Connect & Share Presentation: Planning, Pacing, and Adapting IM Math
Ellie McGinnis
4th Grade Special Education (LD Strand), Mather Elementary
hmcginnis@bostonpublicschools.org
The WHY?
�Our Math Team:
My 4th Grade sub-separate class includes 1 teacher (me) and up to 8 students with a range of needs and present levels
All students deserve and benefit from the opportunity to…
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Routines, Supports, and Adapting Content
Effectively implementing the IM Math curriculum for my 4th Grade class requires:
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What I Do To…
Cultivate an environment/culture that celebrates mistakes, taking risks, and sharing ideas
Visual representation of kids meeting math expectations, reviewed daily ->
<- Opportunities for all students to generate math ideas and share them
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What I Do To…
Cultivate an environment/culture that celebrates mistakes, taking risks, and sharing ideas
Collecting our valuable ideas in a clear piggy bank
Adapt daily review of expectations to reflect students and meet them where they are
Repeated use of sentence frames to support students sharing ideas
Reinforce this throughout the week/unit/year
“Mistakes are proof you are trying”
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What it Looks Like In Action
-Compliment a teammate for a math idea
-Gallery walk to observe how we showed math ideas
-Draw a picture of something you did to solve a math problem today
-”Explain it to me” moments for students to teach me how they solved a problem
At least weekly, build in time for self-reflection and positive feedback from peers:
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What I Do To…
Ensure student access to content through appropriate scaffolds and supports
Pick 1 or 2 sentence starters/frames to support students verbalizing their thinking
-> We are working on “I saw/noticed/knew ____ so I ______.”
Reinforce fluency concepts (skip counting!!!) during morning meeting or as a warm up with songs, count around the room, make 10 games…
Students are responsible for their math toolkit, and they can include the tools they want to use ( my suggestions are ten frame, counters, base 10 blocks, fraction tiles, etc. )
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What I Do To…
Ensure student access to content through appropriate scaffolds and supports
Diagram representing student thinking about 44 people needing to take cabs that hold 8 people each
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Supporting visual thinking strategies and fluency- we use dice for gratitude circle before dismissal every day /
What I Do To…
Use student-driven methods for representing their thinking to lead discussions
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My students vary greatly in how they prefer to represent their thinking - and that’s amazing!!
Front of one student’s test vs. his drawing on the back of the paper
Using a white board to get “an extra counting hand”
Process
NEXT
AT FIRST
AND THEN
To start class, we sang the “counting by twos” song
Objective: represent multiplicative comparison situations using “times as many”
Write out all lesson objectives on papers that I use for my math routine board, highlighting key terms
Whole group review of necessary foundational skills: Do we need multiplication facts? To name a fraction ½ is equivalent to?
After we have a quick number talk to start class, we look at a launch problem (usually in the lesson slides) together
Students work in (mostly) randomly assigned pairs or teams, to solve 1-2 problems from the workbook OR 1-2 problems adapted from the workbook that I write out on cards.
Planning to teach an IM unit….I use Section Objectives/lesson objectives to identify key skills, language, and concepts students need to be able to explain in their own words
Pick 1-2 problems that support this objective for each day/lesson
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What if….
Next class period
I use these days to reinforce group norms too- praising for effort and perseverance, for showing thinking or sharing ideas, etc.
Objective: represent multiplicative comparison situations using “times as many”
To start class, we play a Blooket game on 2x facts
Reinforce the same concept by introducing a new story (I make one up)
Have students act it out, take notes, or choral echo key phrases to support engagement
Students are not fully grasping a core concept after the lesson?
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Process
NEXT
AT FIRST
AND THEN
Write out lesson objectives on papers that I use for my math routine board, highlighting key terms
Whole group review of necessary foundational skills: Do we need multiplication facts? To name a fraction ½ is equivalent to?
After we have a quick number talk, we look at a problem (usually in the lesson slides) together
Students work in (mostly) randomly assigned pairs or teams, to solve 1-2 problems from the workbook OR 1-2 problems adapted from the workbook that I write out on cards.
Planning to teach an IM unit….I use Section Objectives/lesson objectives to identify key skills, language, and concepts students need to be able to explain in their own words
Pick 1-2 problems that support this objective for each day/lesson
How many books did Noah read? How do you know? What about Clare? Where do you see that?
OR we practice a strategy together before students try it on their own
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Roadblocks
Not every student learns at the same pace or in a linear way
Students need access to language in order to share math ideas (and many of my students have significant obstacles in this area)
Spending 2-3 days on a single lesson puts our pacing far behind Gen Ed 4th Grade
All students are expected to try their best, share their thinking, ask questions, and turn in work (modeled by me and copied or independent)
Anchor charts for symbols (+, -, x, ➗ ) repetition of sentence frames, and choral reading helps support
Towards the end of each unit, concepts are much more abstract- I use Cool Downs and/or Section Checkpoint problems, and we work in teams, focusing on perseverance, not mastery in “extending” sections
What were the barriers/challenges you've had to overcome to be successful?
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Roadblocks
Assessing Student Learning:
I keep most student work from the unit (classwork/notes, pictures of team work, cool downs -noted if they do it independently or with support)
I adapt curriculum assessments for EoU to 1 question at a time, often change the numbers to support students who are using manipulatives to solve. I usually, change the problems to their name or to objects they are familiar with helps with comprehension.
What were the barriers/challenges you've had to overcome to be successful?
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Impact
Last year, emphasizing student thinking and voice, problem solving, and perseverance led to 3/6 students earning an SGP in the 83-95th percentile on MCAS, all students SGP was 40+
This year, students are confident and proud
This shows up in their work, their thinking, and their attitude towards math, their peers, and themselves.
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Resources
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Count by 3s song!
Questions?
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Questions?
Presenter Recommendations
Artifact template created by BPS/BTU Telescope Network and adapted from Julie Sloan (jsloan@bostonpublicschools.org)