Is ACCR-M a Disruptive Strategy?

Every summer I enjoy sitting out by the pool reading.

Not my feet.... 

In tradition, I aimed to stay current with math education and leadership by reading the latest release from NCTM, Principles to Action, the latest release from NCSM, It’s Time, and I was able to squeeze in a few books for fun on the weekends.  I also like to read books from the business world to find different or unique perspectives. Tipping Point, Crucial Conversations and Good to Great have been inspirational for educators so this summer, my new favorite is titled,"Unthink" by Erik Wahl. It was named one of the top ten books on the CEO Business list and the Ted Talk and blogs from the author inspired me.

This past weekend, I was able to watch Erik Wahl in action as he was the keynote for a local conference.  As he described his story of how he was told how to stay within the lines and follow the rules, the results he expected from following the rules did not occur.  Status quo was as good as it got.  When he started to unthink and step away from tradition, draw outside the lines, passion and creativity began to unfold. He needed to unthink traditions and create a disruptive strategy to think differently about his life and business.  This strategy when applied in the business world, can lead to improved sales, happier clients, and this idea made me wonder about the current state of math education. What can we do to unthink in the 2014-2015 school year for improved student achievement (happier clients)?

With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards across the nation, this has created an ultimate disruption strategy.  Status quo in math education has not produced improved mathematically proficient students.  The idea that we can focus on less content per grade and develop the content with relevant and meaningful mathematics, allowing the students to be creative with their problem solving strategies, we are unthinking the traditions in math instruction,  The implementation of the new state standards is our disruptive strategy.  We need critical thinkers in the 21st century, we need problem solvers, creative thinkers, and our disruptive strategy (the PUHSD ACCR-M implementation) will do just that. 

PUHSD Math disruptive strategy

Curriculum:  What are we doing significantly different as we continue to implement our AZ College and Career Readiness standards?  This is the final year of implementation and the Algebra 3-4 teacher teams are busy at work preparing for the new curriculum, instructional resources, and assessments. The new curriculum can be found on SharePoint with links to the unit plans, instructional resources and common unit assessments. 

Feedback:  Students and parents will benefit from consistent feedback from the formative assessments given during and at the end of the unit.  Teacher teams will post feedback on student progress tied to specific learning targets so students may re-engage with the content.  Instead of just a grade, the grade is feedback to inform students what they truly understand and what they still need to learn. 

Assessments:  The summer curriculum teams revised the district benchmark assessment blueprints and these can be found on SharePoint. The first three years of district math assessments are in our learning management system and students can take the assessments online or use individual clickers to submit responses.  The common unit assessments were revised to have a more balanced model of DOK 1-3 with more performance tasks on each exam. 

Instruction: This year we have a new addition to the math team. To continue the spirit of feedback, our new math coach, Kris Cunningham, will be on site working with teams and individuals. We will provide specific feedback to assist with evaluating student thinking, modeling rich mathematical tasks, and student to student discourse. Below is a Menu of Job-embedded PD that teachers and collaborative teams can request. Start requesting now :)

Team Learning

Individual Learning

Focused work on Instructional shifts         Selecting, implementing, and supporting mathematical tasks         Lesson Design         Educator Toolkit to develop instructional strategies         Lesson Study          Instructional rounds          PLC progression of learning           Before, during and after unit of instruction artifacts          Looking at student work           Content discussions (math gatherings)           Curriculum training          Assessment development          Technology training           Vertical alignment (cross grade-levels)           Book clubs          Unit planning

Lesson design and focused work on the instructional shifts          Building math practices         Practice-forward math tasks         Student-to-student discourse            Video self-reflection            Common Core Look for observational feedback            Content discussions (math gatherings)            Curriculum training           Assessment development           Technology training            Instructional resource training            Model lessons           Co-planning            Collaborative coaching (Preparing, planning, teaching the lesson and observation, and debrief)

Next up- how do we develop "grit"?  Have a great opening week!

Summer is time for LEARNING

"Learning never exhausts the mind" 

Leonardo Da Vinci 

Missing Curriculum Team member 

I think the 30+ teachers working on the mathematics curriculum and assessment teams might disagree with Da Vinci after the past 4 weeks....  Leonardo obviously hasn't worked on a PUHSD Summer curriculum team!  We have been busy working on unit plans, unit assessments, district benchmark assessments and daily learning experiences.  For the last four weeks, teachers have poured through all of the curriculum documents, PARCC resources (model content frameworks, evidence tables and PLDs, and sample online assessments), Smarter Balanced released items, and exemplar units to create meaningful units for the PUHSD mathematics students.

Curriculum: To view the revised curriculum, click on the Phoenix Union Mathematics website and click your course. Algebra 1-2 has a new units added to first and second semester that makes the quadratic unit more manageable.  Geometry 1-2 deleted the proof unit (Unit 3) and embedded those standards in all of the units.

Visual model to keep us on track :)

Assessments: To view the revised or new assessments, go to SharePoint (link from work) (Link from home). Algebra 1-2, Algebra 1-2 H, Geometry 1-2, Geometry 1-2 H, Algebra 3-4, and Algebra 3-4H all have updated unit assessments, scoring guides, checkpoint quizzes, and concept recovery assessments.

Learning experiences for students: Algebra 1-2 revised the first semester daily learning experience that align to the new assessments.  Geometry 1-2 has unit plans with aligned artifacts and lesson plans.  Algebra 3-4 is the new curriculum and they have unit plans pretty much done for the first three units and draft unit plans for the rest of the year.  These teachers will be meeting throughout the school year to continue this work.  Here is a sample unit and the rest can be found on SharePoint.

Learning from the Team members  Here is my favorite quote from a geometry teacher during our last day together:

"I was so impressed by how the kids did during the first year of Geometry implementation.  Last year at this time, I was skeptical but now I see the bigger picture.  I see the connections now and why transformations are so important and why it is the basic underpinnings of Geometry."


Thank you to the teachers who completed all of this work! Summer curriculum work is strenuous but we always walk away with a deeper understanding of the curriculum, the instruction needed to meet the demands of the standards and the expected level of mastery.