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In-service program documentation
Providing classroom support during the implementation of an illustrative unit (D6.5)
Logistics and scheduling information (by Judith Fonzi)

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Decisions about the nature and scope of the classroom support

Choices made about when and what kind of support to provide

Scheduling of these activities within the program

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Decisions about the nature and scope of the classroom support

We believe that teachers must construct their own meaning of teaching and learning through inquiry. In order to do so teachers need to develop an image of what teaching and learning through inquiry can look like inquiry in their own classrooms. To this end, the classroom support provided by the facilitator should help teachers try out some new instructional strategies, experience the power of students' thinking, identify and seize opportunities to extend and expand the mathematical content of their lessons, and develop their own reflective practices. What follows are some key things we have learned, sometimes the hard way, about how to provide such support.

• It is critical, prior to entering the classroom, that the participants understand that the facilitator is there to support the teacher NOT evaluate. This view of the facilitator can be established by making clear from the very beginning that, while they have considerable experience planning and implementing an inquiry approach, the facilitators by no means have all the answers. We have found that we can operationalize this view by making public our expectations that a) we will all make mistakes but we can "recover" from anything if we identify it; and, b) learning to teach through inquiry requires that we "problem solving together", each contributing ideas informed by our previous experiences and expertise.
• We have learned some strategies for putting such a collaborative problem solving model in to practice. First, it is very important that the participant begin the discussions by sharing thoughts/reactions to the lesson, questions/concerns s/he identified, or new ideas. We have found that participants frequently identify the same issues that we would have identified, thus helping us find the fine line between telling too much and not telling enough as well as eliminating some potentially uncomfortable situations. However, for this sharing to be useful the facilitator must make sure that the debriefing meetings include time for both reflection and planning in light of the reflections. With respect to the planning, even if they may not be the best possible choices, it is critical that the facilitator accepts and supports some of the teacher's ideas as well as offering suggestions for materials and activities. The point is to remember that there is no "absolute right way" and we can learn a lot from both successes and failures. The collaboration can be further supported if the facilitator occasionally accepts some of the responsibility for finding the resources or planning the activity.
• Finally, we would like to share some of the things participants have said were helpful:
  • discussing with the facilitator, in advance of a series of classroom visits, what the participant would like to get from the collaboration
  • receiving a facilitator prepared "script" of the lesson as it actually played out; participants indicate that they "missed" some of the comments, or have forgotten that something took place, or just like having the record to reflect on
  • hearing what the facilitator found powerful - valuable - interesting - problematic in the students' interpretations, understandings, or processes
  • hearing a report of the discussions of small groups or individuals with whom the facilitator worked
  • hearing about the strategies other teachers have used to accomplish particular tasks
  • grappling with mathematical issues / content together but leaving the final instructional decisions - what to do, when, how - to the participant.

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Choices made about when and what kind of support to provide

We believe that teachers can always benefit from classroom support whether it's an extra pair of ears and eyes noting what students are doing in small groups or an extra pair of hands helping students carryout some experiments or a participant observer contributing to a reflective discussion after the fact. We therefore provide classroom support to all participants throughout the entire professional development program, and in our case, throughout the life of our extended projects.

The nature of this on-going support may be quite different at different times depending on what the specific teacher needs or is doing. However, we have identified some needs which are common to most participants and some points in the field experiences where classroom support is crucial. First of all, participants need a substantial amount of classroom support during their very first implementation of an inquiry unit, which in this case is one of our illustrative units. More specifically, we believe that support must be provided during the first few days of the unit when the teacher is likely to be trying out some instructional practices for the very first time. Helping the teacher successfully implement these practices, or reassuring him/her that they were successfully implemented, frees the teacher to reflect on the mathematics and the thinking that was taking place. During these first few days we recommend that, rather than having a specific agenda for the classroom support, the facilitator observes and records the flow and content of the events and provides only spontaneous support to the instruction as needed. This will give both the facilitator and the teacher an opportunity to identify what comes "naturally" for the teacher and what practices might require more concentrated and conscious work to develop. Later, as the unit is progressing, both the facilitator and the teacher can benefit from another series of consecutive days of classroom support. We have found that it seems to be much easier for teachers to get a unit started than it is to sustain one. It is quite common for new inquiry teachers to concentrate so hard on orchestrating and implementing activities which elicit the major ideas that they miss the more subtle issues that are surfacing, such as misconceptions about a particular mathematical process or concept or an opportunity to seize an idea and extend or expand the mathematics of the unit. It is also quite normal for a new inquiry teacher to feel like they have accomplished their goal as soon as a concept or process has been identified or done once. Providing classroom support later in the first unit allows the facilitator an opportunity to look for these common areas of need and begin to work on them.

The next critical point for providing classroom support is usually identified by the participants themselves. As a result of the on-going communication in the support team meetings, participants and facilitators quite naturally and spontaneously identify times when classroom support could be helpful. For example, in a team meeting a teacher may talk about her struggle to nurture conversations, or her concern about a few students, or about an upcoming activity that s/he would really love some feedback on and the facilitator can and should seize the opportunity to offer support.

The final critical points for providing classroom support (at least within this one-year program) are during the implementation of an inquiry unit of the participants own design. In these cases, because the unit is new to everyone, it is much more likely that, despite extensive support in planning the unit, there will be many unanticipated opportunities and needs. The facilitator's primary role thus becomes one of helping the teacher to "see" and seize opportunities and to address the unexpected needs that have arisen. The plans for these units will generally require more day to day revisions than did the illustrative unit plans and, because of the incredible demands on their time, teachers need help locating materials and planning these changes in such short notice. Facilitators should take care to schedule enough time to provide this kind of support during the implementations of these "new" inquiry units.

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Scheduling of these activities within the program

Scheduling classroom support can be very complicated since the facilitator is usually working with several participants at the same time. We therefore offer the following suggestions. (Note: These suggestions may be most crucial during the implementation of the first illustrative unit since it is supposed to be the first unit of the school year and thus all participants will need support at the same time.)

• Facilitators should concentrate their classroom support on one class per participant. Doing so allows the facilitator to get to know the students and to build a frame of reference regarding the specific activities and discussions that have already taken place.
• In cases where there are only 1 or 2 participants in a school the teacher(s) could be given the opportunity to select a class to focus on though it should be one that is scheduled close to a free period so that the debriefing meeting can take place as soon as possible. When the facilitator is working with several people in the same school it is not always possible for the teachers to select which class they would like to focus on. In this case we find that it's best if the facilitator collects the schedules of all of the participants and works out a plan that allows for consecutive days of classroom support in a most efficient way considering the facilitator's other commitments. After the implementation of the first illustrative unit, it is helpful if participants working with the same facilitator schedule their subsequent inquiry units to begin at different times.
• In order for the classroom support to be most beneficial it is important for the participant and the facilitator to discuss, in advance of scheduling the actual visits, what type of support the teacher would like. For example, if s/he would like some feedback on a particular teaching practice it would be important to schedule the visits when those practices are most likely to be used.
• Though a "pre-conference" is not always possible, it is critical that the facilitator have some knowledge of what the teacher has planned for the lessons therefore it is important to allow for at least a brief discussion prior to the beginning of class. We sometimes find, especially if the facilitator has been supporting the planning of the unit, that this briefing can be done on the phone the night before.
• Sufficient time should be scheduled for debriefing meetings. Though we find that these meetings can easily fill as much time as is available, we recommend scheduling at least 30 minutes. Remember that there must be enough time to both reflect on the lesson just completed and revise the subsequent plans.

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