Math Observation Checklist and Tool
This tool was generated by a SERP team working in collaboration with math leaders in the San Francisco and Oakland School Districts. Leaders in both districts were aware that the fundamental nature of the shifts demanded by the CCSS-M Practice Standards requires considerable learning on the part of teachers and students. They were also aware, however, that the change must be led by those ultimately responsible for what goes on in classrooms–the school principal.
A Math Observation Tool with the Principal in Mind
The 5x8 Card is a product of a user-centered design process in which the user was the school principal. The focus of the process was to develop students’ expertise in mathematical practices defined in the CCSS Mathematical Practice Standards 1 through 8. Extensive interaction of SERP’s math team with school principals regarding their leadership of the shift to the CCSS-M Practices allowed for a detailed empathy process through which the expressed needs and dispositions of principals influenced the set of design specifications:
Minimize the quantity of required reading.
Principals insisted that they have neither the time nor the inclination to make their way through binders of material. The card is named after the design commitment to provide principals with useful guidance that would fit on a 5x8 card.
Use concrete, catalytic ideas that excite action.
Principals find efforts to be comprehensive to be burdensome, and often find the guidance they are offered vague in ways that inhibit rather than stimulate action.
Aim for a level of specificity regarding good instruction that is relevant across actors with different responsibilities and expertise.
Principals acknowledge their role as instructional leaders. But they also insist that they cannot be an expert in all content areas, and need tools that are realistic in the expertise they assume.
Focus attention on student actions rather than teacher actions.
The CCSS-M practices target specific actions expected of students. Teachers may have different ways to support students to make the shifts. It is student actions that lead to learning, and thus the student actions on which the teacher and principal should be focused.
The 5x8 Card was not designed as a teacher evaluation tool. Rather, it is a math observation tool that focuses observers’ attention on what students are saying and doing so that their work (their thinking) can be at the center of educators’ discussions.
SERP team members have used the 5x8 Card to organize professional development for CCSS-M in combination with communities of practice for teachers, assistant principals, and principals. In those settings, the 5x8 Card has provided a framework for gathering evidence of student thinking during classroom observations carried out between meetings. The observations were then discussed within the communities of practice, and action plans to stimulate the practices put into place.
Development of the 5x8 Card was led by Phil Daro through a SERP collaboration with the Oakland and San Francisco school districts.
SERP has been supported to conduct this work by The S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.