When I reflect on my Cohort 21 journey, I’m reminded of the famous line in The Godfather III<\/em>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=S-IkWpm7TS0<\/a><\/p>\n In my head, the line goes something like, “Just when I thought I had a perfect action plan, Cohort 21 pulls me back in and makes me go deeper!”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n At our November F2F, I crafted what I thought was a perfect action plan centered around student retention of math concepts, and went to work exploring how to improve this. Before I knew it, it was January and I was sitting among my new friends again, questioning how important retention actually is. Please don’t read this as “this math teacher doesn’t believe his students should retain anything he teaches them”<\/em>, I’m simply wondering if retention should be the main focus of my practice moving forward and, to be honest, I don’t think it should be.<\/p>\n Recently, for the first time since January, I looked at my place mat booklet and I thought I’d share one of my responses:<\/p>\n If you can’t make out my chicken scratch (pun intended, if you were able to read it)<\/em>, it says:<\/p>\n Question:<\/strong> What is the urgency behind your action plan?<\/p>\n My Response:<\/strong> It’s not super urgent, instead it’s more of a slow philosophy change where we promote the gaining of foundational knowledge on a deep level in order to have success on ‘big problems’… but which comes first? (Chicken or Egg?)<\/em><\/p>\n What I realized in January is that students are only going to retain math knowledge if the concepts being taught mattered to them<\/strong><\/em> and\/or they enjoyed what they were learning<\/strong><\/em>. I also think retention is helped if students enjoy math class<\/strong><\/em> as a whole.<\/p>\n So this is where I’ve landed:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I struggled with what to say in this section because, although I have tried new things this year, I feel like listing them comes across as showboating and “braggy”. However, I often think back to our first Cohort 21 face-to-face session where @gnichols<\/a>\u00a0showed this video:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/files\/2018\/04\/some-215x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPart 1: How My Action Plan Came To Be<\/strong><\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/files\/2018\/03\/C21-pic.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
How might we ensure that students have a positive outlook<\/strong><\/span> on their math class and are engaged by the concepts<\/strong><\/span>?<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Part 2: What I Tried This Year<\/strong><\/h1>\n