ACT Training Day 1 and Day 2 Summary

I spent Friday working with Gwen Lee and 40+ PUHSD Math teachers exploring and constructing a deeper understanding of the ACT Framework. A big thank you to Gwen for her commitment and her willingness to share her experience with our teachers.  It was truly a day of learning!

Teachers focused on answering the following essential questions: 

·    What does an ACT instructional unit look like? 

·    How can we evaluate our current units and lesson to ensure that our learning plans meet the demand of CCSS? 

·    What high-leverage actions can our PLC use to improve student achievement? 

We reviewed the goals from the first day of training which included reviewing strategies from the ACT Educator’s Toolbox. Teachers shared ideas on how they are integrating strategies from the educator’s toolbox and discussed the strengths and challenges of each strategy. We spent time looking at the CCSS Mathematical Practices and identifying which specific strategy from the educator toolbox can support the development of each student mathematical practice.  Teachers reviewed the “CCSS Mathematical Practice Student Look-Fors” to assist with lesson design. 

We walked through the “Looking at student work” protocol for the Pancake Problem. Analyzing student work is one of the high-leverage actions that PLCs can use to improve student achievement.  As part of the protocol, Team members share a common level of expectation that will create an equitable learning plan: 

•    Teachers determine the degree to which student work meets the criteria of high-quality work (five finger rule).

•    Teams collaborate and reflect on the instructional process.

•        What were the students’ strengths or weaknesses? 

•        What scaffolding is needed to support learning? 

•        Do we need to reteach? 

•     Promote consistency in evaluating student work.

•        How are we grading the same assessments or tasks? 

The Pancake problem is a Mathematical Task that can be used to assess student understanding.  We evaluated  this task and other sample tasks against the 4 cognitive levels from Stein and Smith (1998) research on cognitive demand tasks, “The Task Analysis Guide.”   

The afternoon session was dedicated to tying all of the instructional components (Educator’s Tool Box, DOK, Mathematical Tasks, and CCSS Mathematical Practices) to designing effective lessons and units using the ACT Framework.  ACT Lesson plans and units can be evaluated using the Guidelines for developing an Instructional Unit.  Teachers evaluated the Algebra 2 Unit 4 using the rubrics and focused on the following: 

·        Student toolbox:  What tools do your students use in your classroom? 

o   Are they given opportunities to add new tools to their toolbox? 

·        Essential Questions: How do these develop over a unit and lesson?

o   How are the probing questions used daily? 

·        Assessment strategies:  What embedded assessments are used throughout the unit? 

o   Are scoring rubrics used? 

o   Are there a variety of assessments used throughout the unit?  What DOK is addressed? 

·        Engagement strategies:  How are the students engaged in the content? 

o   Is there a variety of instructional strategies used throughout the unit? 

o   Is the content relevant and meaningful? 

o   What critical thinking skills are developed? 

You can find the PowerPoint from the session: at http://www.slideshare.net/motoncheff/day-2-act-training-2

As teams continue their work with CCSS and developing the student mathematical practices, the ACT framework will provide guidelines for creating rich units of mathematics instruction.

On a side note:  The Math IL's book study this year is "5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Math Discussions" (Smith and Stein, 2011).   The Task Analysis guide used during the ACT training is also presented in the book to as a model for reviewing tasks to ensure that the task will supports student thinking and reasoning.  This is also a way to match tasks in the classroom with the expected student learning outcomes. 

My next blog will be about how our PLCs are planning for creating these rich mathematical tasks. 

Lesson Planning for REIL

As Algebra and Geometry Teachers are working on developing ACT units, I thought I would share some tips for writing lesson plans.  I have included terms from the REIL evaluation so you can see the connection between the evaluation instrument and purposeful lesson design. 

Below is the ACT Lesson plan format and in each area are tips for addressing that section of the Lesson Plan.  The tips are blue and the examples are in black. 

ACT Lesson Plan Template

Learning Target: As a result of class today, students will be able to - In this section, list the specific learning targets that you want the students to be able to do by the end of the class.  You may have some targets that are taught over a 2-3 period lesson.  For longer lesson, you will still have daily learning targets.  This is also where you can list your "sub-objectives".  You will also reference the CCSS standard.  When choosing the learning target, how does the learning target connect to the bigger focus of the unit? And how or why is this particular lesson relevant and meaningful to students? Example Learning Target:  You will be able to graph linear functions in slope-intercept form, with and without technology (main objective)  (You need to task analyze to list sub-objectives.) You will solve equation for y.  (sub-objective) You will identify the slope and the y-intercept in an equation written in slope-intercept form. (sub-objective) You will use a graphing calculator to graph a linear function.  (sub-objective)  CCSS: F-IF.7. Graph functions expressed symbolically and show key features of the graph, by hand in simple cases and using technology for more complicated cases.

Assessment:  How will I know that the student met the learning target?  What evidence will you use to determine the level of student learning of the target? How will students’ self assess and monitor their own learning?  This is where you list what the embedded checking for understanding activities are in order to assess if the students are meeting the stated learning targets (objective) and sub-objectives.   Checking for understanding list  from Metro Tech
Probing questions:  What are the questions that are going to be asked throughout the lesson to guide students’ discovery of the concepts? This is where you anticipate student misconceptions and write clarifying questions that represent all three DOK levels.
Vocabulary What vocabulary will be needed for today’s lesson?
Mathematical Practice:  What student mathematical practice will be developed during this lesson?  Which specific practice will you be developing?  For more specific description of each practice click here, Mathematical Practices. ·       Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. ·       Reason abstractly and quantitatively. ·       Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. ·       Model with mathematics. ·       Use appropriate tools strategically. ·       Attend to precision. ·       Look for and make use of structure. ·       Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning
Activity	What will the teacher be doing?	What will the students be doing? How will students be actively engaged in the lesson?
Beginning of class routine (Bell-work, Warm-up Activity, Tapping into Prior knowledge)	What prior knowledge is needed for today's lesson?  When will I address questions from independent practice (homework)?	This is what the students do from the moment they walk in your classroom.  This is where you list the “HOW” students are engaged.
Activities 1, 2, 3, or more	What are the student learning experiences needed to develop student understanding of the learning concept?  How do we break the learning into manageable chunks of information?  Is this a Procedural (modeling the product) or a Conceptual Knowledge (open-ended with inquiry) lesson?  What research-based strategies from the Educators tool box (instructional practices) are going to be used?  This section is to list the teacher actions needed to facilitate the learning.  List specifics that will address what mathematical tools will be used. If students aren’t meeting the learning target or sub-objectives, what differentiation will be provided?
Closure/Checking for Understanding of the Learning Goal	What will you do to assess if the students met the learning target for the day?	Students will take action on the learning target for the day.  They should be able to tell you what the learning target was and how it connects to the entire unit.

Do you have a great lesson that your team is working on?  What are you and your teams’ challenges as writing these lessons?  Share your responses in the Post section.