Math

My name is Laurie Carambetsos an Instructional coach at KPDSB. This year, across the system all kindergarten thru grade 3 classrooms implemented Spring Math to help improve students math fact fluency.

The impact spring math is already having is amazing. Teachers are explicitly teaching strategies to help build automaticity with math facts. As we watch and listen to our students work through math problems we can see and hear a variety of those strategies being used. Watching the accomplishment and pride on our kids faces when they achieve their goals, is rewarding on so many different levels.

Teacher: So Lake, can you me how you felt about math last year and how you feel about math this year?

Student: Last year wasn’t it to the best but I still liked it.

Teacher: What about this year?

Student: I really like it this year.

Teacher: Why do like math this year?

Student: Because it’s challenging and pretty fun.

Teacher: If you get stuck in math, what do do?

Student: I would move on to a next question or I’ll try to figure it out using the strategies.

Teacher: Wow, okay. Is it okay to make mistakes in math?

Student: Yeah.

Teacher: How come?

Student: Because everybody makes mistakes.

Teacher: Okay, so when you make a mistake, does it make you feel really bad or…?

Student: Sometimes it makes me feel proud and sometimes I just don’t really care, it doesn’t bother me.

Teacher: So you feel you feel confident enough to just keep going?

Student: Yes!

Teacher: Good for you Lake. That is absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much.

Being a part of the 7/8 working group has given my teaching a new perspective. It started when I got to go to the Research Ed conference in Toronto. I learned all about the science of learning, and as soon as I got back, it opened my eyes and I wanted to incorporate explicit teaching retrieval practice fluency building into my everyday teaching.

That allowed me to want to dig deeper into the curriculum so I could find out the key concepts and main ideas of math, so that my students were getting all the curriculum by the end of the year while incorporating retrieval practice. I also made sure to teach these concepts explicitly and work on fluency building every day. I also wanted to use my data to drive my teaching, so that I could figure out what my students were missing, and I want to fill those gaps so that they could be successful by the end of the year.

KPDSB’s Family Math Nights are another way families can support their child at school. In October I had the opportunity to visit my child’s school and classroom to learn more about the math he’s learning. There were a variety of activities parents could do with their child or even challenge themselves. These included activities that match what my son was learning in school: Tangram puzzles, math jokes and Sudoku. Parents also got to see math around the classroom with both vocabulary students are learning and manipulatives they use in class. As one part of this we also enjoyed supper with our child and other GLC families. The math night helped me to learn more about the importance of math in school and as well as furthered connections parents have with teachers in the school as a whole. I think the math night was a great way to connect me to my child’s learning and i look forward to more of these in the future.