CHANGE IDEA: FOURTH GRADE WARM UPS
THE "WHY"
THE "HOW"
Our first learning cycle was based on data collected in a fourth grade class. The teacher, Celina, is devoted to increasing student math agency and conceptual development in her classroom. While her students had been engaging in a lot of meaningful discovery and dialogue around math, she realized that they struggled connecting this work with vital academic language associated with math concepts would be seen on the end of year Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC). Strengthening academic language would support students successfully accessing test questions on the SBAC. This type of language support also very intentionally supports English Language Learners. In Teaching Math To English Language Learners, the authors share how “many teachers use strategies … for learning [that] may include manipulatives, visuals, and graphics. These supports are all essential in supporting a cursory understanding of math concepts, but they may not provide students enough linguistic support for them to discuss their thinking, which would lead to a deeper understanding of content” (Bresser, Melanese, Sphar, p. 6, 2009). The authors go on to claim that without explicit mathematics vocabulary instruction, students often misunderstand particular words and/or the grammar and syntax of word problems (p. 5, 2009).
Prior to implementing this change idea, math workshop in Celina's class entailed an occasional fluency check-in, but primarily consisted of Cognitively Guided Instruction. What Celina valued about this method was that it supported student discovery and play around mathematics. However, she began to notice many students struggling in using mathematical language to articulate their thinking. “I wasn’t happy with what I was noticing in terms of kids willing to share strategies and using math language. The students struggled with fluency check ins. I was surprised by questions I received. Talking with other teachers about best practices I realized there things I needed to explicitly teach to make the workshop more rich.”Serena’s first change idea was to add a math warm up that exposed students to the academic language associated with math content that students have already covered in open-ended, student-centered ways.
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These warm ups are more traditional looking versions of concepts covered previously with Celina's work in her class using CGI strategies. In CGI, students would solve a word problem using various strategies drawing from their mathematical knowledge. Students would then engage in discussion around trends and patterns seen in the various student generated methods. In creating the warm ups, Celina pulled language from various resources, including Smarter Balance Assessment test release questions to support students in mathematical language and fluency.
In creating the warm ups, Serena pulled language from various resources, including Smarter Balance Assessment test release questions to support students in mathematical language and fluency. Serena began implementing these warm ups weekly, tweaking each warm up after each iteration. While the problems themselves might be considered at “test prep” Serena continued to use student led discussion to ensure active math engagement.
Celina gave these warm ups multiple times a week prior to engaging in her math workshop.
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See the resource section for access to these daily warm ups. The example below came after multiple iterations.
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
In order to measure student growth, Serena assigned each warm up with a score of 1 through 4.
1: The majority of the answers are wrong, and there is either no work shown, or no accurate/effective strategies.
2: Half of the answers are correct, however, the strategies shown are not accurately used.
3: More than 75% of the answers are right, with a few effective strategies shown.
4: More than 90% of answers are correct with multiple effective strategies shown.
The chart below depicts the percentage of students that scored a 3 or 4 on the warm ups. It’s important to note that week one took place in December 2017, while week 10 was in February 2017.
