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Many math leaders face a common challenge: after delivering PD and putting support in place, only a small percentage of teachers adopt the new teaching practice or resource. This episode explores a shift in Math PD approach—focusing on the teachers who are making changes to create compound growth across the system.

By leveraging an adoption model rooted in exponential growth, districts can create momentum for sustained instructional math improvement. 

Key discussion points include:

• Establish a shared vision for effective math instruction

• Create showcase classrooms to highlight quality teaching practices

• Support teachers through shoulder-to-shoulder coaching

• Build a sustainable system that scales change district-wide

Rather than pushing against resistance, this approach amplifies successful implementation, empowering teachers as leaders and accelerating instructional transformation.

Resources:

• Register for the Make Math Moments Virtual Summit
• Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

Attention District Math Leaders:

Not sure what matters most when designing math improvement plans? Take this assessment and get a free customized report: https://makemathmoments.com/grow/ 

Ready to design your math improvement plan with guidance, support and using structure? Learn how to follow our 4 stage process. https://growyourmathprogram.com 

Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jon Orr: This week we’ve heard a few pebbles in math leaders shoes, specifically around adoption, strategy adoption, routine adoption, coaching methods that coaches are getting into classrooms, they’re doing professional development sessions. These are the things we want to highlight this year. This is what we’ve heard from some of the districts that we’ve met with briefly, but also some of the districts that we support on an ongoing basis.

The things that they’re highlighting they thought would transfer into the classroom and when they do classroom visits, they are not showing up consistently. And this is, think, a common pebble that we all have is that when we think we’ve provided appropriate professional development measures and support, we expect to see it happening in the classroom. it’s disappointing. It’s frustrating when all of sudden you do it and 10 % of the groups

that you survey or the classrooms you visit are doing it and the rest aren’t. And you’re like, what is going? Like, I thought we were doing well. So we want to talk about that. We want to talk about a framework that we recommend that you would take action for more impact in terms of adoption of, the strategies, routines, the vision of a mathematics instruction that you’re hoping to share with teachers in your schools, in your districts.

And then we’re going to zero in on and leverage key personnel in your classrooms in a way, structure that you can rely on that will give you exponential growth inside your school or inside your district to kind of create a sustainable math improvement program. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. Let’s get into it, Yvette. That framework that we want to highlight here is, and I think,

When you think about what’s happening with our teachers who are not adopting, and part of it is when we were talking with some of these districts, when we were asking them, like, what is it that you did? And I think there’s four stages or four components of effective adoption for teachers and math teachers specifically. And when I think about what was happening in these districts, the PD that they were providing, they were maybe doing three of the four and the fourth.

is really what they were missing. So let’s highlight the four. The first of the four is really like saying, we need to have alignment here. We need to believe, like if I’m gonna do a math, I’m gonna do a pullout session for professional development for my teachers to take a strategy into their classrooms. We tend to do a pullout sessions. We tend to do coaching. We tend to do PLCs and highlight different things. We tend to send emails.

Like it’s like we are doing that. think that that is the right thing to do. And essentially that’s a component of it. But we also, when we’re doing those, we have to help them understand, our teachers understand that this is in alignment with good practice, quality, high quality instruction, which means we have to have a shared vision for high quality instruction. So that could be done with making sure we’re communicating what that looks like in the classroom. We could be doing that with.

Data to say this is where we are and this is where we want to go But having that kind of key understanding that this is the right thing to do Is important. That’s the first component we need for for creating adoption in the classroom The second one is educators need to experience This routine or this strategy or this high quality instruction like they have to be in it, you know They have to be part of it. They have to experience it that then they also have to witness it. They have to see it

which means sometimes you have to, you have to go in and see what, what it looks like in the classroom. Sometimes you model it with, with teachers. So when you’re thinking pullout sessions, you’re modeling it for teachers. You’re putting them in the seats that their students are going to be in. yeah.

Yvette Lehman: We actually, I’m gonna jump in John quickly just to say that we actually had this conversation with one of our districts recently and we talked about the power of modeling it with educators and we believe in that model. We use that in PD often, but then one of our leaders said, know, the pushback there is, we’re adults. Like of course we’re gonna engage. Of course we’re gonna be on task. And what they really want is they want to see it in a classroom.

in a classroom with a similar composition or demographic to their own. So it’s, and I’m going to give an example. It’s like, even, like teachers really want to see it effectively implemented with, you know, they’re in their grade level with students that have a range of abilities and entry points with different language learners. Like they really, in order to build the best belief that a practice is worth doing, a resource is worth using, you know,

It’s the most optimal opportunity is for them to actually be able to visit a classroom where that high impact practice is being implemented effectively. And that’s a challenge we’ve been talking about recently with a lot of our leaders. It’s like, how do we create that opportunity for them to see it and experience it with kids?

