Math Engagement Team at Frey Elementary since 2023

After interviewing my assistant principal, I learned that my school has several different types of PLNs. There were two that caught my eye were the data team and the math engagement team. I learned that as a part of the data team, my job is to represent the fourth grade and meet the second Tuesday of each month to discuss assessment trends across the school. I am required to bring grade level assignments and discuss the trends that I see and how we can improve the scores and what must be done vertically as a school to ensure students are successful.

The Math Engagement Team meets every third Tuesday to discuss the new Georgia math standards and what can be done vertically to ensure students are successful in math. They also share ideas and strategies to remediate and extend students. The math teachers who attend also discuss different programs that students can use to reinforce what they are learning in the classroom.

My plan for the Math Engagement team is to discuss current trends in math that I see in my classroom. I also plan on discussing the technology programs that I use in my class, such as zearn and 99 Math, to reinforce the math concept that I am teaching in my room. I plan on bring student work samples, so that I can better explain what I am seeing in the classroom.

After attending the Math Engagement team, I realized that the team focuses on the new math standards and what resources teachers need and what prior knowledge students need before each concept is taught. We also discussed the school wide trend of student who are struggling with addition and subtraction and best practices to close the gap.

After reflecting on my participation in the Math Engagement Team, I realized that it was useful for planning how I am teaching the math standards next year and how I can improve my instruction this year. At every meeting, the Math team leaders would break down one math concept by grade and talk about the different strategies that we teach our students. We also discussed what manipulative we used and the different technologies that we use to extend of remediate our students. The last meeting that I participated in we went vertically by grade to see the growth in addition and subtraction. We also broke down the new math standards and talked about how different strategies are developmentally appropriate for kindergarten might not be appropriate for fourth grade.