Co-teaching, Co-learning, Co-growing

As part of Dorset Park's pathway, the teachers and admin have decided to take a more focused approach to their math pathway.  Since the division is small (3 teachers, 2 with split grades) they have opted to do co-teaching as a way to learn more about math, and to focus in on key ideas and strategies to help students in their classrooms.

Cathy teaches a 2/3 class.  Herself and the other 2/3 teacher each "swap" to have a grade in math.  Cathy teaches the straight Grade 3 class.  For our co-teaching session, we decided to do a pre-assessment task in graphing to see what the students could remember from previous years and help give Cathy some data on what the needs of her students were.  The lesson was structured in a three-part lesson format: Minds On:  Create a Line plot on eye colour in our classroom;

 Action: Compare our data to that from another class (we modified a task in the text to help us accomplish this) and discuss similarities and differences,

and then to Consolidate we made a Venn Diagram with the similarities and differences listed.

Our blackboard after our lesson.

When the lesson was done, Cathy and I had the rest of the morning available to do some moderated marking, and give descriptive feedback to each of the students.  Using the A 4 L tool during the lesson was also helpful as it gave us a starting point for discussion.  We recorded the feedback we gave her marker students on a specific "Marker Student Feedback" sheet that was shared by George, a current Teaching and Learning Coach who was a SWST teacher last year.  This helps us to have specific information about her marker students, and allows her to easily track their progress over the course of the year. 

When we were done giving descriptive feedback, we then sorted the steps for improvement into different categories. 

What we noticed was that there were four main areas that the students needed help with:
a) Organizing their answer;
b) Answering all parts of the question;
c) Using numbers to help justify their answers; and
d) Incorporating appropriate math vocabulary into their answer.

From these areas, Cathy is now able to begin teaching her unit with the needs of her students in mind.  She is able to plan her lessons around these ideas, and help the students become successful in meeting the expectations for this grade.