Hi. Thanks for the overview of the project. Are the activities used with the teachers the same ones they will use with EL students? How will teachers be supported as they begin to implement the ideas in their classrooms?

Gerry: good to hear from you. We are still in first-year design of the VAM course, getting ready for pilot beginning in August. The mathematics activities we intend to use will be of both types: teachers-only and teachers-students. The latter will be used, in good part, to gather EL student-work artifacts, for use in analysis in the course. Implementation supports will include lesson/activity planning routines, several sets of guidelines on introducing visual representations and language support/production strategies, and, we hope, some online support from peers.
Regards,
Mark

Very timely project as teachers need to develop skills to support all students, especially those developing academic English language. You mentioned in the video that you will incorporate strategies for language access and language production, I was wondering what are these strategies and how are they integrated in the mathematical tasks/activities.

We were very excited to see that you, too, are using both the multiple batches and variable parts perspectives on proportional relationships. We are also using both perspectives with preservice middle grades and secondary grades teachers. Have you found differences in what is more and less accessible to teachers when using each of the perspectives?

Andrew, Sybilla, and Torrey

Truth be told, we have been strongly influenced by your thoughtful and thought-provoking JRME article. That said, we are still in first-year design mode, with feedback from a group of Maine and Massachusetts mathematics and ELL specialists. Hence our findings are limited so far. We will pilot our course starting in August, and hope to gather more information about the two perspectives then.

Regards,

Mark

Thanks for the project overview. How is the online portion of the course structured? Are there opportunities for interaction and/or collaboration among participants?

Thank you for sharing this work! There is a great need for more support of novice and inservice teachers around mathematics content and language development with ELLs. I was wondering if and how the course addresses the assessment of mathematical reasoning with students from different English language proficiencies?

Jorge: Our project is focused on teacher learning and not directly on EL student reasoning (indirectly through teacher analysis of student work). We may gain some insight into evidence of EL student reasoning at different language proficiency levels, but the project is not designed to use direct assessment.

Regards,

Mark

Thanks Mark. Again, I think you’re working on very important work increasing access to mathematics. Focusing on teaching learning and development of skills and dispositions for promoting access mathematics is critical! What have been some challenge or issues you’ve noticed in teachers acquiring target skills and dispositions?

Thank you, Jorge. As you know, some circumstantial challenges are difficult for individual teachers to manage—-for example, classrooms in which many different languages are represented among newcomer students. Such challenges require systemic supports for the teacher and students. Considering the kinds of challenges that seem more manageable within the classroom, some we’ve noted are: overall unfamiliarity with mathematical visual representations used as thinking tools; an associated instructional commitment to rush students to symbolic/algebraic representations; lack of attention to indicators of proficiency and potential in (EL) student thinking; and lack of commitment to and/or lack of time for comparisons in class of different student approaches to tasks (which can be helpful to EL students, especially). We believe pressures of time in lessons influence all of these, but also believe that use of instructional routines in class and analysis of student work outside of class, can help.

Regards,

Mark

Great work! It is good to see how visual representations and thinking about mathematics can be leveraged in a way that supports students learning language at the same time.

A real strength of this video is the many visual representations of the work!