Mathematics Unit Planning in a PLC at Work®, Grades PreK-2. Timothy D. Kanold

elements, assessments, and tasks used)

      3. How will we respond if they don’t know it? (formative assessment processes)

      4. How will we respond if they do know it? (formative assessment processes)

      As your collaborative team pursues the deep work, remember it all begins with a robust and well-planned response to PLC critical question 1 (What do we want all students to know and be able to do?). That is the focus of our grades preK–2 unit planning book.

      We want to help you plan for and answer the first question for each mathematics unit, grade level, and student. We wish you the best in your mathematics teaching and learning journey, together

      PART 1

      Mathematics Unit Planning and Design Elements

       Creating a guaranteed, viable curriculum is the number-one factor for increased levels of learning.

      — Robert J. Marzano

       PART 1

      As your prekindergarten, kindergarten, first-, or second-grade team clarifies what students will learn in mathematics at each grade level, it brings a laser-like focus to the content and processes students must learn in each unit throughout the year. Your team clarifies the depth of learning required for students to become proficient with the mathematics standards, and you and your team members build a shared understanding of the content students must learn in each unit of study. Together, you determine the mathematics your team must teach and assess throughout each unit.

      The action of intentional planning as a team for student learning of mathematics on a unit-by-unit basis develops your individual and team collective teacher efficacy.

      Working together with your colleagues as a collaborative mathematics team, you erase the inequities in student learning expectations that otherwise could exist across a grade level or course. Together, you and your team determine what students must know and be able to do. Then, your team does the work to ensure every student learns through the agreed-on, high-quality instruction, common assessments, and formative assessment processes. Your team recognizes the many challenges inherent to students learning robust mathematics standards and takes collective responsibility to close gaps and extend learning as needed.

      To erase inequities and ensure grade-level learning of mathematics for each student, your primary-level team begins with an agreed-on guaranteed and viable curriculum for mathematics. Your team works to ensure students learn identified essential mathematics standards within the school year.

      On a unit-by-unit basis, your team builds a shared understanding of the essential mathematics standards students must learn. PLC experts and coauthors Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Thomas W. Many, and Mike Mattos (2016) explain that your shared understanding will:

      • Promote clarity among your colleagues about what students must learn

      • Ensure consistent curricular priorities among colleagues

      • Help develop the common pacing required for effective common assessments

      • Ensure the curriculum is viable (that you can teach in the allotted time)

      • Create ownership among all teachers required to teach the intended curriculum

      It might be surprising, but in a PLC at Work, teacher teams build mathematics units from the standards, not from the chapters in a textbook. Too often, textbooks include more learning than your state or province may require, or the textbooks may be missing content that you need to supplement to better match the standards and local curriculum expectations. Thus, your team starts with making sense of the standards students must learn in each unit of study, and then utilizes the most effective resources for teaching and learning.

      Part 1 consists of two chapters. Chapter 1 (page 9) describes the mathematics content and skills students must learn in grades preK–2. Your team’s work begins by understanding what mathematics students must learn in each of the primary grades, preK, K, 1, and 2. Chapter 2 (page 15) provides protocols and tools your grade-level collaborative team can use to plan for the student learning each mathematics unit requires. Together, your team’s understanding of the mathematics content students must learn and your framework for units allows for a backward-design approach to ensuring every student learns mathematics.

CHAPTER 1

      Planning for Student Learning of Mathematics in Grades PreK–2

      Mathematics is a conceptual domain. It is not, as many people think, a list of facts and methods to be remembered.

       –Jo Boaler

      The first critical question of a PLC is, What do we expect all students to know and be able to do? (DuFour et al., 2016). As your collaborative team successfully answers this question for each unit of study, members build a common understanding of the mathematics students learn in your grade level. What is the mathematics story that unfolds as student learning progresses from one mathematics unit to the next? How do the units fit together and build on one another within and across the primary grades from preK to second grade?

       Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum

      Your preK, kindergarten, first-, or second-grade team effectively backward plans the year by grouping essential mathematics standards into units to create the guaranteed and viable mathematics curriculum students must learn. The order in which you teach the mathematics units provides the framework for your grade-level mathematics story. Within each unit, your daily lessons create the beginning, middle, and end for that part of the story.

      Thus, evidence of your team’s guaranteed and viable curriculum includes (1) a yearlong pacing plan of standards and benchmarks throughout the year of spiraled standards (proficiency map or pacing guide), (2) unit plans, and (3) daily lessons. The graphic in figure 1.1 illustrates these three areas of team planning for a mathematics guaranteed and viable curriculum.

      Figure 1.1: Mathematics guaranteed and viable curriculum plan.

      Together, the mathematics units of study tell the story of the primary grade-level standards teachers expect students to learn throughout the year and from one year to the next.

      As figure 1.1 (page 9) shows, your grade-level team’s guaranteed and viable curriculum is first defined by a district yearlong pacing guide or proficiency map (showing a time line for student proficiency with each mathematics standard). Your team then determines a time frame appropriate to each mathematics unit, typically two to four weeks in duration in the primary grades. This process eliminates the potential risk of running out of time and skipping units or essential standards that fall at the end of the year.

      If your collaborative team does not have a yearlong plan with standards in clearly defined units, see appendix A (page 137), “Create a Proficiency Map,” for additional support. Helping each teacher on your team become comfortable with the progression of mathematics units throughout the school year will support your students’ understanding of the mathematics