I can still remember the thoughts that exploded through my mind when my principal asked me if I was interested in attending Cohort21 this year. My immediate response was YEEEEEEESSSSSS! I had eavesdropped in on Cohort21, and was able to attend a couple of F2F sessions during the past several years, but had never participated ‘officially’. Our school was sending a team that would collaborate and work together on a similar topic. It was a first for Cohort21, and our topic was math.

By the time the first F2F came along I, like everyone else in education, had loads of stuff on my plate. How the heck was I going to add an action plan on top? Oh yeah, AND blog about it and TWEET my way to balance and happiness? I knew I had to do it…. Everyone knows the Cohort21 crew are like the ‘gods’ of education. Participating was a privilege and I had better take advantage of this amazing opportunity. But YIKES…..

So, before you give up on me and stop reading – spoiler alert – I did do it and here is how I did!

If you would like the Coles Notes version, here is the slide deck.

So getting back to my exploding mind at the beginning of my post, besides the YEEEEESSSS and trying to justify to my amazing husband that I had just agreed to take on ‘more’, this is what else was going on inside my head.

I had signed up for a yoga teacher training course – when was that anyway?
I was really interested in growth mindset, gratitude, and meditation, and was working on incorporating it into my daily practice in the classroom. – Uhmmmmm
I was trying out flexible seating with my students and how it would impact learning. – “Guys that is a tool, not a toy” – oh man… it is a big bouncy ball for crying out loud, who am I kidding????
I was responsible, as our curriculum coordinator, for supporting teachers with some math PD to help build mental math and number flexibility in their students – Yep, I’m on it!
I wanted to help a few of the parents of my students who were struggling with some math ideas – they really didn’t understand this ‘new’ math and all of the strategies their children were talking about – “Sure, I’ll make you some vides to help you out!”
I had just attended a three-day PBL conference and wanted to implement that approach into the classroom – Oh boy…how is this going to fit in?
I had committed to taking Special Ed part 2 later in the year – Don’t even ASK if I’m crazy!
My youngest daughter was opening up a summer ice cream business and my eldest daughter was in the midst of applying to university and many, many, many scholarships – hmmm that other HUGE life outside of work.

So how did I get through it? Well, I’m no wonder woman and I didn’t start drinking or taking drugs either! Although, I seriously considered it. No, I just had to be ‘really’ creative about my time and how I was going to fit everything in.

Step 1: Soups On – The Action Plan Iteration – (I love that word, iteration – isn’t it funny how educators latch on to buzzwords)

Since I already felt maxed out on what I was going to be able to deliver this year, I figured if I could combine some of these things together into my action plan, I might have a better chance of success.

The first shot at my action plan resembled one of my homemade soups – you know the kind where you clean out the fridge and throw all the leftovers into a pot. It started off with a little bit of character, some mindfulness, grit, resilience, and lots of perseverance. I added some parents and teachers to the broth and blended. Finally, I dished it out with a touch of math, some flexible seating and a large dollop of PD.

Yummy right? NO!!! It was terrible! The worst soup I had ever made!

But, with the support of the Cohort21 gang, who are clearly Gods in the kitchen too, I iterated, and mixed, and stirred and refined the recipe creating… dah da da dah… a delicacy.

How might we support teachers and parents to develop grit and perseverance in math with their students and children ?

Much more manageable, and I was ready to sink my teeth in!

Step 2: Digging In – The Action part of the Action Plan.

Well the plan certainly tasted better. I had combined a few of my goals but the swallowing part was hard. Great plan, but how was I going to do it?

This is what I cooked up….

Grit? Perseverance? Resilience? Mindset?

I did some research around character, grit, resilience, perseverance etc. Our Junior School had done quite a bit of work around this in 2016-17. In response to a request from a fellow Cohort21 member, I wrote a blog about our journey here. This article helped me narrow down what I actually wanted to include in my action plan. Grit and perseverance won out.

Perseverance tends to be associated with a steadfastness on mastering skills or completing a task; having a commitment to learning.

Grit is a more recent import, much researched by Angela Duckworth, and is defined as the tendency to sustain interest and effort towards long term goals.

PBL?

