ATA Summer Conference - Calling Statement

I am currently attending the ATA Summer Conference - "Initiatives in Leadership" program in Banff, AB.

This is the view from the bed in my hotel room.

I know...it sure makes it tough to leave in the morning!

Our task is to develop a calling statement that I will implement this year. I feel like I'm cheating a little as my calling statement is centered around work that began last year but will continue this year.

As this post is only meant to be limited to about 700 words, I will outline the project for now. More in-depth details will be provided in a future post which I will link here when it's ready.

Background of The Project:

Edmonton Public School Division developed a Mathematics Intervention / Programming Instrument (MIPI) which is an assessment for Grades 2-10 that is implemented at the beginning of the school year. In my school division, many of the teachers have implemented or will implement the MIPI.

I have concerns about some aspects of the MIPI. First of all, there are issues with some of the questions not quite hitting the outcomes I think they were meant to hit. However, my main 2 concerns are that 1) the questions are low-complexity questions and 2) they are all multiple-choice and numerical response. I understand that the intent was to get some basic data for a starting point however I think it's important to dig deeper. Why did they get that question wrong? What are the misconceptions? So, we developed / are in the process of developing what we lovingly call (for now) the MIPI+. (Yes Edmonton Public knows...)

We created 5 questions for each grade from grades 2-10 that delve deeper into students' conceptual understanding and deliberately try to pull out misconceptions. The first question (which is identical for grades 2-10), for example, is "Make the following statement true:  8 + 4 = __ + 5. Convince me."  (This question was taken from a research study which I will link when I have more time...this is due tomorrow morning after all). The students will take about 5 minutes to answer this question. The teacher, using the rubric, will take about 5 minutes to sort all the responses. As a result, the teacher will have a deeper understanding of what their students truly understand about equality and what misconceptions they have. The electronic version of the rubric, will be hyperlinked to our math framework which will answer the questions:

• Why is this a misconception?
• How is this misconception developed?
• What is the research around this misconception?
• How do I deal with this misconception once students have it OR how do I prevent students from developing this misconception? ie. What are the simple classroom activities and conversations can we have to develop this understanding?
• What are grade appropriate questions I can ask my "grade 5" student to continue this work?

So what does this mean for this year?

I am going to work on the continued development of these resources (teacher guide, rubrics, student exemplars, training tools, etc.) this year.

Although teachers are not required to use this tool, in PLC's, we will support teachers in

• understanding the purpose and intent of the MIPI+
• working through the administration, assessment and analyzing of the MIPI+ (Even if they aren't assessing their own students, they will have an opportunity to analyze results)
• determining next steps in student learning
• exploring best practices in assessment

I will know I have made a difference with this project when I see

• teachers administering, assessing and analyzing the results to benefit student learning.
• teachers creating and sharing new questions that can be added to our math framework to continue the work.
• teachers talking and sharing best practices around assessment.

The one key measure of success will be that when students move into the next grade and the teacher administers the MIPI+, the misconceptions, that were previously demonstrated, will be gone.

I will need help from people outside of my "echo chamber". We've heard a lot of "this is great!" I'm hoping to hear those thoughtful questions that challenge me to think more deeply about my reasoning behind the decisions we make. This will help me make the tool meet the needs of the teachers better. 

For example, I was asked, "You said we should do this at the beginning of the school year. (ex. beginning of grade 5) Why not administer it at the end of the school year (end of grade 4) and pass the information right away on to the next (grade 5) teacher? This would give the grade 5 teacher time to plan."

In the beginning my response was that you want the data of the students you actually have in front of you. If you have new students, you'll have to re-administer it anyways. Then after I had time to reflect, I changed the recommended implementation process. Although implementing all 5 questions at the beginning of the school year is still one of the options we recommend, we now suggest that the first question (Equality) is done right away. Then, you can appropriately plan for the equality work you need to do. Then 3 or 4 weeks later, you can do the second question (which focuses on place value in grades 3+). Teachers would do place value work, if needed. Then, the fraction question (Grades 4+) would be done about a week or so before you start fractions...and so on. This way, the work that you do with equality will help build their understanding of place value...and fractions...and so on.

I still don't recommend doing it in June! Though we did do one field test of this so we will see how those same students do when they right it again in September. Maybe there is no difference. We'll see.

I will seek mentoring and coaching from...anyone who is willing! I've received one suggestion but I'm still looking for others! I am an executive member of the Math Council so of course I'll be accessing them for lots of support as well. 

My peer coach(es) will be...all of you! In a future blog post, I will share more specific details about the project so that you can provide that constructive feedback.

Oh, and did I say that we will be sharing ALL of these resources freely? You just have to ask...once I've shared and you've explored the resources in more detail! I will post more information about that in my next blog post.

This project was a big part of my work last year and I can't wait to keep working on and revising it through all your amazing constructive feedback!

Sandi