13 minute read
Reimagining Math Acceleration
Tawana Stiff
David Wartowski
Jennifer Webber Likhite
Article
Reimagining Math Acceleration
Where We Were
The harmful impacts our former system of math acceleration had on children were clear well before the pandemic. Students were stressed, racially segregated, and often lost their intrinsic motivation as mathematicians. The system implied that some students are good at math while others are not. Academic risktaking was not encouraged and speed was valued over deep learning.
Over a decade ago, only a small percentage of students would take Geometry in 8th grade. It was a space only for the truly exceptional. Yet by 2019 nearly 20% of our students were moving at this pace—rushing through five years of standards in three years of middle school. A space that once had been intended for the truly exceptional had become normalized for part of the Evanston community.
By 2019, nearly 1 in 3 White students were taking Geometry in 8th grade. Meanwhile, the number of students of color being extended this invitation was roughly 1 in 50.
This system was not only excluding and stigmatizing students of color from what was perceived as the “smart track.” It was also harming mostly White and Asian
students in that very track, implicitly sending them false messages. While unintentional, our former system of acceleration seemed to be implying that students who made the cut were innately academically superior and that being good at math means learning more topics more quickly. would often become too much. The joy of math would vanish, and, ironically, many of our students considered to be “highfliers” would conclude that they weren’t that good at math after all.
Yet parents fought hard to get their children to pass these tests and make this
This system drew a high-stakes line in the sand: you either made it into the advanced track or you didn’t. The decision was made most typically in 5th grade, based on just two scores, and the resulting pathway stayed relatively permanent. Those who made the track stayed there for at least 4-8 years, and those who didn’t, if ever, had a chance for more. Our system had created haves and have nots.
Yet even those who made the cut were losing out in some cases, as evidenced in conversations with families and high school educators. While some students cried or felt dejected for not making the cut, families, and educators would tell us about the tears and anxiety that would often come years later for those that accelerated. The speed and intensity placement. If there was an opportunity for their children, they wanted to seize it. And our system made it so the opportunity came from test scores and alternate placement.
We knew this wasn’t the best for anyone—whether you made the cut or not. Years of our own experience and general expertise in the field of mathematics education agreed: our system needed to change. Opportunity needed to increase for more students, and it had to come in a way that would mitigate the unintended and devastating consequences of our old system.
How We Changed
There is never a wrong time to do the right thing. Yet the reality was that there were barriers that would likely result in
an ongoing and uphill battle between change agents and laggards who had not yet embraced the direction in which the district would inevitably head.
Fortunately, most teachers had already been chipping away at the antiquated methods of challenging students. Just four years prior, they banded together to inform the Board that they wanted to remove the lower level Algebra class that existed at the time. Then, in a survey, we saw that 87% were in favor of revamping the system entirely, stopping the practice of using placement as a means of accelerating learning; 10% remained undecided; and 3% were opposed.
And when schools closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were, along with many other districts, without our typical data. We did not have access to Spring MAP scores and there was no way to reliably administer the internally created Qualifying Exam remotely which was used to place students for the fall.
Without our typical data used for placement, we had only two options.
One was to re-imagine entirely what it means to accelerate students’ learning. Rather than relying on alternate placement, we could address needs through a single pathway for all students. This would require updated materials, lots of educator support, and a mind shift within the community. And, if implemented with fidelity, it could result in inequitable outcomes for all students—regardless of a student’s NWEA RIT quartile.
The other option was to cobble together an imitation of an already-broken system and place students into different courses based on unreliable proxy data, continuing well-intentioned but harmful effects on our children.
The decision became obvious.
With some hesitance still in existence among some key stakeholders, the commitment was to discontinue tracking for one year due to the circumstances and meanwhile to monitor the impact.
This was our shot to show that a reimagined system of acceleration—one that relied on high-quality curriculum and instruction—rather than alternate placement, was not just theoretical. It was actually possible.
