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Episode Summary:

Ever feel like your role as a math coordinator is more about putting out fires than making real instructional progress?

In this episode, we dive into the struggles many coordinators face when urgent distractions pull them away from their goals—helping you regain control of your time and refocus on what matters: building teacher capacity and improving student outcomes in math.

Resources:

• Assessment For Growth: A Blueprint Course For Standards Based Grading in Math Class
• Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

Attention District Math Leaders:

K-12 Math Coordinators, Coaches, Directors and Math Leaders. Get Professional Development Support from Make Math Moments

Learn how you can create, coordinate, and implement an aligned school and district math action plan for improved student success. 

So that you can create long term sustainable student success in mathematics and proficiently & pedagogically strong educators.

Book a call with us to learn how we can not only help you craft, refine and implement your district math learning goals, but also provide all of the professional learning supports your educators need to grow at the speed of their learning. 

Episode Summary:

Have you ever been part of a math PD session or math coaching session where negativity takes over, and instead of engaging in productive conversation or meaningful learning, the entire meeting becomes a venting session? 

It’s a common pitfall: challenges and frustrations take center stage, and progress gets sidelined. While it’s important to acknowledge difficulties, too much focus on the negative can derail the whole purpose of the meeting.

We know that negativity breeds more negativity, but with the right approach, we can set a positive tone that maximizes mathematics learning, collaboration, and progress.

Starting on a Positive Note

A great way to avoid negativity from dominating the session is by starting on a positive note. Research shows that engaging participants early on in math PD sessions encourages active involvement, helping to prevent a passive “sit-and-get” dynamic.

To do this, prompt participants to talk right from the beginning, but with a focus on wins and celebrations. 

By shining a light on successes, participants are more likely to be inspired and motivated. This not only energizes the session but also showcases practical examples of how things can work, providing real-life evidence to others who may be struggling.

Questions to Spark Positivity

Here are a few questions to kickstart the conversation and spark positivity:

• “What has been really successful for you in the past week?”
• “Share a celebration around how you implemented this new tool.”

By getting participants to share successes, you create a space where others can see what’s possible. Hearing colleagues talk about what’s working can be the nudge needed to encourage those who might be hesitant to take that first step. Sometimes, the most convincing argument comes not from the facilitator but from peers who are seeing real results.

Framing Conversations Around Ideals

Another way to set a positive tone is by framing the conversation around ideals rather than obstacles. One effective method is the magic wand question:

“If you could wave a magic wand, what would you see happening in math classrooms consistently?”

Alternatively, you could ask:
“What would it look like or sound like if this tool or strategy was working successfully?”

These types of questions open the floor for participants to imagine best-case scenarios and help them visualize positive outcomes.

Addressing Challenges with an Asset-Based Approach

Although it’s important to acknowledge the challenges participants face, it’s helpful to approach them in a way that inspires problem-solving rather than dwelling on the negatives. Asking asset-based questions, such as “What would the ideal classroom look like?” naturally brings challenges to light, but it frames them in a forward-thinking way. This approach helps participants move from frustration to action.

Building a Positive and Collaborative Culture

At the heart of any productive mathematics PD session is a positive culture. As facilitators, it’s essential to create a learning environment that supports collaboration, trust, and positivity. When participants feel safe to share ideas, ask questions, and offer feedback, the conversation stays focused on learning and growth.

Culture is key. By establishing the right conditions for a productive and positive learning space, you’ll maximize the time spent in the session and ensure that everyone stays on track toward the shared goals. A positive, collaborative environment doesn’t just happen—it’s something that facilitators actively create by guiding the conversation in the right direction.

Shifting the Mindset of the Group

While it’s crucial to ensure that participants feel heard and that their real challenges around mathematics education are acknowledged, it’s important to prevent negativity from dominating the session. 

With thoughtful planning and a focus on positivity, facilitators of effective mathematics PD sessions can steer clear of this pitfall. 

