EDU583 Methods and Practice in Middle School MathematicsSummer 2017Instructor: Kathy FavazzaE-mail: kathy.favazza@gordon.eduOffice hours: by appointment onlyWebsite: Gordon Graduate Mathematics (gordongradmath.weebly.com)Class times and rooms: June 28,  9:00 - 3:00, room 121July 13,  either 8:30 - 1:00 or 12:30 -4:00 room 122July 18 and 20  9 - 3:00 room 121August 1, either 9 - 12 or 12 - 3 room 122Overarching Objective: Students will learn the goals, objectives, and methods of teaching mathe-matics with the current Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Mathematics incorporating the Common Core Standards. Students will also learn The Professional Standards for Teachers.

Understanding that teachers will progress on each standard throughout their career, the Profes-sional Standards for Teachers (PST) and indicators describe the level of practice that candidates should demonstrate by the time they complete their teacher preparation program and are en-dorsed for licensure. The diagram below defines each level of practice and what it means for teacher candidates during their preparation: 

Introduction Candidates show understanding through coursework and/or in field-based experiences.

Practice Candidates have opportunities to practice, be observed, and to receive feedback through coursework and/or in field-based experiences

Demonstrate Candidates consistently demonstrate competency through coursework and in field-based experiences as measured by the teacher performance as-sessment (CAP).

  The following Professional Standards for Teachers are assessed at the Practice level in this course: 

Standard Indicator Assessment Evidence

1. Curriculum, Planning and Assessment Standard  

a) Curriculum and Planning indicator: Knows the subject matter well, has a good grasp of child development and how students learn, and designs effective and rigorous standards-based units of instruction consisting of well-structured lessons with measurable outcomes.

Unit with ten lessons

Lesson plan and oral presenta-tion with rubric

b) Assessment indicator: Uses a variety of informal and formal meth-

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ods of assessment to measure student learning, growth, and under-standing, develop differentiated and enhanced learning experiences, and improve future instruction.

Unit assessments with rubric

2. Teaching All Students Standard

a) Instruction indicator: Uses instructional practices that reflect high expectations regarding content and quality of effort and work, engage all students and are personalized to accommodate diverse learning styles, needs, interests, and levels of readiness.

Unit lessons

Lesson and Presentation

(d) Expectations indicator: Plans and implements lessons that set clear expectations and make knowledge accessible for all students.

3. Family and Community Engagement.

b) Collaboration: Collaborates with families to create and imple-ment strategies for supporting student learning and develop-ment both at home and at school.

Unit family communication

4. Professional Culture Standard  

(a) Reflection indicator: Demonstrates the capacity to reflect on and improve the educator’s own practice, using informal means as well as meetings with teams and work groups to gather information, analyze data, examine issues, set meaning-ful goals, and develop new approaches in order to improve teaching and learning.

Discussions, Forum and Comments with rubric. Collaborative peer-editing of Unit using rubric.

Additional Objectives:The students will demonstrate evidence of fundamental computation skills and comprehensive, in-depth understanding of middle school mathematics. The students will demonstrate knowledge of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for Mathe-matics including the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Course Texts and Readings :Accessible Mathematics. Ten Instructional Shifts That Raise Student Achievement. Steven Lein-wand. Heinemann 2009.Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Mathematics Including the Common Core State Stan-dards. 2011. available online

Course Requirements:

15% Book Study Responses & Class Discussions:For in class discussion preparation, each student will write thoughtful responses to the study guide questions for the readings in Accessible Mathematics. Your responses are to be thoughtful and thorough, reflecting active reading and show evidence of being familiar with each chapter. We will have class discussions around theses questions. Each of you will lead the discussion for two dif-ferent chapters. Assessed with Book Study Responses and Class Discussion Rubric.

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Chapter Discussion Leader Chapter Discussion Leader

Jordan Burke 5 7/18 9 7/20

Gregory Hunter 6 7/18 10 7/20

Brooke Morgenthaler 7 7/18 11 7/20

Jordan Willis 8 7/18 12 7/20

Class Discussion Schedule

10% Progressions AssignmentsStudents will read and examine the following Common Core State Standards Progressions docu-ments for Focus and Coherence.

