What does it mean to Teach Like a Champion?

The following is a guest post from someone who reached out to me to share their concerns about a particular training that they were involved in. They wanted to remain anonymous, so I sat on the post - waiting for the time to be right. A recent Tweet by Chris Robinson, and the ensuing conversation reminded me of the post.

During post-obs conference, admin tells me he thinks that Wondering was a waste of time because some students wondered "goofy things."
— Chris Robinson (@absvalteaching) April 1, 2015

 So here is Part I of the guest post (with some editing on my part):

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In addition to molding young minds, full time, I also have a part-time job training and supporting a handful of first-year math teachers. Every other week, I lead the three-hour evening-time seminar that these newbies must attend as a compulsory step on their path to Level 1 certification.

Image from B & N

This year (my second year in this role), the organization that hires me to do this work is rolling out a new curriculum. Said curriculum is built almost exclusively around Doug Lemov’s 2010 publication Teach Like a Champion [TLAC], which has received much attention in recent years. It was the subject of a feature-length New York Times piece, and is now the go-to resource for folks looking to adopt the zero-tolerance, no-excuses approach to running a classroom or school. 

Lemov refers to TLAC as a “taxonomy of effective teaching practice.” In addition to outlining an abundance of strategies for those who want to develop a particular (read: highly structured) classroom culture, the book offers guidance on backwards design, writing learning objectives, checking for understanding - and much more.  To the experienced teacher, many of these techniques are intuitive, although (notably) not encompassing or novel.  To the apprentice, however, they are the opposite of intuitive. Such is the plight of the first-year teacher, and therein lies the value (and draw) of this book.

This past weekend, I attended a two-day training designed to prepare me to use Lemov’s taxonomy as a tool for teacher development.  During the training, a facilitator explained and modeled each of the duties that I would be responsible for executing, at my seminars. In brief:

• First, I describe and ‘sell’ the featured TLAC technique.
• Next, I model the technique for participants or share a video exemplar. For example (hat tip to Ilana Horn)

• After the ‘live model’ or video, we analyze and discuss the technique.
• Finally (this is the crux of it all), participants practice the techniques via ‘teacher role play.’ As this happens, I coach them (and they coach each other) using Lemov’s pre-established criteria for evaluation, with an emphasis on “actionable, bit-sized feedback.”

During ‘teacher role play,’ for those not familiar, one 20-something practitioner teacher addresses and interacts with her peer group (also 20-something practitioner teachers) as though it were composed of students of the appropriate (K-12) age level.  In these pre-planned scenarios, the teacher is expected to implement TLAC techniques such as “No Opt Out” (to ensure that all students provide correct answers), “Break it Down” (to clarify student misconceptions), “Right is Right” (to insist upon the maximum level of accuracy and completeness of a student response), and “Stretch it” (to push students’ thinking to higher levels of rigor).

The driving idea, here - and it an appealing, alluring idea - is that teachers, like all professionals, can become more effective through practice. The curriculum very firmly prioritizes concrete application over discussions of pedagogy or educational philosophy. Practice trumps theory; as the curriculum handbook explains, practice is “essential to improvement …  it is imperative we dedicate significant time to practicing the techniques.”

While I like the idea of giving teachers real, concrete tools, the methodology doesn’t entirely sit right with me. Initially, I thought the problem was that perhaps I’m too awkward. Could I allow myself to inflict upon these innocent, freshly minted young teachers a challenging, inauthentic, contrived experience, which would certainly make me cringe if the roles were reversed? The more I mulled this one over, the more convinced I became that my objection - my uneasiness - was more complex than my mere aversion to discomfort.

To Be Continued

Where's the math?

In this final post on the Five Practices, we look at the final Practice - Connecting. Previous posts from this series explore preservice elementary teachers work on Anticipating, Monitoring, Selecting, and Sequencing related to this lesson from Context for Learning Mathematics (CFLM - Fosnot et. al.). Because elementary children are in short supply at our university, the future educators use professional development materials gathered from a third-grade classroom working on the turkey-cost problem as a substitute.

Image used with permission of authors 
New Perspectives on Learning

In this part of the exploration, my teachers watch video of the third-grade teacher wrapping up the lesson. They look for evidence of the teacher Connecting (1) the various approaches used by the students, (2) key mathematical ideas, and (3) a new, related problem. Connections between the students' approaches are especially strong given choices she made in Selecting and Sequencing the work to share. 

The transition to the next problem also seems well-thought-out as students determine how long to cook the 24-pound turkey if the cookbook suggest 15 minutes per pound.

Image used with permission of authors 
New Perspectives on Learning

The connection to the turkey-cost problem is obvious to the teachers.

The part of the Connecting sequence that seems most lacking is Connecting the students' work to key mathematical ideas. I try to make it clear that it is unfair to criticize the teacher because we do not know what happened before or after the lesson or, for that matter, other contextual factors that might have influenced her instructional decision making. However, to ensure that the teachers recognize the big ideas associated with the different approaches, I offer the following additions to the lesson.

The first three students are applying the Distributive property to the cost per pound decomposed into it's whole number and decimal parts. In order to compute 24x0.25, the students are essentially factoring 24 into 6x4 (4 being the multiplicative inverse of a quarter, 0.25) and then using the Associative property to regroup the order of multiplication. Consequently, the original expression, 24x1.25, simplifies to 24+6 or $30 - the answer to the turkey-cost problem.

The last pair of students used a more efficient approach that bypassed the need for the Distributive property. They still factored 24 into 6x4, but then they used the Associative property to multiply 4x1.25 first, to get 5, and then 6x5. Again, the answer is $30.

While some of the teachers think the key mathematical ideas presented in these series of expressions might be beyond the third-graders' current understanding, the Associative and Distributive properties are found in the Grade 3 Common Core State Standards (3.OA.B.5).

What do you think? Is this too much to expect of third-graders? Do you have another way that these key ideas might be connected to the students' work?