5 Practices in Practice : Successfully Orchestrating Mathematics Discussions in Your High School Classroom

This book makes the five practices accessible for high school mathematics teachers. Teachers will see themselves and their classrooms throughout the book. High school mathematics departments and teams can use this book as a framework for engaging professional collaboration. I am particularly excited that this book situates the five practices as ambitious and equitable practices.

Robert Q. Berry, III

NCTM President 2018-2020

Samuel Braley Gray Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Virginia

Take a deeper dive into understanding the five practices anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting for facilitating productive mathematical conversations in your high school classrooms and learn to apply them with confidence. This follow-up to the modern classic, 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions, shows the five practices in action in high school classrooms and empowers teachers to be prepared for and overcome the challenges common to orchestrating math discussions.

The chapters unpack the five practices and guide teachers to a deeper understanding of how to use each practice effectively in an inquiry-oriented classroom. This book will help you launch meaningful mathematical discussion through

·         Key questions to set learning goals, identify high-level tasks, anticipate student responses, and develop targeted assessing and advancing questions that jumpstart productive discussion before class begins

·         Video excerpts from real high school classrooms that vividly illustrate the five practices in action and include built-in opportunities for you to consider effective ways to monitor students ideas, and successful approaches for selecting, sequencing, and connecting students ideas during instruction

·         Pause and Consider prompts that help you reflect on an issue and, in some cases, draw on your own classroom experience prior to reading more about it

·         Linking To Your Own Instruction sections help you implement the five practices with confidence in your own instruction

The book and companion website provide an array of resources including planning templates, sample lesson plans, completed monitoring tools, and mathematical tasks. Enhance your fluency in the five practices to bring powerful discussions of mathematical concepts to life in your classroom.

Margaret (Peg) Smith is a Professor Emerita at University of Pittsburgh. Over the past three decades she has been developing research-based materials for use in the professional development of mathematics teachers. She has coauthored several books including Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Discussions (with Mary Kay Stein), the middle and high school versions of the Taking Action series (with Melissa Boston, Fredrick Dillon, Stephen Miller, and Lynn Raith), and The 5 Practices in Practice: Successfully Orchestrating Mathematics Discussion in Your Classroom series (with Victoria Bill, Miriam Gameron Sherin, and Michael Steele). In 2006 she received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award given annually to honor outstanding faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2009 she received the award for Excellence in Teaching in Mathematics Teacher Education from AMTE. In April 2019 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from NCTM.

Michael D. Steele is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Educational Studies in Teachers College at Ball State University. He is a Past President of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, current director-at-large of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and editor of the journal Mathematics Teacher Educator. A former middle and high school mathematics and science teacher, Dr. Steele has worked with preservice secondary mathematics teachers, practicing teachers, administrators, and doctoral students across the country. He has published several books and research articles focused on supporting mathematics teachers in enacting research-based effective mathematics teaching practices.

Dr. Steele’s work focuses on supporting secondary math teachers in developing mathematical knowledge for teaching, integrating content and pedagogy, through teacher preparation and professional development. He is the co-author of NCTM’s Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practice in Grades 6-8. He is a co-author of several research-based professional development volumes, including The 5 Practices in Practice: Successfully Orchestrating Mathematics Discussions in Your High School Classroom,

Mathematics Discourse in Secondary Classrooms, and We Reason and Prove for All Mathematics. He directed the NSF-funded Milwaukee Mathematics Teacher Partnership, an initiative focused on microcredential-based teacher professional development and leadership. His research focuses on teacher learning through case-based professional development, and he has been an investigator on several National Science Foundation-funded projects focused on teacher learning and development. He also studies the influence of curriculum and policy in high school mathematics, with a focus on Algebra I policy and practice, and is the author of A Quiet Revolution: One District’s Story of Radical Curricular Change in Mathematics, a resource focused on reforming high school mathematics teaching and learning. He works regularly with districts across the country to design and deploy teacher professional development to strengthen effective secondary teaching practice.

Dr. Steele was awarded the inaugural Best Reviewer award for Mathematics Teacher Educator and was author of the 2016 Best Article in Journal of Research in Leadership Education. He is an active member of and regular presenter for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators. He reviews regularly for major mathematics education and teacher education journals.