Beginnings of P(roblem)-B(ased) L(earning)

I’m planning to use this space to talk about what it’s like to teach Grade 9 math using problem-based learning (PBL) at my school. I hope to be honest about my challenges as well as celebrate the successes of the instruction method, assessment and student achievement.

The Grade 9 and 10 teams at my school have embarked on a challenge to overhaul our method of math instruction. The journey truly began last year while I was on maternity leave, but this year it has evolved to include two grades and a team of four teachers who travelled to Massachusetts for a week of professional development specifically on PBL in the math classroom. The conference is called the PBL Math Teaching Summit and it’s been held the last two years at Deerfield Academy. If you don’t know about Carmel Schettino and you’re interested in PBL math, you need to start by checking out her website.

“As a classroom practitioner, first and foremost, I am always reflecting on ways to improve my teaching and my students’ learning.” – Carmel Schettino

This PD was essential to me in coming back from maternity leave. Knowing that I would be teaching in a whole new style was intimidating and I wanted to get a jump on thinking about what it would look like for me. I was completely convinced that I wanted to jump in after watching my colleague delivering the program as well as had conversations with a close friend in LA who also uses a modified Exeter-style approach to PBL. But I had no idea what it would feel like to teach PBL or how I could ever author my own problems or honestly, if I was smart enough to teach math this way. I’ve always felt comfortable admitting my errors when I’m teaching or admitting that I don’t know the answer to a question that a student poses, but I worried that the openness of the problems would prove to be a challenge greater than I could handle. I think now that this anxiety came out of reading the Exeter problems, which cover a great deal of geometry curriculum that we don’t do in Ontario. I felt intimidated because I’ve never learned some of these properties.

My current lens of PBL and growth mindset tells me that lacking prior knowledge should not make me feel dumb and that I would totally be capable of learning that material given the opportunity; that I should not be intimidated by not knowing the answer because that’s where the most fun in math resides. I can see through that lens, but can’t always feel through it if that makes sense.

I have lots to say about the choices we’ve made about question selection, assessment and consolidation, but to begin with, I want to simply describe our structure in the Grade 9 program.

The regular flow of class is that at the end of a class, students are assigned four problems to complete for homework. Our philosophy on this is that students make an attempt to solve all four, but at very least, arrive at the next class with familiarity with the problem and perhaps a sense of what’s standing in the way of them solving the problem (lack of prior knowledge, don’t understand the wording, etc.). When they arrive in class, students are selected to write their solutions on the board and then present their thoughts to the class. While solutions are being written, the others in the class are consulting with their peers about where they had trouble and if they were able to reach similar conclusions. One by one the students present their problem, take questions, argue their opinion and possibly make changes. Once they feel they are comfortable as a class with the product, I go to the board and we summarize the important parts of the problem to ensure that it makes it into their notes. And then the whole process starts over again.

Ok, that sounds pretty smooth right? Well, I can’t say it’s always so dreamy. We’re still all a bunch of humans in a room and we’re certainly not always at our best. But I’m going to save the challenges of daily work until another post.