The Power of Leading By Example

A good friend of mine passed on "Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown.  It's a book about vulnerability and whole-hearted living.  I'm currently on the chapter in which she is discussing how to dare greatly in parenting.  The statement that is resonating with me is "Be the adult you want your child to be when they grow up".  This is huge because it calls you out as a parent to lead by example.

Now as I look to relate this to being a teacher leader, I still hear the same call to lead by example.  Be the teacher you want your colleagues to be, be the leader you want your colleagues to be.  It's not about enforcing non-negotiables or hoarding your ideas and resources.  It's first doing what is best for kids, then telling others about what the students were able to do as a result.  This isn't done in a "I'm the bomb.com and this is what I'm doing with my student" fashion.  It's a "the kids were really engaged today when we did this..." fashion.  This is when you share student work, student experiences and provide the opportunity for others to use your resources.  You approach this humbly, so not to bring glory to yourself, but to shed a light on the goodness that is happening with student engagement and performance.

When you do things like that, you have the opportunity to get excited when a teammate decides the textbook isn't engaging enough for their students.  So they come to you asking for the very thing you wanted them to use from the beginning, rich and engaging math tasks :-).

It is my belief that when a teacher switches from the textbook to GA state math frameworks, a math angel gets its wings!

We're Talking About Practice

When it comes to practice I kind of feel like Allen Iverson during his practice rant http://youtu.be/eGDBR2L5kzI. It is my belief that rich and meaningful task should be the emphasis. However many around me feel that the importance should be placed on practice. 

During a workshop this past year, @ddmeyer described practice using a basketball context. He said, "math practice is like practicing your free throws", it isn't something that you spend the entire time doing but it is something that's beneficial during the game. My thinking about practice began to shift at that moment. So my shift was from no practice to meaningful practice. 

Meaningful practice as defined by @turtletoms is the application of the mathematics once the concept it is understood and explicitly connected to understanding. @mikewiernicki says meaningful practice meets student where they are as it relates to their understanding. A great way to incorporate meaningful practice in your math routine is through games such as those found nzmaths website http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/number-knowledge-activities. These games are leveled based on strategy and number knowledge. 

The cutisie activities are okay, but you have to be careful that the practice activity does not undermine the strategy and concept development which took place prior to practice. I've come across a few resources for practice activities:

GA Frameworks have practice tasks

https://www.georgiastandards.org/Common-Core/Pages/Math-K-5.aspx

Choice Menus

https://sites.google.com/site/sensiblemathematics/ 

Symbaloo

http://www.symbaloo.com/startLogin.do 

I know there are tons more, so feel free to share.