How One School Designs Math PLC Time That Actually Shifts Instruction
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Why do many schools struggle to improve math instruction without a clear process?
Many schools want to improve math instruction, but few have a clear process for deciding what to focus on, how to measure progress and how to align professional learning around a shared vision for math instruction. Without that clarity, improvement efforts can quickly become fragmented and difficult to sustain. What does it actually look like to bring an entire math team together and build a plan for improvement from the ground up? Stick with us, because in this episode, we unpack a three-day process we used with a middle and high school math department to co-create a vision for math instruction and build a reliable PLC process that they can use to strengthen instruction and coherence. In this episode, we are going to unpack what a math coherence compass is and why it matters, how to create a vision for ambitious mathematics teaching, why engaging in mathematics together is a critical part of professional learning, how to identify high-level instructional priorities for improvement, and how to monitor those.
Let's get into this practical episode. Let's go.
Welcome to the Making Math Moments That Matter podcast. I'm Kyle Pierce. And I'm John Orr. We are from MakeMathMoments.com. This is the only podcast that coaches you through a six-step plan to grow your mathematics program, whether it's at the classroom level or at home. the district level.
And we do that by helping you cultivate and foster your mathematics program like strong, healthy, and balanced trees. So if you master the six parts of an effective mathematics program, the impact that you're going to have on your teachers, your students will grow and reach far and wide.
Every week you'll get the insight you need to stop feeling overwhelmed, gain back your confidence, and get back to enjoying the planning and facilitating of your mathematics program for the students or the educators that you serve.
Okay, Yvette, we just got back from an in-person visit with one of our school partners, and we spent three days there. This is the beginning of the work from this school, but what we really want to do here today is unpack what did we do with this school, outline it step-by-step, what were the activities we did with this school, who was part of the school, who was part of those activities, so that you have a better picture of how you could design activities and build a math coherence compass for next year. Think about supporting teachers and professional development around certain areas in support of that compass. We want to unpack that for you here today. So get a sense of like what that could look like so that you can design it.
You can strengthen math instruction in your building. And that was, it is a one schooler. So let's get into it. That's the intro. Yvette, where do you want to start?
Let's describe the context for our listeners. So this was a middle school, high school. So we had the opportunity to meet with the teachers, all of the math teachers, the principal and the director. And so that made up, you know, the core team that we were collaborating with over the course of the three days. And you mentioned the compass. And so we've actually done another episode around specifically around this math coherence compass, which is essentially a tool that we help both districts and schools use. develop as a lens through which all decision making is filtered. And we actually designed our three days with them with the ultimate goal of walking away with their compass built. So we were going to fill in, you know, the north, the south, the east, the west, and have all of that information as a guiding source of, you know, all decisions we make around professional development, around curriculum selection.
We're going to look at them through the lens of this co-constructed math compass.
Right.
So the first part of that, of course, is creating our vision for ambitious math teaching and learning in our school.
And just to like go touch on the compass specifically, you know, like having basically It's a guiding filter for, like you said, decision making.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do many schools struggle to improve math instruction without a clear process?
0:00–5:23
2
What is the Math Coherence Compass and how does it guide decision‑making?
5:23–11:16
3
How can a math team co‑create a shared vision for ambitious mathematics teaching?
11:16–16:03
4
What high‑leverage instructional priorities should schools identify first?
16:03–21:02
5
How do look‑fors and success criteria reveal progress toward the vision?
21:02–25:51
6
In what ways can PLCs and collaborative structures be redesigned to support instructional change?
25:51–30:19
7
Why is protecting and structuring PLC time essential for sustainable math improvement?
30:19–35:11
8
How can the Math Coherence Compass be scaled from one school to a district or state level?
35:11–41:29
Speakers
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