Learning takes hard work, understanding, perseverance, making mistakes, and learning from mistakes.

I had the pleasure of supporting two second grade teachers at Fairmeadow Elementary School this week with the use of SVMI's Problem of the Month packets to practice the 8 Mathematical Practices. During week 1 of this Problem of the Month packet, I led the students through Level A in a Number Talk format. Students were able to construct viable arguments and share the strategies they used. It was great to see the students in both second grade classes exercise Math Practice #1 - Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them throughout their time working on the levels of their packets.

Last week, I continued supporting the teachers with their SVMI Problem of the Month packet with the project of creating posters to share our thinking. Of course, students are used to sharing their solutions. Most math sheets, activities, packets ask students for the answer and to explain their solution. A great benefit to SVMI's Problem of the Month packets is how the problems are written. Many packets and their levels have been carefully written to allow for multiple solutions, causing students to truly justify their thinking - fostering Math Practice numbers 1, 2, and 3. Students showed great perseverance with making sense of problems, deciding how to attack the problems, constructing viable arguments with clear explanations, and checking their work for labels and clarity.

Explanation Poster
In our activity, I shared the concept of an explanation poster where students share their thinking, explanation, and strategies. This is an area that I've grown as an instructional coach. In previous years, I called them Solution Posters, but realized having a slight name change to explanation poster shifts the focus from the solution to the explanation. This was definitely evident this year as I observed students putting more of their focus on providing clear explanations.

Status Poster
In that session I also introduced the concept of a status poster. The second grade students were quick to understand the purpose of a status poster. "It's to show my progress." "The poster helps people know what I've done so far." In our discussion, we added that showing a status poster allows classmates and other learners to either get ideas from your work or offer ideas for your next steps. It was really great to see students understand the value of the this process - the value of growth mindset and the iterative process.

Below are pictures of the second grade students from Susan Hoff's and Melissa Hinkle's classes creating their explanation and status posters of SVMI's Problem of the Month packet. Scroll down beyond this first set of pictures to see the work from this week.

This week, we concluded our month's work with SVMI's Problem of the Month packet by sharing our explanation and status posters through a gallery walk. After introducing/reminding students of the process of a gallery walk (the process of admiring the work of the artists/mathematician and being a detective to understand the work behind the piece), I shared the process of providing feedback to classmates on sticky notes. For the second graders, we discussed the process of sharing compliments and questions. When discussing compliments, we talked about the importance of being specific with our positive feedback so our classmates know exactly what they did well, instead of just "Great job." We then moved onto the value of asking questions about the work instead of sharing negative criticism. With examples and sentence stems, we talked about the impact and difference between, "You're wrong," or "You didn't do your math correctly," and "Did you double check your calculations," or "I could understand this better if you included labels." It was definitely an important discussion and setup for our gallery walks. Below are pictures of the compliments and questions from the students to each other.

It's been an amazing week being around so many professionals and highly motivated educators this week at the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative's Coaching Institute. This was SVMI's 16th annual coaching institute and my fifth year participating in this fabulous professional development event.

In previous years I attended breakout sessions that focused on Lesson Study. Palo Alto Unified School District had quite a large group of teachers attend the institute that worked collaboratively on Lesson Study and Number Talks. I really enjoyed those summers and the impact the things I learned had on me, my teaching, and, ultimately, my students.

This summer I had an equally inspiring experience. This summer, as I began my new role as a match coach/TOSA, I attended the "Content Coaching" breakout group. It was great to be with other math coaches all around the Bay Area to explore the intricacies and nuances of coaching structures, communication styles, and mindsets.

Some highlights from this year's institute include:
-The activities with the Problem of the Month(s) were, as always, powerful, enlightening, and challenging. Participants of the institute got to work on the new POMs of 2015 titled, "Get to the Point" and "Ride Around." I heard similar comments from people who were familiar with POM and those who were new to those types of problems and the format suggested for POM. "Each level provides challenge for all students at all levels." "I really appreciate the gallery walk experience." "The chance to make a status poster was really freeing. It helped give us a chance to show what we know right now and not worry about having the problem solved with an explanation yet."
-Language matters. In our whole-group gatherings, we explored the importance of language for all students. Are we using language in our speech, directions, and/or word problems that are accessible for ALL students? Are we mindful of the intricacies and nuances of our language and idioms that often leads to misunderstandings and misconceptions in our students?
-Mindsets. No matter how much anyone has explored mindsets it's always powerful to examine mindsets again (even if you're Carol Dweck because she's most likely continuing her research on mindset). In the whole-group gatherings, we discussed language and The Power of Yet. This is a link to Carol Dweck's TEDx Talk in November 2014. The following is the embedded video from YouTube.

-Models. We examined the use and power of models to improve decisions. Modeling links mathematics and statistics to everyday life, work, and decision-making. 

-Five Productive Talk Moves: 
Revoicing
Asking students to restate someone else's thinking
Do you agree or disagree and why?
Would someone like to add on?
Using wait time.
-Language coaches can use that encourages reflection.
-Analysis of the roles of a coach as a collaborator, a mentor, and a leader.

If you have never attended a SVMI Coaching Institute, I highly recommend it. It is a very powerful professional development opportunity.