Jon Orr: Mm-hmm. So true. Right, with kids. And it’s like, how do we, yeah, I think that’s the pebble that’s rattling around is how do I do that? Because I think when we get in these boxes of thinking about my professional development and we think about, I’ve got three three-hour sessions with them over the course of the year. How do I make them have that? You know, in one respect, you you getting into a classroom and showcasing or modeling it with their students can help.

Let them see it that it’s possible because you are skilled facilitator and you can run that lesson in the way that you want them to run it, say the next time or a lesson similar. Or, you know, we’ve said this repeatedly to some of the districts is if you’re the facilitator, you’re the math coach, there’s nothing stopping you from taking your teacher’s class and substituting in that class that frees them up to go witness or co-teach with another teacher in another class to see it in action. That can be a great move as well.

Okay, so let’s go to the third component. Third component is belief. Teachers have to believe that this is possible and that they are capable of teaching in this high quality instruction way or this ambitious way. So when you think about those first three things, like when you think about any PD you’ve done or any coaching you’ve done, a lot of times we do that, right? Like you start the session off with,

Like this is why we’re doing this. This is where it fits in with the priorities of what we’re working on. This or here’s the data that says what we want to be doing. Like this is the why. Like you’re talking about the why. The second part is like you model it or you put them in a situation where they can experience it or see it. And then the third part is really like the reflection time, right? Like the belief that they can do it, which means if they’re experienced in it, helps with that component.

If they’re seeing it in live time because they’re sitting in a session and someone’s modeling it for them, then they also have to have that reflection time to go like, can I do this? And can I be convinced that I am capable of doing this? And there’s a lot to unpack there because maybe I don’t have the skills required to do it. Maybe I have to build that up. Maybe I have to have the math content knowledge to build that up to be able to do this. But that’s a huge component of saying,

Can I believe that this is possible for me and my students and the students as well? Can I believe that my students are capable of participating and learning in this high quality instruction way? So that’s the three. I think we tend to hit on those three when we think we’re doing professional development. So when I reflect back to some of these districts that we were talking with, a lot of time they were doing it. They would say, we had these three hour sessions and we gave them

the necessary skills, we modeled it, you we talked about the why, we gave them think time, we gave them planning time in those sessions, but then when we were walking through, we weren’t seeing it. And when you think about that, and the fourth component that I think they were missing, which is the ongoing follow up and support, which is how do we, you know, how do we get that follow up and support? Because it’s like, can witness it, I can believe that I can do it, but without that…

shoulder to shoulder, elbow partner that continually comes back to see how things are going or answer questions because they are a skilled facilitator and did this type of work as well. This ongoing accountability partner, things fall by the wayside because there’s that person there, there’s not that support or community there to kind of keep this learning at the forefront so that we also have someone to lean on when it’s time to lean on. So when I think about that, there’s four,

That fourth one, we don’t usually think about, even though it’s like part of the work that we do when we think about supporting teachers, it’s just, think, we can’t provide that because I don’t have coaching or I don’t have substitutes or I don’t have that support available. There’s only one of me and many teachers. So we kind of like let that drop off, even though it’s the most essential. It counts for 90 % of adoption out of all of, know, when you think about supporting teachers. the…

First, the first part here is to say, if we are not seeing adoption, then how am I making sure that I’m accounting for all four of these components for the teachers who are supporting? And yeah, they’re sometimes hard to think about, hard to build into your support. And that’s why sometimes we see it takes a long time for teachers to change. It’s because we’re not, say, fully optimizing each of these four. OK, so how do we do it better?

Yvette Lehman: Right, I was just gonna say, so what’s the solution? know? Yeah.

Jon Orr: Right. So why do we do it better? So, Yvette, why don’t you kind of give some insight on how some of the districts that we’re supporting are doing this better.

Yvette Lehman: So an idea that we have explored through research recently and through some of the district support is how are we leveraging? So let’s imagine you just did a walkthrough. So you’ve done professional development, you’ve pulled teachers out, you’ve done some training, and now you do a walkthrough and you notice that only 10 % of your teachers have started to implement this practice or this strategy or this new learning.

What we sometimes wanna do is focus on the 90 that aren’t. But what we’re actually suggesting is like double down on the 10. So it’s like figure out in those 10 classrooms, the 10 % of the classrooms, what’s working? What are the conditions that allowed this teacher to implement? And we’ve been kind of exploring this idea of if we can invest in those bright spots.

