Clip 12/18: Quadratic Functions Faculty Debrief - Part B

Phil begins the debrief with a very nice technique. He asks Barbara to take individual think time to write down some highlights and some questions. As Barbara makes her list. Phil also makes his two lists. Then Phil asks Barbara to start with her highlights. After Barbara finishes her first highlight, Phil reinforces how the lesson was successful by citing specific examples of how the students were engaged. Barbara also highlights how students persevered and were highly engaged in the lesson. She talks about how she hoped this would occur because the students were showing signs of acting more independent and improving their small group discussions, and this was new behavior that she hoped would continue to develop. Phil shares his highlights with Barbara about three boys that were working together in the back of the room. He discusses how the group really worked together problem solving in a safe environment. Phil points out that this collaboration was not an accident, implying the work that Barbara had done previously was bearing fruit. Sharing evidence and descriptions of students engaged or not engaged is a powerful technique a coach can use to surface issues and reinforce success. Barbara and Phil dialog about the successes of the group, then they shift to examining student work. Phil provides some topics that could be a lens for looking at student work (who’s right, access, right start, individual understanding, closure, graphic interpretations, and generalization statements). Barbara identifies a piece of work from a group to examine for individual understanding. The group work had limited evidence of erasures. Phil had observed the group and shares his thoughts. The act of sharing information about a set of students by both the teacher and coach can generate new insights, reinforce assumptions, or clarify issues that groups may be struggling with. These coaching conversations raise the level of awareness around issues of teaching and learning. Barbara realizes the sheets the students completed did not show enough of their thinking for her to do an adequate assessment of what they learned. She goes on to suggest that she should have stopped the class with a few minutes left in the period to do a journal write. This would have given her more information to assess their learning. Phil follows up on the idea and helps Barbara work through some journal sentence stems. Phil and Barbara also discuss closure ideas. Barbara reflects on where students were successful (factoring) and where they struggled (finding x-intercepts). She questions how she rolled out the lesson and wonders out loud whether, if she reverses the order the problems appear on the sheet, if that would have helped students see connections earlier. The last major topic of the coaching discussion moves to language issues in the lesson. The students in the class are often English learners and paying attention to language and vocabulary in the lesson is critical. Phil facilitates the discussion, poses some ideas and then lets Barbara discuss the ideas that make sense to her. In the final part of the debrief, the discussion circles back to the mathematics, and Phil asks Barbara to recall why she designed the lesson with a “who’s right” structure and a matching structure. Barbara reflects on the power of these structures. They allow students to work at a high cognitive level critiquing other students’ methods and procedures. They also promote multiple paths and multiple solutions for students to compare.