3–5 Progression on Number and Operations—Fractions6–8 Progression on Statistics and Probability6–8 Progression on Expressions and Equations6–8 Progression on The Number System; High School, Number6–7 Progression on Ratios and Proportional Relationships

Students will write responses and post to the forum on the website. We will have a discussion on July 18. Assessed with Progressions Rubric.

10% Noyce-Dana project Essays “There are many resources available to both pre-service and in-service teachers to help them increase their content knowledge in a way directly related to how they teach. Still, there are areas of mathematical content, relevant to the core of the mathe-matics curriculum, that somehow fail to receive systematic treatment in any of these resource. The purpose of the Noyce-Dana project was to address this issue by building a community of scholars and practitioners focused on clarifying the mathematical underpinnings of middle and high school mathematics.”

Students will read the following Essays from the Noyce-Dana project:Algebra - What is a Variable? (Epp)Arithmetic - Rules of Sign (Howe - Friedberg)Functions and Equations - Expressions-Functions-Equations (McCallum)Order of Operations - Order of Operations (Hsu - Madden)Proportionality - Proportionality (Madden- Oehrtman)

Students will write responses and post to the forum on my website. We will have a discussion on July 20. Assessed with Noyce-Dana Rubric.

50% Instructional Unit: Students will complete a comprehensive unit of study that engages stu-dents in doing mathematics. The total description is below. Assessed with Unit Rubric.

10% Parent Communication Assignment (Included with Instructional Unit) Students will create two communication documents with families. 1. learning expectations for unit and 2. strategies for supporting student learning at home.

5% Participation: Students are expected to be engaged, active learners in all aspects of the course.

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• Preparation for and participation in class are critical. Timely submission of assignments is ex-pected.

• Students are expected to fully participate in class time activities and discussions. If a student uses a computer or tablet to take notes, it is expected that no student will have a website open; this includes email and social media apps.

• Cell phone use is for emergency only. • Attendance is required. Any absences will affect your participation grade.

Date Topic Assignment

6/28 Course Syllabus, Logistics, Lesson Planning, book dis-cussion, DESE Unit Rubric, Online Resources

Read Accessible MathematicsTen Instructional Shifts That Raise Student Achievement Chapters 1 - 4 and record your responses to the book study.

7/13 Individual meetings on In-structional Unit

• Submit unit proposal to the Weebly. • Bring rough drafts of three lessons.

7/18 Progressions of math top-ics, Instructional shifts

• Complete Progressions assignment• Accessible Mathematics Ten Instructional Shifts That

Raise Student Achievement Read chapters 5 - 8 pre-pare to lead your assigned chapters and record your re-sponses to the book study.

7/20 Mathematical content, In-structional shifts

• Noyce-Dana Essay assignment• Read Accessible Mathematics Ten Instructional Shifts

That Raise Student Achievement Read chapters 9 - 13 prepare to lead your assigned chapters and record your responses to the book study.

8/4Presentations of Instructional Unit

• Complete all components of Instructional Unit and Fam-ily Communication

• Prepare presentation

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Rubrics

Book Study and Class Discussion Rubric

0-1 2-3 4-5

Evidence of Preparation

No written response. Half page or less of re-sponse to the book study guide for each chapter..

Evidence of being familiar with all the concepts and ac-tivities in the chapter. Thor-ough response to the book study guide for each chap-ter.

Discussion Passive, with little af-firming feedback and interaction.

Responsive to group members, exuding a pos-itive attitude.

Active listening. Encourag-ing, enthusiastic, informed and friendly.

Discussion leader

Discussion is not orga-nized. Classmates are not encouraged to participate.

Discussion is organized and engages classmates.

Discussion is well organized and engages classmates to participate freely.

Progressions Response

Focus 5 pointsResponse addresses the following areas in a complete and thoughtful way using evidence from the Progressions for support.• How does the particular Progressions illustrate diving deeply into the concepts rather than the

“mile wide inch-deep curriculum” of the past?• Discuss the evidence for the building of solid conceptual understanding.• Discuss the evidence of procedural skill and fluency. • Discuss the evidence for application of the mathematics.