By starting on a positive note, emphasizing what’s possible rather than what’s not, and fostering a culture of trust and collaboration, you create an environment that’s both productive and inspiring.

Shifting the group’s mindset around positivity in mathematics learning sets the stage for meaningful discussions, active engagement, and lasting progress. 

Ultimately, fostering positivity in your sessions isn’t just about creating a feel-good atmosphere—it’s about cultivating the right conditions for genuine learning and meaningful change.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

How do you focus on what really matters in your math programing and supporting teachers and supporting your school improvement goals in mathematics? When fires are going to come up, problems are going to be needing to be solved. This is these are the realities, as, say, math coordinators, district leaders, administrators that we deal with on a regular basis, that we were like, we know these things matter.

We went maybe we went through our vision process and we created our math vision. And then we also went through our process of deciding on what are the important components of our math program, what are we focusing on this year? We’re now going to focus on too many things. We’re going to focus on these 2 to 3 important goals this year.

Maybe they’re it’s on getting more productive struggle happening in our classrooms. Maybe it’s on building capacity for teachers, strengthening their own capacity for math education, and in building that confidence in their own understanding of math models and strategies like maybe we’ve done that work to figure out these are the important things, but what happens is when we get into the year, we get into the school year, fires come up, parents call us, we’re coordinating this.

We have to run off and put out this fire over here. We and this new initiative comes down the pipe. We have all of these things that we’re putting out fires on a regular basis. And we go, What about all the stuff that we said mattered? When do we do that? Like, when do we work on those things?

And this is the constant struggle as you’ll get to the end of the week and you’ll look back on the week and go, I just put out fires this week and that’s what I have to do every day because the fires have to be put out, the things have to get done. I have to make sure that this curriculum thing gets mapped in this thing over here gets done.

Like these are real issues that we in the at the coordinator level deal with on a regular basis. And we often ask the question, how do I focus on what really matters in supporting instructional growth in my teachers for my students and getting towards my vision for mathematics when I have to put out fires every single day, all day.

And sometimes when I think about this question and I think about the district leaders that we support, what does it look like that they do on a regular basis to solve this problem? I think there’s really a few different things that they’re doing, and I want to share them here with you in this video, which is that I think people take a step back and go, we have created the goal system, we have created the filter for what matter.

So they know what matters. They’ve got. They’ve gone through the vision process. We’ve helped them structure. What are the three to 2 to 3 things that are most important in improvement for math education? And they go, These are the things. So they’ve got that, which is really important. If you don’t have the objectives mapped out and where you’re working towards in the vision that you’re all striving for and communicated that across all levels inside the district, we’ve got to do that first.

But when you’re done that and now you have to do the work, so what are people doing, you know, is taking a step back because the fires are going to come up. And when you think back on a week ago, did I put out fires this week? Is that all I did this week or did I focus on the things that matter and we have to protect the time?

I think that that’s what really what it comes down to is you have to focus and protect time doing the things that you said mattered because the reality is actions will tell you what that story is. So if you look back on your weeks like right now, you look back on the last week and go, where did my week look like?

If you spent most of the week putting out fires or did you spend some of the time protecting time to do the things that mattered like one on one coaching with teachers in the buildings, making sure you’re focusing on building capacity, making sure you get in there and model certain lessons, or maybe it’s even just a 20 minute lesson that you’re getting into a classroom.

But being an instructional leader and not just say manager, you have to ask yourself that because when you don’t protect that time, it will fill up. It will fill up with the things that come up in the job. And sometimes what we do is we think, I got to be productive, I got to get these things done. And putting out the fires is sometimes easy.

Sometimes it’s the easy route to go. Okay, I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can get that off my plate and get that off. I get that off my plate. And then the whole week goes by and you just focused on the things that you thought mattered when in reality you didn’t do any of the things that maybe really matter in math education enough for sustainable math improvement, which means you got to protect the time because you will focus on things that you think matter in the moment.

