Building Thinking Classrooms Toolkit 1

The first toolkit in the Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) Framework consists of three practices that need to be implemented simultaneously, rather than sequentially.  They are:

1. Give thinking tasks
2. Frequently form visibly random groups 
3. Use vertical non-permanent surfaces

In Building Thinking Classrooms Peter Liljedahl states that "If we want our students to think, we need to give them something to think about - something that will not only require thinking but also encourage thinking."  In math classrooms this starts with highly engaging, non-curricular tasks (aka low floor-high ceiling tasks).  Liljedahl also emphasizes that we have to "go slow at first, in order to go fast."  This makes sense and also ties into what Sarah Carter wrote about in 2018 that we have to communicate with students from day one that "we do math everyday."  BTC has some great tasks after most chapters, so I think my next step, as I begin to think about the first few weeks of school is to do them myself.  The nice thing about NYC schools having one of the latest back to school dates in the country is that so many fellow MTBoS teachers have already started doing this with students.  A challenge I am anticipating is that using non-routine interesting problems for the first week or two of school is how I usually start the school year, and students seem to really enjoy them, and then the switch gets flipped and we start our first traditional unit, I think, for the most part, students (and parents) kind of expect that, but if I am committed to building a thinking classroom, I need to stop worrying about the curriculum.  Math is about problem solving, and problem solving takes time and can get messy.  In addition to the non-curricular tasks that are suggested in the book, I hope to use some from Sigma, Olympiad & MathCounts competitions, which my students have participated in since 6th grade as well of the problem solving resources that I have gotten through my MfA PLTs.

Forming visibly random groups is another practice that I tend to start the school year with.  My favorite method is to use two deck of cards (one with a card taped to each student desk, in groups) and hand the corresponding cards from the other deck to students as they walk into the classroom each day, so that they are not sitting in the same seats the first few days.  I have also done this my having each of my groups be labeled with a different Greek letter/symbol (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Theta, Pi & Sigma) and then handing each student a card with one of the symbols on it as they walk into the classroom.  My worry this year, is that last year, desks had to be in rows, 6 feet apart and sharing supplies was not allowed.  We are on track to start this year with 100% of students back in the classroom, but I worry about whether or not grouping will be allowed.  Also, again, this was a practice I would do during the first week or or so of school, until I created a seating chart, and if I am committed to BTCs, I will need to keep this practice up beyond September.

Lastly is using vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) in my classroom.  I dabbled with something similar to this at my previous school a few years ago when I was trying out 360 Degree Math.  One of the things I love about MfA besides the pizza (at least when we could physically go there in person) was that almost every wall was a VNPS).  Unfortunately my classroom (on the 5th floor of a building with no elevator and no working AC) has a wall of lockers on one side and windows on the other, and the two walls that could be used for VNPs aren't really set up for it.  The other very real problem to consider is that in a typical school year, my students would come to my classroom, and last year, it was the teachers that traveled between classrooms, so I taught in several different classrooms, all with different set ups.  We don't have official guidance yet on whether students or teachers will be traveling, so this is something I have to really think about.  Based on what I've seen from other teachers Wipebook seems to be really popular.  Luckily being in MfA I get $2000 to spend on classroom supplies, so the money isn't an issue, although I would really only like to buy one class set instead of three or more, depending on how many different classrooms I will be teaching in this year. 

Slowly Getting Ready for the 2021-2022 School Year

I always have so many mixed feelings about this time of year.  We have been on summer break for seven glorious weeks now and have a little less than four weeks left before the school year starts up again.  Never has a summer break been more necessary than after the 2020-2021 school year.  I get exhausted even thinking about last school year & hope I never have to teach both in-person & via Zoom *at the same time* ever again.  I'm still not sure how we got through it all!  As we slowly begin to gear up for the 2021-2022 school year, there are a lot of mixed feelings... more than usual.  There is the usual excitement & hope that a new school year brings, but there is also a lot of fear & so many unknowns.  We know that the upcoming school year will not be a "typical" school year and we also know it won't be exactly like last school year, which makes planning for the upcoming school year challenging.  Something I am grateful for this upcoming year is that I will still have the support of the MfA community as I begin my second Master Teacher Fellowship.  In preparation for the new school year, I read Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl, after seeing so much buzz for it on the MTBoS, and it did not disappoint!  So many practical ideas about shifts we can make in our classrooms to support students in thinking about mathematics, all backed up with real classroom experience.

My 2021-2022 school year mantra: "...the goal of building #thinkingclassrooms is not to find engaging tasks for students to think about. The goal... is to build engaged students that are willing to think about any task." - @pgliljedahl #mtbos #iteachmath #mathchat #msmathchat

— Anna (@ampacura) July 27, 2021

While reading each chapter, I found myself saying "Yes!  I need to do this!"  After the insanity of last school year (and for the first time in my career, not being totally excited to go back to who knows what last summer, it was nice to be excited about all the ideas in Building Thinking Classrooms, which tie into so many aspects of education that I have always wanted to grow in - from building a classroom environment that is more authentic in doing real mathematics (and more engaging to students), to implementing equitable grading practices that support students in their math learning.

As exciting as it was to read and highlight the heck out of my copy of Building Thinking Classrooms, and tell myself that I am going to 100% jump into this (which is very easy to say when the school year is still 3+ weeks away) I am nervous, that like so many other past ambitious goals for the upcoming school year, it will fizzle out, as the year goes on.  The good news is that since I am starting my second MfA fellowship this summer, I hope I can use that to motivate me to blog more on here and share my learning experience, both the successes and challenges in building my thinking classroom this year and hope I can use this space to hold myself accountable in trying new things and not letting this opportunity go.

The Building Thinking Classrooms Framework consists of fourteen factors that have been found to improve thinking in the math classroom (see the image on the right), in that order (1-3, 4-8, 9-11, and then 12-14), with each group being referred to as a toolkit.  In order to be thoughtful in my reflection (and not to overwhelm myself) I think I am going to break up each toolkit into a separate blog post.

Lastly, I want to begin to formally think about my 2021-2022 goals.  Sarah Carter of Math Equals Love recently posted her 2020-2021 goals update and back in January of this year, I reflected on my own 2020-2021 goals on here.  Here are my 2021-2022 goals so far.  They are still very much a work in progress, but I decided to make the first four goals the Building Thinking Classrooms toolkits.  I am going into my fifteenth year teaching, and like any good teacher, I want to get better at what I do, and I am excited to improve the Building Thinking Classroom practices that I already do, and implement the others.  Part of my involvement in MfA this year will also co-facilitating a year-long professional learning team on formative assessment lessons and the TRU Framework.  I think my goal of building a thinking classroom ties in really well with the TRU Framework and I am really excited to do this work!