Results
The first year, despite a typical implementation dip, showed incredible promise. Student surveys, student interviews, and educators’ stories indicated that students generally felt engaged, challenged, and had a sense of enjoyment in the learning. Moreover,
the achievement scores showed eradication of racial predictability among our growth scores.
In addition, students’ comments about their experience indicated that we were making strides in building a learning culture of student empowerment, centered on our core values around student’s voice, agency, and self-directed learning.
Students’ comments indicated that they were valuing the process of math over getting a
correct answer. Students valued mistakes as an opportunity to learn. Further, students explained that they felt heard and had opportunities to work at an individualized pace.
One concern during this change was that some students would not be adequately challenged. However, only 5.3% of surveyed students disagreed that they had opportunities to engage in challenging work in their math class. And of the 5.3%, three-quarters also reported that they were not choosing to do the most challenging tasks when given the choice. This indicated that just roughly 1% of the total students surveyed were looking for more challenging material above and beyond what was already being offered. Already since that time, we have revised our materials to address the needs of this 1% of students as well.
Accounting for the Impact
The success of year one relied essentially on two aspects:
1. Using a new set of instructional materials that provided the type of problems and learning structure needed for a highly differentiated environment.
2. Creating classroom environments that supported student choice and selfdirected learning.
For the curriculum, the math department landed on Desmos’ new instructional materials, units crafted from Illustrative Math, but with further tweaks and Desmos-ifed lessons that provided impactful learning methods, including immediate feedback, visual interplay, student-to-student dialogue, and public displays of anonymous student thinking. Teachers went through professional development and readied themselves for fall implementation.
For self-directed learning, teachers worked on both technical and adaptive change. regardless of scores.
On the adaptive side, a critical mass of teachers chose to engage in a demanding summer course led by Larry Geni, an expert in self-directed learning. During the course, teachers explored philosophical and practical thinking that would create classroom environments where students had a strong understanding not only of what they were expected to learn, but where they were in that learning process, and their ability to make independent and strong decisions regarding how to advance their learning.
On the technical side, twenty teachers joined a summer project to create a Task Library—tiered by levels of challenge for each lesson. This would empower students to engage in metacognitive processes and then complete tasks that aligned with their current level of understanding, comfort, and accessibility. The tiered task ranged from pause and build, to more practice and ultimately to extension problems. There was a personalized option for all students, All in all, nearly 80% of the math department took part in summer work during the summer of 2020 - a clear sign of the overall commitment of educators to make the change happen. And a reminder that lasting and authentically positive impact is never top-down, but something that grows roots from those who are on the ground.
At a high level, the system is simple. It looks like this:
What happens within the course, however, is where the opportunities exist. In our new structure, each day follows a structure that has two major components: a daily lesson and choice time.
Students have a daily choice to seek additional challenges. No scores are required. And the lessons are built to honor students’ perspectives, creativity, and voice, regardless of background knowledge, offering various points of entry.
At a time where our community wants challenges for their children and needs support with the unfinished learning that is inevitably tied to a year of remote learning, these methods are especially necessary. Yet the techniques transcend the pandemic and offer an avenue where every single student can access learning at the high end of the zone of proximal development every day, accelerating their learning beyond the norm.
Overall, we point to these key ingredients that got us positive results in these early stages of implementation:
• A coalition of teacher leaders supported the change and garnered increasing support along the way
• A superintendent who believed in and deeply supported the vision.
• High-quality instructional materials for the daily lesson, along with strong instructional competence among teachers
• An expansive library of tiered tasks aligned to the learning expectations, allowing space for individual student choices within each math course
• Ongoing monitoring and revision - adjusting practices and structures to work more and more toward our vision
Looking Ahead
While the early results are positive, we are working for the system to grow deeper roots. After knowing only a scarcitybased model of providing acceleration, it can be difficult for some to imagine a model-driven more by moxi and the collective spirit of inclusion, rather than gatekeeping via test scores. It can feel like opportunities were taken away, even when the opportunities have expanded.
