EP 255 - How to Start Your Math Program Off Right: The First Three Weeks of School

Are you ready to set your math program up for success? Join us in this week's Ignite Your Teaching Podcast episode as we explore "How to Start Your Math Program Off Right: The First Three Weeks of School."

Discover effective strategies for establishing a solid foundation that will benefit your students throughout the entire year.

In this episode, we will discuss:

• The importance of rules, routines, and procedures in the context of math instruction
• Creating a smooth transition from bell work to whole-group lessons, independent tasks, guided practice, and consolidation
• Leveraging tools such as clocks, timers, and music to enhance time management and focus in the classroom
• Cultivating collaboration and independence skills in students, empowering them to become active and self-reliant learners
• Promoting a growth mindset, celebrating mistakes, and embracing the learning process in math
• Conducting diagnostic assessments to identify students' strengths and areas of growth, enabling targeted instruction and support

Join us as we share practical insights and actionable tips for creating a successful math program. Whether you're a new or seasoned teacher, this episode will equip you with the tools you need to ignite a love for math and foster student achievement.

Don't miss out on this valuable episode! Tune in now to learn how to kickstart your math program and set your students up for a year of mathematical growth and success.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Patti Firth: Okay, so let's talk about math. Specifically the first three weeks of school and how we start our math program off? Right. So that we are setting ourselves up for success that can be sustained throughout the entire year. Now, the first thing we need to think about is going to be the rules, routines, and procedures. This is generally what we're focused on all throughout first month of school. However, specifically, when it comes to math. There are going to be some routines and procedures that we need to make sure are established so that it lays the groundwork that allows our students to be successful all throughout the year. 

[00:00:37] So I want you to think of a starting task, transitions, asking for help, how are students going to ask you if they need assistance? How are we going to use things like clocks and timers to make sure that we are on task and focused and using our time and our 60-minute math blocks wisely? We're also going to look at how we organize materials and supplies. And we're going to be teaching collaboration skills and independence skills. All of those rules, routines, and procedures need to be set in established within these first three weeks of school, and then continuously reinforced all the time as we start getting into the math learning.

[00:01:16] Welcome to the Ignite Your Teaching video podcast. The show to inspire teachers to level up how they teach using simple systems and time-saving tools for their classrooms. I'm your host, Patti Firth, mom of three, wife, and a teacher. Who has spent the last 10 years transforming my love of teaching into helping other teachers learn how to fit it all together. Through innovative resources and solutions for elementary classrooms over at madlylearning.com. So are you ready to ignite your teaching?

[00:01:48] So we have to think of how we're going to transition students into our math program. I really like to start all of my math program with bell work. Now I typically like to structure my bell work as being a review of previously taught concepts such as what happened the day before, or what we are learning for this week with a focus is. As well as reviewing some previously learned concepts from previous grades. To see whether or not students understand those concepts. It's just a one-pager here where there's questions that students can answer, and it allows them to come in, get started, set the routine, and it gives you the 10 to 15 minutes to get started, ideally 10 minutes, but it allows you to get started, ask some questions. 

[00:02:36] And it also gives you some specific time during your day and during your week. Where you can walk around and touch base with students that you might have some questions or concerns about and allows you to touch base with them and check in on how they're doing and record some observation conversational data as they're doing their bell work. Sometimes it's really helpful to actually watch a student solve a problem at their desk, which is what I really like to do when students are working on Bell work is they'll pick one or two students that I'm gonna go check it on. And they're just gonna watch them do a question. That's on their warmup. 

[00:03:11] And I just want to watch kind of their thinking process to make sure that their thinking process is happening. So we want to establish this routine of what it looks like. So for many years, what this looked like for me was students, I did math, very first block very first period. They walked in the room, they grabbed their morning math sheet, they went to their desk in the morning math sheets sat in a bucket by the door. They grabbed their morning math sheet, they went to their desk, they put their shoes on and they got started. The announcements would happen about 15 minutes later, they had until the announcements to do their morning work. And then after the announcements, we transitioned into our lesson. 

[00:03:50] So setting up that routine, the same routine that happens every single time, like it's clockwork. When they know exactly what to expect. They understand what's going to be happening. And throughout the year, it becomes just a thing we do. To the point where I've had former students come back and they literally walk in my room, grab a morning math sheet and sit down, because that's just the routine that we established. And it's something they remember of the feeling of walking in my room in the morning and what that means. So establishing a consistent routine on how you're going to start your math class is going to be a great system that you want to put in place right at the beginning of the year. 

[00:04:39] We also want to talk about how you are going to transition from your bell work, into your whole group lesson, into your independent tasks, into your guided, and into your consolidation. How are you going to transition your students? You know this might be that you're going to transition your students the same way you would in every other subject. Maybe you have a bell, maybe you have a saying that you're going to transfer students. Maybe there's a timer that's going on. And when the timer goes off, they know what that means. 

