Explicit Expectations for All Teachers

Focus is on sense-making, differentiation, student-driven, standards-oriented fidelity to the developmental process of learning math.

1. Positive Numeracy-Rich Learning Environment- Numeracy Rich environments include:explaining, listening, showing, writing, speaking, verifying, agreeing, challenging, defending, connecting, disagreeing, discussing, modeling, and provingThe teacher is the role model that sets the expectations for a motivating and welcoming environment that promotes math throughout the school day. There should be word walls, anchor charts, visible displays of students' created work, books, magazines, other printed text, access to computers or other digital devices, exemplary student work, etc.

2. Time to Explore, Think, Solve, Discuss- The majority of the math instruction should be spent with the students engaged in making sense of quantities and their relationships in mathematical and real-world representations, constructing and justifying solutions, comparing and discussing the validity of reasoning strategies, and reflecting. Teachers differentiate and scaffold instruction to help students of varying abilities achieve mastery of the South Carolina College- and Career- Ready Standards for Mathematics.

3. Fact Fluency- Students should be provided with regular opportunities to build fluency. The goal is for students to build fluency with all four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

4. Manipulatives and Technology - Students will use of a variety of concrete materials and technological tools in order to help students explore connections, make conjectures, formulate generalizations, draw conclusions, and discover new mathematical ideas

5. Engaging, Student-Centered Learning Environment: Use the knowledge, skills, and characteristics outlined in the Profile of a SC Graduate to guide in the creation of this environment. The following should be observed in all classrooms:

Collaboration and communication among peers regularly throughout the day;
- Integration of technology/multi-media tools, as often as possible, to enhance instruction;
- Use of active learning experiences with a variety of high-interest texts that incorporate current events, real world problems, interdisciplinary content, and/or student “voice and choice” as often as possible.

6. Questioning: Everybody asks questions and everybody responds; the discussion is about conjecturing, proving, clarifying, refuting, agreeing, disagreeing, reasoning, generalizing.

7. Evaluating: Teachers and students participate in the evaluation process through rubrics, checklists, interactive journals, conferences, reflection sheets, weekly check-ins; emphasis is on self-monitoring and self-checking; also students engage in peer-monitoring and peer-checking.

Lancaster County School District

Mathematics

Mathematics Guide

Mathematics Beliefs

LCSD Math Instruction

Explicit Expectations for Mathematics Instruction

Instructional Practices

LCSD Teacher Resources