Samara Booker
ADMS 625: Collaborative Program Paper
TASK-BASED COLLABORATIVE MATHEMATICS PROGRAM
Goal: To build the mathematics skills of all students by engaging them in a taskbased mathematics program that will bridge the gap between conceptual
understanding and procedural understanding of mathematics.
Part 1: Teacher Content Knowledge
Reasoning: Teachers of all students will need to have mastery of the mathematics
content knowledge and pedagogy to be able to successfully facilitate
students' exploration and mastery of mathematics content.
Components:
 All teachers will receive professional development in the following:
- Virginia Standards of Learning
*Beginning of the Year: SOL Overview of Math Strands - Big Ideas
*Quarterly: Grade Level Training According to Pacing Chart - Essential
Skills and Knowledge
*Weekly: Grade Level Math Meetings - Examining Student Work
-Mathematics Resources and Manipulatives - will be included in each training
*utilizing math manipulatives (pros and cons)
*textbooks
*online resources
*TASKS and long-term projects
-Integrating Technology and other Content Areas
Part 2: Pedagogy for Teaching Mathematics
Reasoning: All teachers will gain the pedagogy needed to assess and address students'
individual mathematics needs. The school's mathematics specialist will
provide job-embedded professional development, as well as lead work
sessions with administration and staff.
Components:
 Collaboration looks like, sounds like, results in…
 Differentiating Instruction through Collaborative Teaching
-Inclusive of general education, exceptional education and gifted education
teachers
-Discussions of characteristics of teaching styles within each group
-Examining student IEPs for accomodations
 "Teacher Moves" - What will each teacher do:
-when students understand
-when students do not understand
-to prepare for instruction
 Effective Questioning

-Considering Bloom's Taxonomy
-Posing Questions before, during and after lessons (Rigor-Infused Mathematics
Process Skills Prompts
WORTHWHILE TASKS (creating and choosing)
-Preparing for
-students (groups and individuals)
-teachers (facilitating and being engaged)
-material needs
- Engaging Students
-"Dropping In" to evaluate student-task interactions/discussions
- Assessing tasks
Part 3: Program Evaluation
Reasoning:
To determine the effectiveness of professional developments, teachers'
instruction, and tasks as they relate to student performance data.
Components:
 Rubrics - each math task will be assessed through a rubric that students and
teachers can utilize. Analysis of tasks and student performance will occur at the
completion of each task and will be the focus of collaborative planning meetings.
 Observations
- Co-teachers - by analyzing student work and using analysis to plan for
remediation opportunities and to revamp the tasks
- Principal's Observations - will use a "Look Fors" checklist for mathematics taskbased instruction
- Student Assessment Data - School-based bi-weekly assessments, Quarterly
district mandated assessments
PROGRAM SUMMARY
A Task-Based Collaborative Mathematics Program will be implemented at
each grade level.
The goal of the program is to increase student achievement by
implementing a program of mathematics instruction that utilizes the strengths and skill
sets of all teachers to meet the needs of all students. The program will engage students in
concept-based mathematics tasks that will build students' conceptual and procedural
understanding of mathematics. This three-part program will include all teachers of every
program, general education, exceptional education and gifted education. School
administration is vital to the success of the program, so they will attend sessions to learn
how to observe mathematics instruction in a task-based classroom.
The first part of the program will focus on building teachers' mathematics
content knowledge.
This phase of the program will be implemented continuously
throughout the school year, as teachers participate in job-embedded and work session
style professional developments. General education, exceptional education and gifted
education teachers will participate in professional development devoted to their
understanding of the Virginia State Math Standards. During these trainings, teachers will
delve deeply into the SOLs and the essential skills and knowledge necessary for mastery.
These trainings will create opportunities for teachers who work with students of diverse
academic and language abilities to collaborate on strategies that work best for their
students and strategies that have not been successful. Opening this dialogue is the first
step in having teachers open up to the collaborative process and increase their knowledge
of math content.
The second part of the program will be devoted what this collaborative
mathematics program will look like to an observer. Cook and Friend (1995) described
collaboration between educators as voluntary interaction where all members'
contributions are valued, the decision-making and accountability for results is shared, and
the goal is clear. In this situation, the common goal is student achievement. This phase
of the collaborative mathematics program focuses on implementing collaboration
strategies that will engage teachers in planning together, co-facilitating instruction,
analyzing student data and most importantly using research-based methods aimed at
increasing student achievement.
The second part of the program also determines the way in which teachers
will interact with each other and with students. Training, during this phase, will be jobembedded and through work sessions facilitated by the school's mathematics specialist.
Teachers will work on creating tasks and planning lessons that will engage and meet the
needs of all students, and therefore examining students' IEPs will be a part of the process.
Teachers of exceptional education and ELL will lead this part of the collaboration and the
mathematics specialist will lend expertise on how to work with specific math aids
available according to IEP accommodations. Teachers will plan for the use of these
manipulatives with all students to increase their understanding of math concepts.