[00:05:12] Having meanings and sounds, I love having songs, or specific sounds like a ringtone that allows students to understand what that specific ringtone means. So I would have ringtones, that mean independent work time is overcome to the carpet. So the whole meaning was when you hear that song, you have one minute to finish up what you're doing. And by the time the song is done, you are up on the carpet ready to learn, you show me that you're ready to go. It's not necessarily doesn't take anything from you, you can set a timer on your phone to play a certain song. So you have the timer go off, and then it just starts playing when the timer goes off. And students know what that means. 

[00:05:54] Transitioning your students in and out of activities with very specific, repeatable tasks will make transitioning throughout the year easier. Especially when you use this so consistently. And that's the key, we set up the routine at the beginning of the year. And then we consistently do it every single day and apply it. And it's going to make those routines that much easier to reinforce. 

[00:06:21] When students know what to expect. We have less behaviors when it comes to transitions. We know what it means. And we move along. That way we help our students take the steps they need to do. I love using clocks and timers. Timers, clocks, songs, all of those things are very helpful in the room. I love to play music while students are working independently because then I just need to be able to hear the music in the room. So as long as they're not speaking louder than the music, that's great. If I have a student that doesn't want to listen to music, they can put their own headphones in and listen to something else. But we play music in the classroom during independent work time I play it at a low level, it's often just like piano, coffee shop jazz, but that's what's playing in my room. And it just feels calmer. It sets the tone and the mood. 

[00:07:14] So when you can set that in your classroom, and you're establishing that's what it looks like, that's what it feels like when we're working. That's going to help you in the long run in math as well as another subjects. Now I love having clocks either on my smart board or timer so that students can actually see the time clock ticking by. They can see how long it's going to they're going to have to sustain their work for. They see how much time they want to waste, how much time is left, and whether or not they can finish the task in that time. I always just find having a timer for students displayed so that they know how long things are going to last. It helps with the transitions and the predictability. 

[00:07:57] And as long as you're applying these consistently every single day and using them in the same way, it's not just something you do once and then forget to do it for days. And then do it again and then forget to do it. It's something you consistently use every single day, it will help with the transitions, especially in a math classroom where we are transitioning students from bell work to lesson to independent work to a guided to consolidation. There's lots of transitions that are happening in a 60 minute blocks. And we want to plan and prep what that looks like and how we organize 25 little bodies to move within our classroom. 

[00:08:33] During these three weeks, another skill and procedure that we really need to be focused on is collaboration and independent skills. What does independent skill look like? We often hear teachers say, Well, my students lack independent skills. Independent skills are trainable. We can train our students to work independently, there will be lots and lots and lots of failure. There will be some students that may not work independently very well ever. But for the majority of our students, we can get them to a semblance of independence skills. And we can focus on that. 

[00:09:06] It is a life skill that we have our students being able to work independently. And it's really important through reinforcing what that looks like what the expectation is, the accountability that is put in place for that independent work, that we are focused on what that means and how we are going to work with our students and help them grow as independent learners. We expect lots of failure at the beginning. We make it reasonable enough that we can ask them to do it. We also have to remember that part of independent skill is a reliance on themselves that they know the answer. For so many students they are used to relying solely on the teacher to provide them with the answers to the questions that they have. That the only person that can help them is the teacher, the only person that knows what to do is the teacher, they only do the things the teacher asks them to do and they don't do anything else. 

[00:10:05] There's no critical thought, there's no thinking for themselves. We're building a little bit sometimes of these little robot kiddos. Part of our job, especially as students are transitioning out of primary where that almost has to be the case. And into junior, we need to start recognizing that we can transition students into being more independent. In today's connected world. The reality is, is that many students aren't really independent, they're always connected, they can be tracked on their phones, they if they have a phone. Everything is observable, we can see it through our video cameras. So we have to recognize that part of our job is going to be teaching them how to think for themselves, how to think critically, how to set boundaries and stand up for themselves. All of those things are going to be part of what needs to take place in our classroom. 

[00:10:59] So if we set the conditions for what independent work looks like, what it feels like, how we do it, how we can do it successfully, we train them, we reward them, we praise them, we build this in. We're very consistent with what this looks like we can build independent learners. We can increase their ability to work independently. They're not all going to be perfect independent workers. But we're going to see progress. But building the establishing the groundwork for independent work skills, and collaboration skills. At the beginning of the year, will pay off in dividends throughout the rest of the year, because you'll actually be able to do things in your classroom. 

[00:11:40] Now the second thing that we should focus on in the first three weeks of school is building a community. In our classrooms, we have 25 individuals, 30 individuals, and we are tasked with the job of building a community and developing a sense of social-emotional learning skills. Now this is really important in math. So often, students are taught that math is either right or wrong. And this is often reinforced with parents who were brought up in an education system where we prioritize speed and accuracy, over thinking. But with the world, we're living in with technology with chatGPT and the world in our pockets on our phones. Speed and accuracy isn't as important as the ability to ask the right question, think critically, and analyze. 

[00:12:35] These are things still that AI tools and technology doesn't really do well is, they can think like a human, they can analyze their environment, and really come up with the same answers as quickly as humans can. So when we are teaching new social-emotional learning skills, we often are unlearning some of this black-and-white thinking when it comes to math. And we are teaching students that learning sometimes is a struggle, that it's okay to feel those feelings of struggle when we're encountering math. That those are normal, that we should not run away from them and try to avoid them or make it mean some. 

