Wednesdays are early dismissal days at Des Moines Public Schools to accommodate regular professional development for teachers. But more than 90 elementary teachers around the district have been staying after school too this year to enrich their math instruction in a series of monthly workshops.
Jenni Krieger is the DMPS Elementary Math Curriculum Coordinator and she was instrumental in the procurement of a $200,000 Math & Science Partnership grant from the Iowa Department of Education that’s funding Project TASK throughout the 2017-18 school year.
“We had 150 teachers sign up in the first 24 hours of offering it and we could only take 90,” Krieger said while preparing for a recent session.
The partners implied by the grant’s name are Heartland AEA (in the persons of Julie Hukee and Molly Sweeney), Drake University (Professor Tonia Land) and DMPS (Jenny Johnson – 1st grade teacher at Jefferson, Barb Leise – K-1 teacher at Downtown School, and Krieger).
In 2015, Johnson, Sweeney and Land co-authored a math book (Transforming the Task with Number Choice) aimed at 1st-3rd graders that was published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, so their reps are well-established as PD presenters.
On a recent Monday afternoon, the 4th and 5th grade teachers filed into a conference room at the district administrative offices on Fleur Drive. Their K-1 and 2-3 colleagues met at different sites.
After a full day at the helm of their classrooms, where they’re caught in the frightening throes of fractions, they grabbed snacks and settled in for a few hours of afterschool collaboration.
“Through Project TASK, teachers are able to engage in shared learning about rich mathematical tasks and upcoming math skills and concepts,” said Krieger. “Project TASK has allowed us to see the power in posing rich math tasks to students, and is helping transform our classrooms to student-centered and student-led spaces.”
That last notion about student-centric classrooms is fundamental to the Schools for Rigor instruction and learning model the district started transitioning to a year ago.
The grant runs out at the end of the year, but the work of Krieger & Co. won’t end then.
“We are putting together a website with our PD information, textbook resources, and banks of rich math tasks for grades K-5, complete with tasks that align to the Iowa core standards, student work, and perhaps videos of teachers exploring or reflecting on the tasks,” Krieger said. “It’s scaling up statewide.”
While the Fleur group shifted gears from teacher to student on Monday, munching their snacks and chatting with colleagues from other schools, Krieger posted a brainteaser on the screen at the front of the room for them to ponder, like calisthenics for a team warming up before drills. It was all about a bowl of fruit. If apples = X and grapes = Y, how many oranges and bananas do we have, and who wants them?
Something like that – fruit for thought.