Many in the community embraced the change early on. One parent wrote
“Both of my children are obsessed with the curriculum, and my 8th grader’s math grades have never been stronger. We went from teacher conferences fighting with him to get up to a C to have a real conversation with his 8th-grade math teacher about being on target to do an AP math class by senior year.”
Another wrote an email out of the blue that read:
“For far too long there has been this push to go faster rather than deeper in math education. ... I have seen too many bright students who were excited about math placed in an accelerated program and become discouraged over time. I have also seen too many bright students who were excited about math feel bad about themselves because they weren’t placed in the accelerated program. I am so glad that District 65 recognizes that it is better to go deeper and is taking steps to make sure all students do that. ...this is an important change to make.”
Others in the community are mourning a sense of loss and still seeking to learn how their students will keep access to opportunities. Often these are families with an older child that went through the old system, or with a friend whose children did. It can be difficult to understand how the new system is better for all students, not just those who would not have been alternatively placed, but also those who would have been.
Yet for the system to last over time, there must not only be a positive impact for students in the classroom, but there must also be adult understanding that this is genuinely good for all; that this is not a case of “Robinhood”, where assets were taken from some to benefit the rest, but rather a rising tide for all ships, a way of learning that is in the best interest of all children.
While our surveys have not yet been distributed this year, and there are no testing data to which we can refer, already we see the work taking further and further hold. After just three weeks of school this fall, three students came to their teacher at the end of class. “Thank you,” they said. “You kept working with us. We understand this now.” To which the teacher responded, “That’s my job.” And note to herself at that moment that the system designed to accelerate the learning of all students is working. Tawana Stiff attended University of IL in Chicago to earn her Bachelor Degree in Education (2005). In 2008, she received her Masters in Math Education. And inevitably, went on to earn her Ed. S in Educational Technology (2012)—both of the latter degrees were accredited via Walden University. She is also a Desmos Fellow and has 10 years of teacher experience in North Chicago, IL and has been with District 65 since 2015. During her time with District 65, Mrs. Stiff served on the Algebra for All committee that was instrumental in detracking math courses with the end goal of cultivating a learning climate without racially predictable outcomes. The SelfDirected Learning model is something Mrs. Stiff has been integrating into her algebra classes since the 2016-2017 school year to provide accessible entry points to grade appropriate learning goals for all students while simultaneously elevating the onus all students have over their learning trajectory.
David Wartowski is going on his 21st year as an educator, the past 18 having been spent across three districts serving the Evanston-Skokie community as both a teacher and administrator. David’s primary professional passion is mathematics education, seeing the work as an act of social justice. His work has elevated teacher collaboration, improved student performance, and eliminated racial predictability of growth scores. David currently serves as the Director of STEM
for Evanston/Skokie School District 65, overseeing math and science curriculum and education for about 7,700 students, grades PreK to 8.
Jennifer Webber Likhite currently teaches Algebra to middle school students in Evanston, IL where she has been with the district for the past 19 years. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Education from Barat College, and went on to earn her Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Northeastern University. Jennifer has led her school’s math department for over ten years, participated on the committee for Algebra for All, and dedicated time to engage in numerous summer projects that have had a direct impact on her students’ learning. She is also an active member in the community and utilizes her involvement to focus on elevating the voices of women and historically marginalized groups within her classroom.
Julia Woodard has been teaching middle school math for 16 years. She attended The Ohio State University to earn her Bachelors and Masters degree in Math Education (2005). She began her teaching career in Chicago Public Schools then worked at Young Women’s Leadership Charter School before joining the Evanston-Skokie School District in 2011. Julia achieved National Board Certified in middle school math instruction in 2010. Julia has served as a curriculum trainer for the Connected Mathematics Project (CMP). She believes in the mission of self-directed learning and works each day to help students push their learning forward.
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