December 20, 2023 – Middle and elementary school math professionals gathered in the auditorium at Northland High School to learn from one of the best, even if he is from that state up north.
“December's math content meeting with Kevin Dykema was eye-opening and engaging,” said third grade teacher and math content lead Brandi Slauter. “He led us to see the connection to using robust math content vocabulary from the elementary level to high school. His PD made me think of how important my role as an elementary math teacher is for high school teachers. Kevin Dykema was inspiring!”
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) President Kevin Dykema, came to present current information about math classrooms, as well as discuss productive struggle for students in the classroom.
In his book, “Productive Math Struggle,” Dykema discusses how struggling helps students learn and grow into strong mathematicians. He believes a teacher’s job is not to remove the struggle of math, but rather to value and harness the subject to help students develop good habits of productive struggle.
“One of my takeaways from the presentation is that we should not be afraid to see our students struggle,” said second grade teacher and math content lead Felicia Fant. “There are steps we can take to plan for the struggle, so the struggle is productive. At the end of the struggle, we want our students to walk away with a sense of growth, understanding, and confidence.”
The CCS curriculum department meets with content leads and department chairs every month. Last year, the department invited a speaker to discuss learning trajectories. This year, they brought Dykema to speak with teachers as part of their focus on the classroom.
By progress monitoring grades four to six, the District hopes to reach its goal of increasing seventh grade math proficiency.
“The 'Effective Teaching Practices' highlighted by NCTM are relevant for all math teachers,” said Elementary Curriculum Supervisor Pamela Artrip. “The focus is on successful strategies that build conceptual understanding.”
Elementary Curriculum Educator Deborah Nase said she chose Dykema to speak in front of CCS educators because he focuses on the need to continuously provide high-quality mathematics for every student.
“In his statement for candidacy for NCTM President-
Elect he spoke about equity and how NCTM addresses these disparities,” Nase said. “His work fits into many of our CCS priorities.”
Throughout the evening, Dykema challenged educators to create more engagement and dialogue in their classrooms.
“For many of us [in math class], there was no student-to-student dialogue,” Dykema said. “We were sitting in straight rows, dead silent, while the teacher talked the entire time. When the teacher would ask ‘Does everybody understand?’ you would nod your head yes – whether you knew what was going on or not.”
Every educator in attendance received free copies of Dykema’s book, a new tool in their toolbox to implement in their math classrooms. He hopes his book will help teachers to encourage engaging discussions in their classrooms.
“Silence does not mean engaged,” Dykema said. “In math, we must, we must, we must continue to increase the amount of discourse in the classroom to get students engaged.”
