Structuring Retreats to Share Findings and Discuss

Recommendations

Paul Cobb and the MIST Team

Collaboration with Districts

October

• Interview district leaders to document current strategies for improving middle-school mathematics

January-

March

• Audio-recorded interviews with the 200 participants to document how the districts’ strategies are actually playing out in schools and classrooms

Collaboration with Districts

February-May

• Analyze transcripts of the 200 interviews• Identify and explain gaps between each district’s

intended and implemented improvement strategies• Develop a detailed report for leaders in each district

• Share findings and actionable recommendations

May

• Meet with district leaders to discuss our findings and recommendations

District Feedback Meetings

• Two hours – conference room• 6-8 district leaders– Decision making authority – Mathematics expertise

• Lead researchers + district specialist(s)– Talk from notes – no PowerPoint slides– Encourage open discussion

District Feedback Meetings• Setting norms– Design failure

• For each district strategy: – ToA: Envisioned forms of practice that constitute the

goal of the strategy + intended supports and accountability relations

– Findings – how that strategy is being enacted in schools

– Explain why this is the case– Recommendations for revising the strategy

District B (2011):General Framing of the Report

• The district continues to make progress but two areas where there is room for improvement:– Depth of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for

teaching has not improved and is still below the national average

– Quality of teachers’ instructional practices have not improved• Description of findings about classroom instruction +

why it matters for students’ learning

General Framing of the Feedback Report

• District is implementing a number of initiatives

• These initiatives as they are actually being implemented have not been effective in supporting instructional improvement– Instructional improvement and student

achievement

District Initiatives• Supports for Middle-Grades Mathematics

Teachers– Teacher professional development– Enhanced pacing guides and interim district

assessments– Teacher collaboration

• Mathematics coaches• School instructional leadership

Findings: School Instructional Leadership

• School leaders and accountability• School leaders’ visions of high quality

mathematics instruction• Monitoring classroom instruction• Professional development for school leaders

Recommendation: School Instructional Leadership

• Professional development that:– Focuses on a small number of high-leverage

instructional practices– Aims to support development of their visions of high

quality instruction• Enable them to communicate appropriate instructional

expectations

• Aligned with teacher and coach PD– Focuses on the same instructional practices

Reflection: Negotiating an Instructional Improvement Agenda

• Researchers have to go 90% of the way:– Take district’s current ToA as the primary point of

reference– Explicate conjectures that underpin

findings/recommendations and give them significance

• Researchers’ role is advisory– Ethics – fragile/non-existent research base

District Leadership Institutes

• 1 ½ days in summer• Leaders across district central office units• Co-planned with senior district leader(s)• Overall goal: Develop shared agenda for

instructional improvement for the next school year across central office units

CCSS-M: Clarifying Mathematical Capabilities Students Need to Develop

• Mathematics problems from old and new 7th grade state assessments– Apply taught procedures to familiar types of

problems– Analyze novel problems to determine procedures

to use / calculations to perform• Can all district 7th-grade students analyze and

solve novel types of problems?

Implications for Instruction

• Teachers should:– Pose high-level tasks• Clarify distinctions between the two sample problems

– Maintain the challenge of such tasks throughout the lesson• Proceduralize the task from the new state assessment

District Teachers’ Current Practices

• District mathematics experts– Choice of tasks + maintaining rigor of task

• MIST data: IQA and MKT

Supports for Teachers’ Development of Needed Instructional Practices

• Curricular resources:– To what extent and in what ways are teachers

currently using district curriculum frameworks and adopted instructional program?• Mathematics experts + MIST data

– Challenge: How can we work to ensure that teachers are making greater use of available resources?

– Proposal: Focus teacher collaborative time on lesson planning using the curricular resources

Supports for Teachers’ Development of Needed Instructional Practices

• Professional learning communities:– What should happen if teacher collaboration is to

support instructional improvement?– What is currently happening when mathematics

teachers work together?• Math experts + MIST data

– Challenge: How to make PLCs more productive?– Proposal: Leadership + types of activities + protocol

Implications for School Leadership

• School leaders’ current practices– Leadership directors + MIST data

• To what extent are these practices likely to support instructional improvement?– Articulate a vision of: • School leadership • School capacity for improvement

Implications for District Leadership

• Clarify the work of:– District mathematics coaches– District curriculum specialists– Leadership directors

Wrap Up• Review what we have accomplished:– Goals fro students’ mathematical learning– Teachers’ instructional practices– School instructional leadership– District leadership

• Review resulting plan for moving forward:– Clarify how MIST can assist FWISD