I’ve been hearing from a lot of educators who are concerned about how to teach math after this coronavirus shutdown.

I’m Christina Tondevold, the Recovering Traditionalist, today we’re going take a look at teaching math after the coronavirus shutdown, what to do next year in our quest to build our math minds so we can build the math minds of our students.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

Here are links to products/activities mentioned in this vlog. (Some may be affiliate links which just means that if you do purchase using my link, the company you purchased from sends me some money. Find more info HERE about that.)

Children’s Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction by Thomas Carpenter, et al

Achieve the Core Content Emphases (click on the drop-down area for FOCUS)

Focus on the Content Emphases VIDEO by Christina Tondevold, “The Recovering Traditionalist”

I’ve been hearing from lots of educators concerned about how to teach math after this Coronavirus shutdown.  We know there is a gap in their learning from this time, so how do we help bridge that gap when they come back next year?

In this video, I’m giving you my top 3 things to do to get ready for Teaching Math After Coronavirus Shutdown.

Don’t Follow Your Textbook

• (If possible) Use your textbook as a guide and be flexible, especially next year since some students may return with big gaps in their understanding. Having a textbook is helpful but it is NOT good for kids if you are required to adhere to a strict pacing guide. 
• Use Cognitively Guided Instruction. (Children’s Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction by Thomas Carpenter, et al.)  With CGI, start with a contextual or story problem, let the kids solve the problem any way they can, discuss their solutions, build relationships and connections between the different strategies that the kids used to solve the problem.  Some kids may still be counting on fingers and others may have more advanced strategies.  It would be typical to have this happen at any given time, but more so now because kids may possibly return to school with an even bigger gap in understanding. You need to allow kids to work where they are comfortable and find ways to help bring them through the learning phases in order to become more efficient, more accurate, and more flexible with their strategies. We need to see where the kids are and then use that information to help us with the next steps of where to go.  
• “A Guide to Teaching Math Without a Textbook” – Request that download below the video and it’ll give you a bit more information about some general ideas and other things that you can do, besides just cognitively guided instruction. 

Use The Content Emphases Document

(https://achievethecore.org/page/900/college-and-career-ready-shifts-in-mathematics )

• Content Emphases (Focus) documents were created by Achieve the Core.  These grade level documents provide a clear FOCUS of the major standards/clusters at each grade level.  The general idea is knowing what content our kids at our grade level are learning. If they walk away from our grade level with nothing else, do they have these standards/ clusters? 
• It is important to understand NOT just the clusters for your current grade level but the grade level before, as well. Look to see what the major content that the kids in the prior grade level should have learned last year. Focus on the Green standards/clusters in the previous grade level and then determine where you can integrate these standards into what you are teaching in the current grade level to help fill learning gaps.
• The Content Emphases documents help see what’s really important – not all standards should be given equal “playing time.”  They help you FOCUS on the Major Clusters allowing you to go deeper and teach less, so that kids can learn more.

• Go watch the Focus on the Content Emphases video I did for a more in depth look at the Content Emphases documents and how to use them.

Plan Some Vertical Team Meetings

• Don’t just look at these documents alone. This is the perfect time to integrate the discussion into some vertical team meetings with the whole school.  Teachers from different grade levels need to look at these documents and focus on the major content at each grade level in order to create ways to integrate the standards/clusters that were missed, due to the Coronavirus.  
• Perhaps using 10 minutes each day, focusing on last year’s content that students didn’t get, would create 1,800 minutes of instructional time to help fill the learning gaps!

I hope that this video has helped you get clear on how to make a plan for next year as well as build your math mind so you can go build the math minds of your students. Have a great day.

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