By Alicia Farmer

I am the type of teacher you want on your teaching team. I am the person that can remember vast amounts of details, predict potential obstacles, and meet any and all deadlines.

My organized personality is apparent everywhere in my classroom.  From classroom routines to student supplies, everything has its place.  This organization also shows through in how I plan ahead for all of my lessons. Even after 12 years of teaching, I am still not able to “wing it” when teaching a lesson. While I know my organization and meticulous planning are advantages for many aspects of my teaching, I often felt like they kept my instruction from becoming truly student-centered because these characteristics did not leave much room for flexibility. I would have a planned path for a lesson—a very specific, usually teacher-centered, way to get to the end—and never imagined I could rely on my students’ work to guide the pacing, discussion, and overall lesson as effectively as I could.   Continue reading “How the 5 Practices Changed my Instruction”

“Whether we’re asking students to analyze a historical event, reflect on a text, or work toward a scientific discovery, we need to give students a chance to dig into the ideas on their own first.”

By Kristin Gray

I’ve come to think that approaching a lesson plan is like approaching a 500-piece puzzle. It’s hard to know where to start. It takes time. It involves endless trial and error. But when it’s finished – when all the pieces have been put in place – there’s a sense of pride and accomplishment. Continue reading “The 5 Practices Framework: Explicit Planning vs Explicit Teaching”

By William McCallum

Somewhere back in days of Facebook fury about the Common Core there was a post from an outraged parent whose child had been marked wrong for something like this:
$$6 \times 3 = 6 + 6 + 6 = 18.$$
Apparently the child was supposed to do
$$6 \times 3 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 +3 = 18$$
because of this standard: Continue reading “Ways of thinking and ways of doing”

Co-authored by
Bill McCallum,
Jason Zimba, Phil Daro

You have just purchased an expensive Grecian urn and asked the dealer to ship it to your house. He picks up a hammer, shatters it into pieces, and explains that he will send one piece a day in an envelope for the next year. You object; he says “don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you get every single piece, and the markings are clear, so you’ll be able to glue them all back together. I’ve got it covered.” Absurd, no? But this is the way many school systems require teachers to deliver mathematics to their students; one piece (i.e. one standard) at a time. They promise their customers (the taxpayers) that by the end of the year they will have “covered” the standards.