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

      With so much mathematics content to learn, your team’s planning of units helps your team to ensure a guaranteed and viable mathematics curriculum within your grade level and across grades preK–2. Planning the units together to more deeply learn your own grade-level content and its importance in the primary grade trajectory builds teacher team self-efficacy.

       Connections Between Mathematics Content and Unit Planning

      For each mathematics unit in your grade level, you support your team’s progress toward better understanding of the standards that support the guaranteed and viable mathematics curriculum. Together, you and your team use the Mathematics Unit Planner in figure 1.2 (page 11) to record answers to the following questions.

      • What exactly do students need to know and be able to do in this unit?

      • Which mathematics standards should we commonly assess? When?

      • How does the mathematics learning in this unit connect to the standards students must learn in previous or future units?

      • Which academic mathematics vocabulary and notations must students learn to read, write, and speak in the unit to be proficient with the standards?

      • What are examples of higher- and lower-level-cognitive-demand mathematical tasks students should be able to demonstrate proficiency with if they have learned the standards?

      • Which mathematical tools or technology should students learn or utilize to demonstrate an understanding of the standards in the unit?

      Answering these questions as a team creates more equitable student learning experiences from one teacher to the next. Additionally, developing your teacher efficacy strengthens your instructional practices. Consequently, student learning improves because your entire team is working to ensure each student learns the organized mathematics content from one unit to the next.

      Chapter 2 provides tools and protocols that help your preK, kindergarten, first-, or second-grade mathematics team unpack standards in the unit and learn how to intentionally address each unit-planning element as you develop your mathematics story arc for the school year.