Teachers of gifted students will enrich the planning sessions by giving knowledge of the
project-based program they utilize. This is the true intent of collaborative teaching which
according to Pliner, Iuzzini, and Banks (2011) is to train teachers to use their expertise to
maximize the work they will do together. As every teacher is lending their educational
expertise and personal experiences, the hope is that every teacher will take ownership and
accountability for the success of the instruction. With increased accountability, teachers
will be more likely to ensure that tasks have entry points for learners at each stage of
understanding.
This will increase the likelihood that students will stay engaged
throughout tasks and come away with increased understanding of skills and concepts.
One of the most important aspects of this program is developing the tasks
and developing the ways in which the program will be monitored and evaluated.
Utilizing rubrics to evaluate student progress and to determine if specific tasks are
worthwhile will be vital to the success of this program. Collaborating teachers will not
only create the rubrics for each task, but they will dedicate planning time to evaluate the
effectiveness of the tasks, the rubrics and students' progress. Because each collaborating
teacher will be actively involved in the planning and delivery of instruction, they will
each have a perspective to share as tasks and rubrics are modified to meet the needs of
students with disabilities and language barriers. It is important that administrators are
involved in these planning sessions, so that they are aware of each teacher's role in the
planning and delivery of instruction. A checklist of "Look Fors" will be developed with
input from the building administrators. This checklist will encompass best practice
strategies for every classroom, specific evaluating points identified on the district's
teacher observation form as well as key teacher moves seen in the collaborative
classroom.
A few collaborative teacher moves that should be observed in every
classroom are effective questioning and teacher interaction with all students.
In a
collaborative classroom, each teacher should be questioning and interacting with all
students, not just specific groups. Questioning and teacher interactions with students are
indicators on the district's observation form and should be included as indicators on the
principal's "Look Fors" checklist. Planning with the administrators with the awareness
that they are informed of the program and will be monitoring is vital to the success of the
program. This supports the ideas suggested by Dynak, Whitten and Dynak (1997), that a
collaborative setting needs an organizational structure that consists of personal and
administrative commitment, management and coordination to be successful.
Once the collaborating teachers and the administrators understand their role
and the accountability measures are in place, the program can be implemented.
ADDENDUM: FOLLOWING CONVERSATION WITH PRINCIPAL
The collaborative mathematics program that was developed was presented as a
class assignment, but has since become a plan of action for next school year. My
principal sees the value in making changes in the mathematics program after observing
our students struggle with math concepts on each grade level. When we sat down to
discuss the program, she voiced concerns with teacher buy-in and time constraints. She
felt as though a program of this nature would mean that some teachers would have to
completely change their teaching habits. We both agreed that this is true, and she asked
if I knew of any school in our district that is successfully using collaborative teaching
practices. We agreed that we both would ask around the district because being able to
send our teachers to observe teachers collaborating and seeing it resulting in increased
student achievement would be the most impactful form of buy-in. Until then, we agreed
that providing teachers with recertification points for devoting their school-based and off
the clock time planning for the implementation of the now math program. She suggested
that there might be a way to pay teachers who agree to work on the plan and engage in
some of the training sessions during the summer. She said that funds for that money
would depend on the government sequestration.
My principal felt as though the program could be accomplished as it has been
written provided more details were provided. She felt there might be scheduling issues if
our enrollment increases and our exceptional education teachers are asked to handle
students in multiple grade levels. Currently, there is an exceptional education teacher
assigned to each grade level. She felt that increasing teachers' content knowledge and
increasing the amount of time that teachers collaborate would have a positive impact on
student achievement.
She felt as if it would have a positive impact on classroom
management as well. The phrase she used was that this type of program would "put
everybody on the same page" with teaching math and "level the playing ground" for our
students.
This is exactly what the program is intended to do.
The program sets
expectations for math instruction by pairing research-based math instructional practices
with research-based collaboration strategies. We agreed that if the time is committed to
its implementation, then the program would be a huge step towards increasing
achievement for all students, especially those with disabilities.
Our school is one of the schools that will be closing at the end of this school year.
Therefore, it is not feasible for the full program to be implemented. However, my
principal felt it would be great to plan for next school year. Currently, I serve as the
mathematics specialist for the school. It is my first year at the school, and I have placed a
lot of effort into building relationships with teachers and providing them with a watereddown version of job-embedded professional development of effective math instructional
strategies for all learners. It was suggested by my principal that this school year served
as the bridge to transition our teachers from isolated and traditional math instruction to
collaborative practices. I agree. Going forth, she gave me the assignment of speaking
with my central office Instructional Specialist to request a site for our summer training
sessions. I hope that she will stay committed to the process and we help guide our
teaching staff to using our strengths to build a collaborative program that will improve
our all of our students' mathematics performance.
References
Cook, L., & Friend, M. (1995). Co-teaching: Guidelines for creating effective practices.
Focus on Exceptional Children, 28(3), 1-16.
Dynak, J., Whitten E., and Dynak, D. (1997). Refining the general education student
teaching experience through the use of special education collaborative teaching
models. Action in Teacher Education, 19:1, 64-74.
doi:10.1080/01626620.1997.10462855
Pliner, S. M., Iuzzini, J. and Banks, C. A. (2011). Using an intersectional approach to
deepen collaborative teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2011:
43-51.doi: 10.1002/tl.432