Coherence 5 pointsResponse addresses the following areas in a complete and thoughtful way using evidence from the Progressions for support.• How does the Progression illustrate the connections across grades?• What evidence is there of students being given the opportunity to build understanding on the

foundation of previous grades?• Discuss how the Progression links supporting topics with the major topics of the year.

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Noyce-Dana Essays Rubric

1 3 5

Response to each essay

Responses reflect reading of text

Responses reflect reading of text with ex-amples for supporting evidence

Responses reflect thoughtful reading of text with detailed ex-amples for supporting evidence

Reflection Missing reflection on the mathematics dis-cussed

Responses include re-flection on the mathe-matics discussed

Responses include significant reflection on the mathematics discussed

Completeness Less than five essay responses com-pleted.

All five essay re-sponses are completed and posted to the Gor-don Grad Math web-site.

All five essay responses are thoroughly completed with ex-amples from the text and posted to the Gordon Grad Math website.

Instructional Unit

The Instructional unit will contain a variety of teaching strategies. The unit will include Essential Understandings, 10 daily lesson plans, and summative assessment.

Each lesson plan must include at least one of the Standards for Mathematical Practice, at least one content standard, and daily formative assessment. Students will present their units on August 1.

As you plan your lessons remember that your unit should address all three forms of rigor: building conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and applica-tion with equal intensity.

Unit Outline

Design a thematic unit including the following:

A. Introduction1. Essential Understanding – When this unit has been taught what mathematics will

students know?2. Unit Essential Guiding Questions - What questions will you pose to students to lead

them to the Essential Understanding?3. Grade level4. Curriculum – What comes before and after the unit?5. Resources – What resources and materials need to be available to the students in

the classroom?B. Unit Plan

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1. Standards a. What content standards is the unit addressing? b. What Standards for the Mathematical Practice are crucial to the unit?c. How will you include the three shifts of Focus, Coherence and Rigor accord-

ing to the DESE unit rubric?2. Objectives - directly aligned to the Standards

At the end of the unit, what will students know and be able to do that they could not at the outset of the unit?

3. Assessment a. How will you assess each student’s progress toward the objectives? b. How will you record student progress?

4. Ongoing Cumulative Review - What topics do students need practice with?5. Learning Considerations -

a. How will you incorporate the UDL principles to meet the needs of a variety of learners?

b. How will you make the objectives attainable to struggling learners? c. How will you challenge students who are ready?

6. Resource list – What websites, books or articles did you use to create this unit?

C. Lesson Plans 1. Ten complete lesson plans plus summative assessment complete with answer key. 2. The lesson plans utilize a variety of instructional strategies. 3. Hand-outs with completed models4. Tests, tasks or any authentic assessment with answer keys5. Resources utilized by you and the class

D. Family Communication 1. Design a method to inform parents of expectations for student learning during this

unit. 2. Create strategies for supporting learning at school and home, including appropriate

adaptation for students with disabilities or limited English proficiency.

Your unit should be typed and organized in a three ring binder. The items listed should be in se-quential order with all lesson materials together and labeled by lesson. No materials are to be copied from books or website downloads. Ideas certainly can be borrowed and cited, just apply them to your unit in a unique manner that is not a direct copy.

Unit ProposalSubmit a proposal to the Weebly that includes: Parts A and B before your individual meeting on July 13.

