the Symposium with stories of his journey into NASA and into space, his wife's perseverance and resolve, and shared words of wisdom. Some of the key points include:

• Focus on what you have control of.
• Ignore the noise.
• Timely and accurate communication is vital. There is never a good excuse for not communicating with the people you work with. It almost cost me my life.
• None of us is as dumb as all of us.

One striking statement Captain Mark Kelly shared that was resonated throughout the room and sparked lots of tweets, including the following, was ...

The entire California STEAM Symposium was indeed an inspiring experience! The words from their website accurately describes the experience. "The 2017 ... Symposium convened over 3,000 educators ... for ongoing rigorous, collaborative, and inspiring professional learning and resources to support high-quality science, technology, engineering, art, and math instruction for all students."  

It was such a pleasure and privilege to be one of those 3,000 educators who engaged in professional learning. I was able to experience the symposium as both a participant and a presenter. My colleague, PAUSD's Literacy & STEAM Coach for Elementary Education, Leslie Faust, and I presented a session on our district's Maker Movement. It was such an honor to be able to share the work of so many educators in our district. Our session shared the process and development of three initiatives that addresses the Maker Movement and our three focus goals.

It was great to excite creativity with the hands-on design challenge to start the session. There were many fantastic ideas for an ideal school playground from each table group. The session then went over the work of educators and parent volunteers at three elementary schools in our district and the collaboration between AAR and Elementary Education in PAUSD to launch the Creativity Project (Creative Carts). Leslie and I concluded our session by sharing our work on creating a STEAM Lending Library (from the inspiration of Mount Diablo Unified School District's STEM Lending Library - news article).

Again, it was such a pleasure, privilege, and honor to be able to engage in professional learning, connect with other educators, and share the work of PAUSD. The slide deck that Leslie and I used in our session is linked here as well as some of my tweets from the symposium. 

It’s been an amazing year so far as elementary school teachers in Palo Alto Unified School District have all worked hard at implementing the district's new math curriculum, Bridges in Mathematics. After three years of work, learning about the curriculum choices available during the 2014 - 2015 school year, exploring curricula in the classroom during the 2015 - 2016 school year, and then piloting and adopting the new curriculum last school year, implementation is in progress.

There were, of course, challenges the district - Curriculum and Instruction, Ed Services, the Elementary TOSA Team - encountered. To name a few:

• Coordinating the order and delivery of all the materials to each school site
• Coordinating the process to collect the old curriculum materials
• Managing the reception of new curriculum for those who were hanging onto the older, obsolete curriculum
• Planning professional learning
• Partnering with principals for their professional learning
• Facilitating multiple PD sessions for teachers
• Facilitating professional learning for classroom instructional aides
• Partnering with the Special Education Department to provide professional learning for the aides serving students who receive special education services
• Hosting multiple parent education events
• Aligning the scope and sequence of the new math curriculum to the district's progress report
• Revamping the math website to include resources for the new curriculum
• Planning and facilitating Lab Day and Learning Walks centered around the new curriculum​

Among the many things the things the Elementary TOSA Team have been working to help with the transition to our new math curriculum is creating screencasts to share resources, processes, and more. It's been great to work on the screencasts, partner with one of my colleagues, Leslie Faust, who does the voiceovers, and share the videos on our district's intranet and on YouTube. Adding visuals to any professional learning resource is always a good idea to help visual learners. Below are a few of the screencasts we've made.