[00:13:15] So many of our students, if they feel struggle, they automatically assume that that means they must be good at something. So that if they're not good at it, they don't do it, or they just kind of brush it off. And it's not something they do or want to do. But when we label those feelings, and we identify that you should expect in a math classroom, that you're going to feel what struggle feels like. You're going to feel those feelings and it's okay to feel those feelings. It's expected to feel those feelings. But what do we do with those feelings? Do we run away? Do we automatically take that feeling and attribute that to the thought of I'm not good at this? Or do we attribute the thought to? Well, I must need to ask more questions, or I need to just try it a different way. What are some strategies that I could use? How could I ask for help? 

[00:14:03] Teaching students to identify the social-emotional learning pieces that come to math. That learning is a process. That struggle is part of this process? This is what learning feels like. That you're not always going to get the right answer. Sometimes things happen, and it's okay. And we can deal with that. And we can think positive thoughts about ourselves as a learner. And we can celebrate the mistakes because the mistakes are what is telling us that we're learning something. We make a mistake and then run away from it. We're not learning from it. But if we make a mistake, and then we learn from it. That's great. 

[00:14:41] And it's a wonderful time within these first three weeks of math to really celebrate mistakes. Celebrate your own mistakes. Celebrate the mistakes of your students, ask for students to share a mistake they made, and don't be critical of the mistake but celebrate it. It sets the conditions and the tone in your classroom that you want mistakes. You want mistakes that we can learn from because we get better at it, you want to acknowledge that sometimes this is hard. And that's part of the process, this open idea of we are not just prioritizing the right answer. But we're prioritizing the process on how they get the right answer.

[00:15:23] Because that calculator can get the right answer a really fast. ChatGPT can give me an answer in three seconds, but it won't teach you the process. They won't have your brain understand learn from those mistakes, and to be able to think critically about how to solve those real-world problems. Because without that, you don't know what prompts to put into the AI tools. So let's focus these three weeks on building those social-emotional learning skills in our students. Because they pay off, they set the tone, they set the culture, and they set the feelings that are going to help predict the success of our students in our math class for the rest of the year. 

[00:16:03] The final piece is going to be a diagnostic assessment. As teachers, it's really important during this time, this beginning of the year time that we know where students are starting from so that we are designing and implementing lessons that are just right. There just where they need them to be at the right time. Within the bounds of our curriculum limitations. As we need to teach grade five expectations to grade five students. But we can scaffold the learning, we can bridge some of those gaps, we're still going to teach those concepts of the grade level, we're not going to modify the program without having IEPs for our students. But we can help to bridge some of those gaps so that students can access the grade level material, even though they may not yet have sub-skills or have some holes in their understanding and learning. We can help to bridge those gaps. But if we don't know where those gaps are, it's going to be much harder to identify how we can help and support them. 

[00:17:02] So we can use a diagnostic assessment. There's many formal tools that are mandated for some teachers to use that are out there. You can also design your own or just do it informally, you're really looking at their number sense skills because number sense is really going to be the foundation for all other skills, you're going to look at their ability to add, subtract, multiply, divide, do they understand decimals? Do they understand fractions, measurement, capacity volume? Do they understand how to calculate area and perimeter? What are the things from the previous grade that they should know? And do they and we can create a diagnostic assessment that allows us to understand what students know? 

[00:17:44] And then when we're going through the teaching process, we can help to build our groups differently. So that we can put students in groups based on what they need, we can look at how we can scaffold for students that are working still at grade level, but at a approaching understanding, where they have some gaps in their learning. If you have a student that doesn't have their multiplication timetables memorized, that's okay. They can still do things with multiplication. But we may need to use different strategies, we may need to use different techniques. 

[00:18:17] If we only use one way of teaching multiplication. We don't acknowledge that there are some students that may not have their multiplication tables memorized. But yet, the only way we are allowing students to do it is one way. Then every student who doesn't have their multiplication tables memorized is going to struggle with, say, understanding area. So if I'm teaching areas, students need to be able to multiply length times width. But if I expect that every student my class knows, or multiplication times tables, then I'm going to look at area as just formulate. That they're just gonna be able to plug in the numbers and multiply them and maybe do that in their head. But if they don't know their multiplication times tables, the standard algorithm is much diff much more difficult for students who don't know their times tables. 

[00:19:02] There are other strategies that can be put in place, other methodologies that can be used that still allow students to understand the concept of area and understand the formula and understand how to calculate area without needing to necessarily rely on memorization of facts. Will they get there? Yes or maybe not. Some students will never memorize because that's not how they learn. They learn other ways, but we can accommodate and scaffold the learning so allows that more students can be successful, but we don't know whether or not we need to do that unless we've done diagnostic assessments. 

[00:19:40] So add some Diag, general diagnostic assessments in the first three weeks to help identify any students that have some significant gaps, because if they do, you can preemptively identify and flag those students for additional support. And you can help to shape how you teach them throughout the year and help them make the progress that they need to make. So I hope this was helpful for you to understand some of the things that you can do within the first three weeks of your math program to help set yourself up for success for the rest of the year.