And so partly how do you protect time? Like how do you go ahead and do that? So for example, you could be mapping out what is your time blocks look like for the week. You could protect that. Hey, I’m committing to doing an instructional lesson a few times a week with my educators or getting into my classrooms or making sure that I block off time for talking with parents on a regular basis.

Or I’m blocking off time for meeting with administrators to help guide instruction guide different initiatives that are happening in the building. You have to block that time off. Even if you’re not a time blocker kind of person. You have to block off time a little bit so that you can then make sure that those things get done. We have to commit that.

That’s the second part is in another blog post we talked about commitment cards, which is like writing down what can you commit to. This was a for a teacher. The teacher is like you getting them to say what you can you commit to to strengthen your teaching move goal and what can you commit to strengthening your math proficiency goals by writing it down and then passing it to a person and going, I commit to this, can you hold me accountable?

Is really powerful. So as a math leader or math coordinator, what can you commit to? Can you commit to getting into two different classrooms this week to co-lead or be a helpful set of hands to build trust with the educators that you’re there to support so that you can make a real change in classrooms, which helps students, which helps teachers build capacity, which helps teachers build their teaching moves.

What can you commit to and then honor that commitment, make sure that you protect it. I was talking with Yvette Lehman, one of our coaches here at McMath Moments, and she said that she had an administrator who protected that time religiously, that the fire might come up. The parent call is going to be there, but it’ll be there 30 minutes later.

If I committed to getting into this classroom and doing a 20 minute mini lesson that I’m going to stick to it, I committed to that doing that with the teachers that I serve. I committed to that, doing that with my educators that rely on me for instructional improvement. You have to commit and you have to stick to say the things that matter.

So is it you committing and writing a commitment card and passing it to another educator to hold you accountable, to say, Hey, at the end of this week I’m going to commit to doing these things and you’re now committed. It’s like a commitment device. It’s hard work. It’s easier to go off and put out the fires. It’s hard work to be an instructional leader in the buildings.

And we just have to decide where are your priorities? If you believe that building capacity and modeling productive struggle in classrooms is the most the two most important things, or if there is another most important thing, you have to then go, What am I doing every week to make that become stronger? Or make that become the reality? Because the fires will be there, but they’ll be there a little bit later.

Like you have to decide at the end of the week, where did I spend my time? Because you’re going to spend time on the things that you value. And sometimes you get to the end of the week and go, I valued instructional leadership in modeling and capacity building, but at the end of the week you put out fires, which means you really valued the fire putting out there.

You have to put out fires. You do have to put out those fires. But you could always budget some time in your day to making sure that you stick to the things that matter. Like it might mean making your ideal week and blocking out time. It might mean structuring certain times. You do things, at certain times you don’t.

But you have to ask yourself the question as what matters? And what am I going to commit to to make sure that I carry those things out? Those are some important things. But so answer the question is like, how do I put out fires and stick to the things that matter? You have to decide on what matters and then you have to commit to doing something you can always commit some time to spending on those things that matter.

And so I’m going to encourage you to go, what are the things that matter and how am I going to commit to those things? And then I have to lock it in. I have to go. Those things take priority. We call those the rocks. You’re putting the rocks in the jar first before all the pebbles, before the sand.

Because if you put all the sand in the water and the pebbles in first and then put a rocket, it doesn’t fit. God put the rocks in first. Commit and honor those commitments. That’s an important aspect of making sure that you solve all those fires, put all those fires out, but also achieve all the things that matter. That’s the most important thing that you can be working on, because if you do that, you do it in that order.

By the end of the year, you’re going to see massive improvement in the work that you know you committed to. But you’re also going to be closer to the goals that you set if you don’t put those rocks in first. What happens is the sand builds up. You get to the end of the year and you’re like, I did some stuff, but I’m not sure if it was that impact impactful.

That’s the challenge to you. So how are you going to commit to the things that matter?

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