I really didn’t know how the PBL part would fit into my action plan. I hadn’t planned that far ahead, but I did open myself up to possibilities. A small shift in mindset and releasing a little bit of my ‘type A’ tendencies allowed for an amazing PBL project to develop. It wasn’t tied directly to my action plan or even math for that matter, but it had math components woven throughout. What it did do however; was help me to appreciate what was needed for my students to develop grit and perseverance. For me it boiled down to a positive attitude and a sense of satisfaction. These two attributes allowed my students to work for a tireless 3 months on a Mouse Library. I wrote all about that journey here. We received some really exciting news recently, that our project would be published in A. J. Juliani’s book The PBL Playbook. He wrote The Genius Hour, if you are familiar, and we were thrilled to be included in his next book.

Number Talk PD

After meeting with all of the Junior School teachers, in my role as curriculum coordinator, it was determined that we needed some work on mental math and number flexibility. I had attended OAME the previous year and already had plans to incorporate Sherry Parrish’s Number Talk resource into our PD. We did a book study and I facilitated several PD sessions throughout the year. I started using number talks in the classroom daily and was amazed at the progress my students made. There is a little more information about this part of my journey in my blog here.

Spotlight Video Series

I also wanted to help parents support their children with math at home. I had many parents share that they didn’t really understand the ‘new’ math, and many more showing their kids the traditional algorithm to add and subtract without any real understanding of place value, or number flexibility. I wanted to create some short math videos for my parents and started playing around. Our grade 4 students showed me how to put an ipad on a chair and video what I was writing on a whiteboard. It required me to crawl in underneath the chair! I actually tried it, then moved to a tripod! I didn’t have quite the budget or the technological know how, to produce those really cool whiteboard marker videos, on the internet, but I gave it my best shot. When I shared it with my principal she thought we should call in some professionals. I started working with our communications department at the school and Spotlight was born. Spotlight is a video series created for parents and teachers. We had also just hosted an amazing speaker for a parent night and unfortunately very few parents were able to attended. Spotlight would also be a platform for us to reach parents about other amazing things going on at our school without the need of their actual presence. I filmed 5 segments on Early Number Progression and the feedback has been amazing from both staff and parents. We also filmed a feature from our school counsellor, Dr. Gina Ranger. Our intention is that Spotlight becomes populated with lots of resource videos to support both our teachers and parents.

Here is our first segment focusing on Subitizing.

Here is the 3rd Segment

If you are interested in the other segments you can clink here for Segment 2, Segment 4 and Segment 5

Service Learning – Math Tutors

With all of this stuff I was working on with math, it got out that I was the ‘math person’ to see in the Junior School. A rather funny descriptor for me as I had never considered myself a math person. You can read my introductory blog post here where I fill you in on a bit of my background before becoming a teacher and another blog post here where I chat about the labels of ‘math person’ or not. A group of Middle School students had come up with a service learning project and asked for my help. They had researched math scores in Hamilton and wanted to visit schools and tutor kids in math. They had big goals of working with students of all ages, creating a website and starting their own business. I worked with the group helping them with math strategies and ideas that they could use in the classroom. We narrowed it down to Kindergarten to start, and I basically tried to teach them everything I had learned about math and classroom management, during the past 12 years, in a one-hour session. They are heading out to try their strategies tomorrow and I’m eager to see how they make out.

Step 3: Digestion – Reflection and What’s Next?

I haven’t quite thought that far ahead. One thing I have learned this year is some of the most amazing learning opportunities happened when I didn’t plan too far ahead. We are going to continue our work with Math in the Junior School into next year and I’m sure more amazing ideas will emerge.

I totally forgot about creating the ‘unstuck zone’ from my placemat. I did create a ‘motivational corner’ which you can see here, but I could improve on this area for sure.

I will continue to use Twitter sharing with and learning from some amazing people.

Lastly, I hope to find the time to continue to blog. I had the opportunity to take a year off and I blogged regularly about our travels, a few years ago. You can read our story here if you are interested. I really enjoyed sharing our journey with others and hadn’t done much writing since then, until I was encouraged to do so through Cohort 21. I enjoy writing, although I never think I’m very good at it or have that much of importance to share with others. (But that too is a mindset that I have tried to change this year.)

@mmoore and I are planning to get together to do some Fun Friday Math with our kiddies and I’m looking forward to continuing to explore math together.

The final thing I have taken away from this Cohort 21 experience is to SHARE!!! Don’t worry if it is not rocket science – someone else might think it is!

Thank you so much for reading, and to the Cohort 21 Family – thank you for this opportunity!!