Picking a Path up the Mountain: Notice & Wonder

Back in January I posted a blog that briefly described a process I was using with a school to uncover trends in student data. With these trends, our goal was to develop a purposeful and meaningful math focused school goal.  It was (and still is) my hope that this series of blogs will serve as a form of documentation of the journey we are on to try and improve student learning within the building.

In the weeks following the development of our goal, I entered resource gathering mode. I read numerous articles, watched many videos and with the help of some awesome colleagues, identified a some great resources to help us begin to go to work on our goal of helping students develop a better understanding of problems prior to solving them. I was excited. I was hopeful. I was...overwhelmed. The more I gathered, the harder it got to identify a natural starting point. It felt as if I was standing at the foot of a mountain, staring at 50 different paths to the top. Just picking a path to start our journey became a daunting task in of itself.

Fast forward to the week before March break.

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed as I tend to do during some downtime. While scrolling I came across a tweet from @dr_costello looking for any examples of graphic organizers that use Polya's problem solving process. In having spent some time recently looking through all things problem solving for my Math AQ course, I knew that my Board's template was based off of this model. I shared the example and through this action, found myself engaged in a meaningful math discussion directly related to the school goal we had developed. Here are some screen shots from that conversation:

At some point during the conversation, Mark (@MarkChubb3) graciously shared the following link, Notice & Wonder. I clicked the link and started reading. The timing of the article could not have been any better. After reading through the article I felt as if our path finally revealed itself.  Well at least for our first attempt up the mountain anyway...

I spent the following day learning as much as I could about the concept. I watched videos, read blogs and even came across some new great people to follow on Twitter (@JSchwartz10a & @MFAnnie). I got comfortable with the process and assembled a brief presentation to share with the School Improvement Team.

The SI team embraced the concept and agreed that it would serve as a natural first step to share with staff as we start our work towards achieving our goal. The team also thought that it would be a great idea to try the concept out in a few classrooms prior to sharing with staff. We liked the idea of having student samples to look at and refer to when introducing the concept. 

Our plan involves working with a class from each division (Primary, Junior & Intermediate). Next week each class will be given a problem to work through and solve. The work will be collected and assessed. The following week, each class will complete a Notice and Wonder prior to being given a similar problem to solve. Student work will be collected and assessed. We will then examine both data sets to identify any trends or things of interest. 

Please note that we fully understand that the real benefits of Notice and Wonder will be seen over time through continued exposure and regular practice. In completing this brief assessment it is our hope that we can provide with a glimpse of what is possible and as a result gain their trust and professional investment in the implementation of this technique.

Until next time. The journey continues...