Unit Expectations

Professional Appearance of binder (5 possible points)Extremely well organized. Meets all requirements of Thematic Unit Plan including:

o Typed and well-formattedo Organized into file notebooko Sequentially orderedo Extremely neat

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o No spelling errorso No grammatical errors

Introduction (10 possible points)Will contain highly specific, clear focused requirements under “A. Introduction”

Unit Plan (15 possible points)Excellent with six requirements under “B. Unit Plan”

Lessons and Assessment (60 possible points)Excellent according to Lesson Plan Rubric

o Content and Math Practice Standards identifiedo Measurable verbs in objectiveso Ongoing Cumulative Reviewo Lesson Guiding Questions o Full and detailed procedure for the lessono Appropriate and related assessment, e.g. ticket to leave, exam, authentic as-

sessmento Demonstrates consideration of learning styleso Depth of contento Variety of teaching strategies

Be sure to include: o Handouts both blank and answer keyo Clear assessment tools including answer keyso Record keeping system for student progress toward standardso Typed completed models of all activities

Family Communication (10 possible points)o Clear expectations for student learning - may be a hand out or electronico Strategies to support student learning at home, including appropriate adaptation

for students with disabilities or limited English proficiency.

Presentation (10 possible points)o Share Essential Understandings and Unit Essential Guiding Questions.o Teach a lesson from the unit. Provide any handouts necessary. o Professional attire

ATTENDANCE:Attendance is required at each class. In the event of illness or emergencies, the students must contact the instructor prior to class, by email.

Accommodations Statement for Students with Documented Disabilities in the Graduate Program: The Academic Support Center (ASC), in accordance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, provides students with disabilities equivalent access that enables them to receive an education equal to that of their non-disabled peers. Gordon provides basic support services and reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. Any student with a documented disability who intends to request such services must provide to the Academic Support Center written comprehensive clinical documentation from a specialist; this should be done

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prior to registration. Testing must be current (i.e., completed within the past three years), provide clear and spe-cific evidence and identification of the disability, and verify accommodation needs with specific academic recom-mendations (e.g., extended test time, note taking assistance). A statement of the College’s disability policy is given in the Graduate Academic Catalog.

Grievance Procedures: The Academic Support Center works interactively with students and faculty to resolve any accommodation issues. Any questions or disputes about accommodations should be immediately referred to the Academic Support Center. For additional information contact the graduate office or the Academic Support Center.

Academic Dishonesty Statement: Academic dishonesty is regarded as a major violation of both the academic and spiritual principles of this community and may result in a failing grade or suspension. Academic dishonesty includes plagiarism, (see Plagiarism statement below from Student Handbook), cheating (whether in or out of the classroom), and abuse or misuse of library materials when such abuse or misuse can be related to course requirements.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism occurs when a sequence of ideas is transferred from a source to a paper without the process of digestion, integration and reorganization in the writer’s mind, and without acknowledgment in the pa-per.Plagiarism is committed if students submit as their own work:

1. Part or all of a written or spoken assignment copied from another person’s manuscript or notes;

2. Part or all of an assignment copied or paraphrased from a source such as a book, magazine or pamphlet;

3. The sequence of ideas, arrangement of material or pattern of thought of someone else, even though they are expressed in one’s own words.

A student is an accomplice of plagiarism and equally guilty if:1. One’s paper, in outline or finished form, is allowed to be copied and submitted as the work of

another;2. One prepares a written assignment for another student;3. One keeps or contributes to a file of papers or speeches with the clear intent that these pa-

pers or speeches be copied and submitted as the work of anyone other than the author.

INCLEMENT WEATHER:In the event of inclement weather or other emergency situations, here is how you can find out if Graduate Edu-cation classes are cancelled:

1) Graduate Education Emergency Phone Line: 978-867-4320If a decision is made to cancel graduate classes, a message will be recorded on this phone line. (You may want to save this number into your cell phones now!) Please note, this number is just for graduate classes. Graduate classes may be cancelled even if Gordon College remains open.

2) Gordon College Closings:If Gordon College is closed, graduate classes are automatically cancelled. Messages about Gordon will be posted:

• On the front page of the Gordon website: www.gordon.edu• On local radio and TV stations• On Gordon’s Inclement Weather and Emergency Hotline: 978-867-3600

It is possible that Gordon may cancel day classes but not evening classes. In this situation, a message will be recorded about the status of evening classes on the Graduate Education Emergency Phone Line. During periods of inclement weather, please check Blackboard and your email for a message from your profes-sor about class assignments.

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Master of EducationGordon College

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