Small things are Big things!

I am in Arkansas this week working with elementary teachers. They are in the their second year of Cognitively Guided Instruction. During this year we do this workshop format that is very ambitious to say the least. We conduct embedded class lessons. This entails LOTS of planning by myself, the hosting teacher and the CGI participants. On the first day on this follow-up (we spent 4 days together this summer, this is Day 5 of the PD), we interview all of the kids in one 2nd grade class. Each teacher pair interviews two children (one at a time). Then we all gather back together to analyze what the kids did, how they were thinking and try to create a sort of class profile. Then we decide what what we want as our focus group of kids, and what our goals for the class and this focus group are in particular. Then we choose/design problems and or tasks to present to the kids and anticipate what they might do and how the teacher might respond. Next we go the classroom. I taught the lesson. What a hoot. All 24 teachers crowded into the room watching the lesson. 24 kids learning math. One teacher. After the lesson we return the training room to debrief and talk about what we learned and what we would plan for the next lesson. A lot to do in one day and so so so exhausting, but well worth it.

The next day(Day 6, or second day of the follow-up) we do the same thing all over again, only with kindergarten! Kindergarteners solve math story problems and explain their strategies to the class, while being observed by 24 teachers. WOW. Lots of mathematics and teaching talk happened during these two days, too much to say here. Along the way we also learn some interesting things about kids ways of thinking about numbers. We learned that one Kindergartner had invented a new number! All this time his teacher did not know why his counts were one off, but we discovered he counted 11 cubes like this" one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,teneleven, twelve. HA. Only in Kindergarten classes do you learn how new everything is for them and how small things are big things for new learners.