We have just completed a video about teachers working to improve math instruction using improvement science – a methodology that uses disciplined inquiry to solve specific problems in practice.
The Better Math Teaching Network brings together teachers, instructional coaches, district leaders, researchers, and improvement science experts to examine critical pieces of math instruction. “We are really interested in figuring out how teachers can transform their instruction to become more student- centered,” says Kirk Walters of American Institutes for Research, one of the network coordinators.
The analysis run deep but has immediate applications in teaching. “I’ve been able, over the last school year, to implement a change that was trying to get my students to be more confident in expressing themselves in the math classroom,” says Boston math teacher Francis Pina. “And through doing many iterations of that, not only did my students get more comfortable in giving each other feedback and talking about the math, but I had started seeing that their conversations were getting richer and that was just through evidence I collected.”
The video and the network are sponsored by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
