Small Steps, Big Changes: Eight Essential Practices for Transforming Schools Through Mathematics

by Chris Confer, Marco Ramirez

During the past two decades, Chris Confer and Marco Ramirez have worked to deepen and improve mathematics instruction at schools around the country. Wherever they go, they find the raw ingredients for success already The potential for positive change lies within each school. Abundance is present in the form of capable children, teachers, coaches, and principals. Potential energy -- what can be -- transforms into kinetic energywhat will beonly when a force is accurately applied to move a school in the right direction. In' Small Steps, Big Eight Essential Practices for Transforming Schools Through Mathematics, the authors identify eight tested principles that transform what can be an overwhelming process into a set of comprehensible and concrete steps. Each phase of the change process is brought to life through the stories and perspectives of teachers, coaches, and principalsstories that will strike familiar chords for every educator. When teachers make sense of math, students learn to make sense of math, and that can profoundly change the entire culture of a school. In one vivid illustration, the authors tell the story of Pueblo Gardens Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona, where Marco, as principal, and Chris, as instructional coach, worked alongside a group of dedicated teachers. A few years into the change process, Pueblo Gardens -- a school with 96 percent of its students at the poverty level and a high percentage of English language learners -- had 94 percent of students meeting or exceeding state standards in third-grade mathematics. Over time, other grades achieved similarly high scores. And once the test scores rose, they were sustained at high levels.

Genres: Education, Professional Development, Mathematics

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an elementary school teacher and I would recommend this book to teachers, principals, and coaches who want to transform their school math culture. Each chapter presents a principle with some examples, research, and context. The chapter ends with some practical perspective from a principal, math coach, and classroom teacher.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book with three colleagues as a lesson study of sorts. I was disappointed that it did have more substantive ideas for "transforming" math instruction. It is certainly inspirational, but I felt that I was already substantially in the camp that the book advocates, and so I did not really gain much knowledge from it. However, I may have had a different view from a different perspective. For example, if I were an instructional coach or a principal, I think there would have been some good ideas for getting buy-in for an inquiry-based, problem-centered, conceptual development approach to teaching math. I look forward to talking to my colleagues to find out their opinions.

[Ann Marie Corgill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This past year, thanks to the brilliant math coaches in our district (Lee Ann Davidson and Taajah Witherspoon), I have FINALLY learned how to facilitate math workshop! This book has helped me grow even more as a teacher and learner of mathematics.
We read this book as a district wide book study, and I loved the fact that it shares the perspectives of the administrator, the coach, and the teacher in each chapter....It is a book about math, but it's really a book for everything we teach. I'd recommend it to anyone who's teaching and learning with children every day. Fabulous!

[Kelly Sickle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an easy read. The eight ideas are good. It's always hard to get real solid examples for elementary (or any grade for that matter) with these books because the audience is so wide. I did get some good ideas.