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District Improvement Programs Assessment

Think of this report as your customized plan that will
allow you and your team to optimize your leadership,
mathematics proficiency and content knowledge of your
educators, beliefs and mindset, professional
development structures, educator pedagogical-content
knowledge, and the tools, supports and resources in your
classrooms.

This report will give you a comprehensive list of systems
and processes that have been proven to improve district
mathematics programs.

Make Math Moment’s District Improvement Report will:

• Reveal what is likely missing in your district or school mathematics improvement plan;
• Provide a comprehensive list of systems and processes that have been proven to improve district mathematics programs; and,
• Provide a plan to begin making improvements in your district or school mathematics program

On the next page we will take a look at each of the six disciplines as they relate to your math program.

Your playbook for improving your mathematics program,.

By first highlighting the area of greatest concern and taking steps to address those concerns, you can position your team to then extend your focus to the remaining five areas.

06

Resources, Tools &
Classroom
Environment

Leaves

Now that we’ve identified your
greatest area of concern, let’s fix it…

…so your tree will grow strong and wide.

Take a breath, this list is not intended to create overwhelm.
It will help with creating real, lasting, sustainable change..

Need help optimizing your district math program?

The Make Math Moments Team is standing by…

Make Math Moments has a framework that will help
you to clarify your vision by selecting what’s most
important to you and your educators. You’ll learn
how to use our guiding prompts so you can align your
administrators, educators, students, and other key
stakeholders around your vision for mathematics.

Let’s build a vision statement together.

Transform your mathematics program by fine-tuning your improvement plan into an initiative with a clear mission.

Transform your mathematics program by fine-tuning your
improvement plan into an initiative with a clear mission

Mission statement or initiatives can often be vague or elusive as though they were written by people outside the education space. The problem here is that the mission is confusing or educators do not feel a sense of ownership.

By brainstorming answers to this prompt you’ll create your wish list. Have your educators also brainstorm their own list. By looking at the intersections of your list and your educators’ list you’ll start to discover where you should narrow your focus.

Part 2: Inventory

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Part 3: Craft Your Vision

Developing an effective mathematics professional learning plan involves thinking about your big (often lofty or bodacious) goals (i.e.: objectives) for educators and students of mathematics in the long run (high-level) and breaking that vision down into smaller, more manageable and measurable goals (i.e.: key results) over the short term (low-level).

Use our workbook to get to work on addressing this need.

Transform your mathematics program by fine-tuning your
improvement plan into an initiative with a clear mission

You can implement the framework in the following ways:

Mathematical Proficiency and
Content Knowledge

Roots

How well positioned are your educators to plan and deliver lessons that emphasize the 5 strands of mathematical proficiency?
Help your educators strengthen their own mathematical proficiency by building fluency and flexibility with the big ideas,
strategies and models of mathematics so we can Make Math Moments in our classrooms everyday.

Providing educators with the time, tools and support to
grow their own mathematical roots that stretch deep and
wide through regular opportunities to solve mathematics
problems, co-plan lessons and moderate student work
builds the confidence, understanding and excitement to
support all students in their ever increasingly diverse
classrooms.

Help your educators strengthen their own mathematical
proficiency by building fluency and flexibility with the big ideas,
strategies and models of mathematics so you can Make Math
Moments in your classrooms everyday.

Help your educators in developing
their mathematical proficiency

Very few mathematics leadership teams recognize that an effective mathematics program relies on the educator of mathematics having a high level of mathematics content knowledge and strength across all five strands of mathematical proficiency. Regardless of the curriculum resource provided to educators of mathematics, if they themselves do not have a high level of mathematical proficiency, they will not be able to deliver a program that develops the mathematical proficiency of their students.

Through the Make Math Moments District Improvement
Program, we work with your mathematics leadership
team to know, understand and share the five strands of
mathematical proficiency with your educators:

• Conceptual Understanding: Ability to understand
  mathematical concepts, operations, and relationships
• Procedural Fluency: Understanding and using a
  variety of mathematical procedures
• Adaptive Reasoning: Capacity for logical thought,
  reflection, explanation, and justification
• Strategic Competence: Ability to formulate, represent
  & solve mathematical problems using an effective
  strategy
• Productive Disposition: Inclination to see
  mathematics as useful and valuable

 Is Your Math Leadership Team Well-Positioned to
Develop an Understanding of the 5 Strands of
Mathematical Proficiency?

Help your educators in developing
their mathematical proficiency

To support the development of educator mathematical proficiency and  content knowledge, you can:

The Make Math Moments District Improvement Program works with your mathematics leadership team to co-construct an action plan driven by the key motivators that spark sustainable change in teacher mindset and beliefs while supporting your team with resources to make it happen.

Shift educator mindsets and beliefs from
deficit thinking towards asset thinking.

Shift educator mindsets and beliefs from deficit thinking towards asset thinking.

One of the most challenging areas that leadership teams are responsible for creating change is in the area of educator mindset and beliefs. Only once we are able to begin shifting these well-established mindsets and beliefs can true growth towards effective instructional practice take place.

