ARP Follow Up...The Three Strategies

The 3rd grade math teachers and I met again two weeks after I led a professional development on analyzing test questions and avoiding the distractors.  We went back to the original question: Can adaptations in teaching strategies and interventions improve student performance on 3rd grade math readiness standards?  We then discussed the three strategies that we are implementing to impact student achievement in math.

First, we discussed the dedicated math intervention time that we added to the instructional day.  The teachers admitted that they were resistant to giving 45 minutes of instructional time each morning to interventions, but now feel that it is a worthwhile endeavor.  The teachers and I discussed grouping strategies, monitoring techniques, and tiered approaches that are being utilized.  We all agree that using a data-driven approach to grouping and monitoring is essential to the intervention process.

Next, we discussed the implementation of the lesson on test answer distractors that they planned during the professional development.  They reported that the students enjoyed the "trail and error" needed to find how to arrive at each answer.  Within the lesson, an ability group approach was used to scaffold struggling learners.  The teachers have committed to using warm-up questions in a multiple choice format to reinforce test taking strategies and continue helping students avoid distractors.  They feel that this activity will help students plan and implement the proper steps to solve problems knowing that they will likely get one or more of the answer choices before arriving at the correct answer.

Finally, we discussed research on best practices in teaching fractions.  Educators that have researched curriculum for the common core agree that fractions and number lines are linked in learning and difficulty.  The 3rd grade teachers and I reviewed strategies to teach fractions and decided on ways they would introduce, reinforce, and extend learning on fractions based on current research on mathematics learning.  We went over their planning calendar to find opportunities to add fractions and number lines to their lesson cycles before the first district benchmark even though the curriculum scope and sequence does not address some aspects on these concepts until the second semester.

(Completed October 29, 2013)