Group Description

“Improving Mathematics Discussions, K-5” is a district-wide book study for K-5 classroom teachers and the six elementary principals. Participants will read one chapter of 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions (Smith & Stein, 2018) each month for the first seven months of the 2019-2020 school year. Reflection questions to align with each chapter will be made available in a Google Classroom setting for individuals and grade levels to support the teachers’ processing of the information they read. Optional opportunities for reading and reflecting on Chapters 8 and 9 will be available in April and May.

A district math team consisting of a teacher representative from each grade level K-5 and a special education teacher will work to create the google classroom activities and reflection questions. Resources such as videos of classroom discussions from open source websites and videos of district teacher teams debriefing after observing classroom discussions will be made available as part of the Google Classroom resources that are shared on WISELearn.

Teachers will use the materials from Google Classroom in September, October, November, February, and March to discuss each chapter’s content within grade level teams during times designated by building leadership. Building-wide discussions for K-5 teachers and the building principal will be facilitated by the district math specialist in December/January and April/May.