The Power of Collaboration

I feel so lucky to have some wonderful teachers to partner up with in my grade level. We share so many ideas and support each other immensely.  Coming up, is our District Math Benchmark Assessment that reviews various math concepts that we have gone over from November until now.  There are many standards that will be tested to help us identify which areas our students need intervention on before the state test in May.  Some teachers HATE these assessments and think of them as a waste of time, but I LOVE the data that comes out of them. It helps me gauge which areas I need to focus in on and opens up specific areas to communicate with parents and students. I also like to compare the data across our grade level. We get to see as a whole how our class does against others at our school as well as the District’s average.

Today, we decided to hold a Math Review Day for this coming Tuesday in order to focus on 4 key standards that we have noticed our students need more review in.  We narrowed it down to: Double Digit Multiplication, Long Division, Algebra and Order of Operations.  Each teacher is going to focus on one of these standards and create a fun and interactive review.  I will be focusing on Algebra and Function Tables only. By divvying up the work load, I can use the extra time to come up with new and creative ways to reintroduce Algebra to the students and the same goes for the other teachers.  Each class will rotate to a new teacher for 30 minutes. The excitement of switching classes, being in a new environment, with a new teacher will definitely engage the students and enable them to see something they have already seen before in a new way.

I am just sooo excited about this collaborative effort to support our students and each other!  Perhaps this idea will inspire you to talk to your colleagues about doing a similar thing. I would love to hear your thoughts and PLEASE share any resources or ideas you have for teaching 4th grade Algebra!