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Saturday, October 17, 2015

The Ins and Outs of Go Math: Post 1 of 4

The Ins and Outs of Go Math: Post 1 of 4   

    A lot of followers have reached out to us in hopes of getting a better understanding of the Go Math Program. For Melissa and I, this is our 4th year using Go Math. Go Math is a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt CCSS Aligned program for grades K-8. This program has many, many aspects to it: both printed resources and online tools. Since so many teachers have shown an interest and appreciation in our Data Binders, additional centers or simply just reaching out for help and guidance, we figured we would write a post on how we execute this program and make it all fit!
    This post is part of a 4 series Blog Post on: Go Math. This post is about the overall structure of your Go Math block. Our next post will be on Gathering, Analyzing and Using Student Data for Go Math (with freebies included!!), lastly Organizing and Managing Center/Small Group Time and GoMath Resources: What are they all about?.
    This post is a very basic overview of scheduling! Each grade level is a little bit different and with the new GoMath updated version, each section of your book might be named a little bit differently. For this reason, we tried to keep our sectioned area names general.
             Our math block is one hour. Below is a typical schedule for each mini lesson:

5-10 Minutes: Problem of the Day
15 Minutes: Mini Lesson
10 Minutes: Independent Practice
25 Minutes: Centers/Small Group Time


Now, to get a little deeper!

    Problem of the Day: A problem of the day, in it's very nature, is designed to be quick and a review. It can easily displayed on the Smartboard as students use the Math Work Boards to complete it. Your problem of the day time should not exceed 10 minutes. Ideally students should be working on their own during this time followed by a quick whole class review of the answer.

    Mini Lesson: The first 1-2 pages of each lesson typically completes the mini lesson. Start with the first page: Listen and Draw, Unlock the Problem, Investigate. It all depends on your grade level. Based off of YOUR kids' needs determine whether this will be done in their books or will it be more effective to be completed as a whole class. Ahead of time determine manipulatives needed so you are prepared.Your Mini Lesson is the time when students need to be MOST engaged, so use what you know about your students to help them grasp this concept: hands on learning, coloring, manipulatives, smartboard tools etc. Then move your students along to the Share and Show. At this point you are slowly beginning to transition students to independently completing these problems. Guide students through the Share and Show and encourage "math talk" among small groups or partners they sit near. Walk around and listen to informally assess their understanding of the concept, vocabulary etc and address any misconceptions before moving on to independent practice. Review the share and show as a whole class.

Independent Practice: This is where you will be able to gather the most information from your students and determine individual understanding.  During independent practice, look for trends and patterns among your students. This time is crucial. We suggest not pulling small groups during this time. Truly use it to collect data: Who is completely lost? Who needs just a quick reinforcement? Who got it right away?

Centers: After students are mostly finished with their independent practice, call ALL students to the your meeting area even if they did not finish. Have students leave their books on their desks opened so that I can mark it, referred to or easily access it during small group time. Quickly recap your center choices  and send your kids off. Take the first 5 minutes to be sure everyone is where they should be and mark student work.

    Once centers are (fingers crossed) running "smoothly" (is there ever such a thing?!), begin to call your students back to meet with you in a small group. Our suggestion is to start with the students who are teetering on needing support and being able to independently apply the concept. Quickly review the independent practice with them and do 1-2 additional problems with them to get a better understanding of their mastery level. This extra 5 minutes is often all those students need to be able to better understand the skill they just learned. From there, call back your most struggling students.  This time is when you provide them intense intervention on the skills they are lacking in order to master the skill taught. Sometimes this may look like more practice on the lessons, however sometimes this may be working on prerequisite skills they are lacking. Ideally, you want to spend the most time with them.

    Go Math is a phenomenal program that has truly shown to be effective in our school district. Sometimes we find ourselves looking at a lesson objective/strategy and saying: Seriously?! But there is a true method behind Go Math's scope and sequence. Seeing the progression of student understanding over the past 4 years has been very encouraging.

    This program can be quite overwhelming as many of you have expressed. Our suggestion is: start slow and simple. You cannot master this program in a chapter or even a year. There are a plethora of wonderful resources, but trying to apply and learn them all right from the start is TOO MUCH. Start with getting yourself comfortable with your Go Math Block flow. Each 1-2 chapters, attempt to learn something new: Itools, Soar to Success, Online Assessments, Mega Math. You HAVE to go at a pace comfortable for you or you will quickly begin to drown. Slow and steady wins the race. 4 years later and Melissa and I are both still learning things about this program that we never have used or knew about before! Be kind to yourself!

If you teach first grade be sure to check out our TPT Store and look at our Go Math Centers with differentiation for each lesson!  As per request, we are currently working on creating and posting Kindergarten centers!