What we’re doing is we’re building expert teachers within our district. you know, we’ve been reading systems for instructional improvement recently and they talk about, know, there’s no more valuable player when it comes to PD than an expert teacher. They will have more weight than a coordinator, an outside consultant, than anybody else who’s doing this learning. An expert teacher is going to have the biggest impact on learning in the district.

So imagine we take that 10 % and we really, you know, invest in them and we build up their capacity and we create the conditions for their own learning that they can develop expertise in implementing high quality mathematics instruction. Now we have a place that exists within our district for teachers to go in and observe high quality instruction. We have that teacher maybe bringing on other teachers in their department at their grade level.

that are starting to inspire the change or the growth that we’re hoping to see. And so when you think about it and you say, well, there’s just one of me, like there’s one of me, I have 30 teachers that I support, how could I possibly ever provide enough support for those 30 teachers? Well, what if instead of one of you, there’s now 10 of you who have built expertise in this area and your position to…

welcome people in to model for others, to open your doors, to create almost, and you described it, John, almost like a lab class. Like where is this place that leaders can go and see? Yeah, like where can leaders in our districts go? Because if the leaders are supporting the implementation of high quality instruction, they too need to see what it looks like. And that’s step two, right? It’s like they need to see what it looks like in practice. So where are we sending them?

Jon Orr: That’s right. That’s Right. Exactly. Like how are we giving them the experience and seeing it in real classrooms with students who are like their students? So imagine that you had in this perfect scenario where you spent a number of years in prioritizing creating bright spots in your district. And like you said, double down on where they are now. And then every year you’re creating more bright spots.

And eventually, let’s imagine you had one, two bright spots per grade level across the district so that any new teacher that comes in automatically is going to have a number of visits to one of those bright spot classrooms and observe, but also say, have a debrief time with that teacher to ask questions. Because now you’re hitting all four of these components, right? Like you’re hitting the community aspect where I have someone to kind of like,

you know, nudge or bump elbows with around in maybe in my grade level around what that math class could look like, which then goes to the number one, which is like, do we have a shared vision? Like we have this shared understanding that this is the right move and I can see it in action because that’s number two. It’s like, I see it, I can experience it. And then now I can believe I have a stronger sense that I can do this too, because I’m seeing other teachers do this. Like this is how you do the exponential move, you know, and

And I think where it comes down to, if you rewind and go, how do I, how do I start? You know, there’s a book that I’m, I’ve been reading recently. It’s called reset by, by Dan Heath. And he’s got two aspects of this, that, that fit perfectly with what, you know, we’ve been, you know, talking about with districts and it’s kind of like reaffirming some of the, some of the work that we’ve been doing and some of the work that our districts have been doing, which is he has a phrase called go to Gemba, which is like Toyota had a phrase, but like when they started to

you know, learn how to fix things. Cause the book reset is about like how to get unstuck and, and go to Gemba was a phrase Toyota was, was kind of obsessed with. And they would use it to say like, let’s, we’re going to fix this. We’re going to go to Gemba, which means go to the work. and another way to say it, I think was go to where value is created. And in a way, if you’re creating bright spots, you’re going to the work, you’re going to where the work that you want to replicate is.

and then you’re investing in that work and you’re understanding what’s required to create more of that because great leaders are gonna create leaders. So we have to go to work, go to the work to see where that bruised bright spots are. But then the second party actually says, he calls out, like if you’re going to effectively get unstuck, is go and find your bright spots. Like it’s in the book, he uses the term bright spots, which is go study the bright spots and then figure out how to leverage the bright spots.

And that’s what we want to do here is how do we leverage our teachers who are expert teachers, expert facilitators, so that we can create more of those and hit all four of these. Because if we’re worried about adoption, if we’re seeing that adoption is not happening, we’re not hitting all these four. But then also how do we do this? Like you said, more of me, that’s a wrong mindset. We’ve got to create other instances where we’re effectively replicating and showcasing what our…

our math classroom should look like, and then that’s all tied to the vision. Like, hey, we’ve got a clear pathway here of what this is gonna look like, and we can show anybody who wants to know what this is gonna look like.

So our recommendation here is if you are also thinking about or worried about the adoption that you’re worrying about is rewind this and listen to those four pieces again. But then how do you double down on your bright spots and create more bright spots? if you also say maybe want to learn what some of the moves that you could be making in your district to create sustainable math improvement plan,

We encourage you to head on over to our Discovery page and learn more about our program because this is what we do. We meet with districts, we support districts, and we help them create action plans that, you know, pluck pebbles from their shoes but create those sustainable math improvement plans for long-term success. So you can head on over to makemathmoments.com forward slash discovery, makemathmoments.com forward slash discovery, and we’ll help you create your plan in just that first meeting.

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