The Make Math Moments team implements the 3 stage process shared by Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch: How To Change When Change Is Hard. By applying this process with your mathematics leadership team and integrating these ideas into the professional learning opportunities you provideo for your educators, you will be able to positively influence your most reluctant educators to begin shifting from traditional lecturers to Math Moment Makers

Our minds are controlled by two different systems of the brain: The Emotional Side and The Rational Side. When we make decisions (big or small) we are in a constant battle between these two systems. Your emotional side will want to do what is quick and easy, while the rational side of the brain takes more time and effort to determine what makes the most sense based on logic. As you can imagine, the quick-thinking emotional side wins the vast majority of the time and along with it, a choice that is not always the most logical.

To help you better understand how the human brain functions, the authors describe the systems working together
like a rider trying to direct an elephant down a path.

The rider represents the slow thinking, rational system of the brain. Despite being the logical system that can often decide on the best way forward, the much smaller rider requires more time and effort to think leaving the large, emotionally charged and fast thinking elephant to make most of the decisions. Unless the rider is able to successfully direct the elephant to follow the most reasonable path, it will go where it wants, when it wants.

To successfully shift educator mindsets and beliefs, you must:

Shift educator mindsets and beliefs from deficit thinking towards asset thinking.

Follow these guidelines to begin shifting the mindsets and beliefs of your mathematics educators:

3. Shape the Path

Tweak The Environment

Plan for the ways in which you can
clear the path for the elephant.
What barriers make it difficult for
the rider to guide the elephant
down your desired pathway? Nudge educators down the path by making desirable actions easy to do and undesirable actions difficult.

Build Habits

Sustainable change is fuelled by habit. How will your mathematics leadership team help your educators to build habits that make the mathematics vision an automatic part of their daily/weekly routine?

Shift educator mindsets and beliefs from deficit thinking towards asset thinking.

To shift educator mindsets & beliefs, you can:

If your professional learning team isn’t inviting your teachers of mathematics into a meaningful story, you will not be able to support the work over the long term and create the momentum needed for real change.

Create a sustainable, supportive, and
actionable professional development
structure that creates positive change.

Create a sustainable, supportive, and actionable professional
development structure that creates positive change.

To create sustainable, supportive and actionable development structures that truly creates change you’ll first need to avoid these  common pitfalls and then learn what to do instead.

Avoid These Common Professional Learning Pitfalls

Take Action

Create a sustainable, supportive, and actionable professional
development structure that creates positive change.

To create sustainable, robust, and flexible
professional learning structures, you can:

Without a sound system in place to support and develop our educators high yield teaching moves we cannot generate consistent student growth across  your mathematics program. Focusing your time, resources, and support around The NCTM 8 Effective Teaching Practices will help you strengthen your program.

Develop and support your educators to leverage
the 8 Effective Teaching Practices and 5 Equity Based Teaching Practices.

Develop and support your educators to leverage the 8 Effective
Teaching Practices and 5 Equity-Based Teaching Practices.

Support productive
struggle in learning
mathematics

ACCESS TRAINING:

ACCESS TRAINING:
Why Craft A Hero’s
Journey In Math Class?

Elicit and use evidence
of student thinking

ACCESS TRAINING:

How To Keep Students
Engaged With 5 Practices

Develop and support your educators to leverage the 8 Effective
Teaching Practices and 5 Equity-Based Teaching Practices.

Next steps to help your educators with implementing the 8 Effective Teaching Practices and the 5 Equity-Based Teaching Practices:

Resources, Tools
& Classroom Environment

Strengthening your district math program will require
access to curriculum resources that:

• assist in the development of educator mathematics
  content knowledge and pedagogy as they
  implement the resource with students during each
  lesson;
• creates space for educators to leverage a repertoire
  of various pedagogical moves including problem
  solving, direct instruction and purposeful practice;
• assists your educators of mathematics to
  incorporate problem solving and productive
  struggle opportunities in their lessons; and,
• provide content that allows and promotes
  educators to differentiate to meet a wide range of
  student readiness.

Utilize resources that designed to spark
curiosity and fuel sense making in students.

Utilize resources that designed to spark curiosity and fuel sense making in students.

Ensure the curriculum resources you provide or are seeking to
implement meet the following criteria:

• aprovides content that
  allows and promotes
  educators to
  differentiate to meet a
  wide range of student
  readiness, cultural
  backgrounds and
  diverse experiences. 

You’ll need to take these actions:

Utilize resources that designed to spark curiosity and fuel sense making in students.

To utilize resources that spark curiosity, fuel sense making and
offer accessibility to all students across your district, you can:

If you’ve been searching for a plan of action to create sustainable
and actionable change in your mathematics program, then use
this report as your blueprint to begin making change.

Need more help in making the sustainable change in
your district’s or school’s math program?

Here is how Make Math Moments can help you:

Join the Make Math Moments District Improvement Program. Partnering with us can help fast-track the process outlined above while you receive one-on-one (or small team) coaching, support, and resources to create sustainable change in your district. Book a time to chat with our team to see if our program is the right fit