Alison Gopnik to speak at TBS

Math club

From Sima Misra, about today's math club:

We welcomed two third graders to math club today, Hannah and Talia, who tried out the Wheel Shop problem, stretching their algebraic thinking and number fluency, and played Oddball, another version of Poison/Nim.  Many of the 4th and 5th grade students enjoyed working on the different Sudoku puzzles, and I shared a strategy of keeping track of which numbers are possible in any given square using dots.  Finally, we all puzzled over one of the several "Liars & Truth Tellers" problems. This is a great one to talk about at the dinner table:  

There is an island in the middle of the ocean where there are two kinds of people: the liars and the truth-tellers.  The liars always lie. The truth-tellers always answer the truth.  You come to a fork in the road and need to know which way to turn to the village. Someone is at the intersection and can answer one yes or no question. You do not know if she is a truth teller or a liar. What should you ask her to learn which way to go?

Moments from the day

In Temescal Creek (2/3), students learned about the development of prokaryotes, and then created images showing their understanding of the organisms and their environment. 

In Laurel Creek (K/1), students used the Lost Tooth Chart for creating addition equations.

In Strawberry Creek (4/5), students used a scaffold to develop their comprehension and critical reading skills.

In Cerrito Creek (4/5), a lesson on the human respiratory system engaged students in a variety of learning activities.

In Blackberry Creek (K/1), students practiced making predictions during an interactive read-aloud.

The pictures on Blackberry Creek's blog from their field trip to the Shorebird Nature Center at the Berkeley Marina last week only tell part of the story - be sure to click on the link and read the text from the teachers. In the words of multiple parents and teachers, "Best. Field trip. Ever."

Hiring season has begun

Although hiring new faculty is an immersive and time-consuming process, I love the opportunity to meet and talk with candidates, and always feel renewed about the opportunities for continued improvement that come with new hires. It's the silver lining to the metaphorical cloud of a current  faculty member's departure!

Our process is now in full swing to find next year's co-lead teacher at the 1/2 grade level to replace Mike Raven, who let us know he's ready to step back from full-time teaching after 17 years in the classroom. Last week I met with Nancy, Claire, Cate (the three identified members of next year's 1/2 team) to review the hiring process flow and timeline, and generate our vision of what kind of candidates we'll be looking for.

This week we posted listings for the position at a variety of online outlets, targeting teachers with independent school experience (NAIS, CAIS), a broad range of diversity (The Urban League, POCIS), and Montessori training (Montessorijobs.com), as well as recent graduates from the best progressive schools of education (such as Teacher's College at Columbia, and Elliot Pearson at Tufts).

While the resumes begin to pour in, we've also begun thinking about how we want to revise our interview protocol. One important direction for us is to improve the quality of questions we ask to surface the emotional quotient of the candidates; you can see a list of possible EQ questions we're considering, drawn from The EQ Interview, a pragmatic book recommended to me by parent Lauren Webster.

If you have a qualified individual to recommend, please be sure to have him/her send a resume and cover letter my way!

CAIS Regional Meeting at Head Royce

The California Association of Independent Schools held the Northern Regional Meeting at Head-Royce School yesterday. Attending from TBS were Sima Misra, Mike Sinclaire, Kim Headlee, Kate Klaire, Mitch Bostian and myself, along with around 2000 other teachers and administrators from independent schools throughout northern California. This year we linked attending the event to submitting a proposal to present, and all four of the faculty presented the following workshops at the conference:

Using Visual Patterns and Thinking Routines to Deepen Mathematical Understanding (Mike and Sima) : Math has been described as the science of pattern-finding and relationships. Visual pattern finding and manipulatives allow students entry points into deep thinking and mathematical conversation. We will describe patterns with the language of mathematics (equations, order of operations, variables), and connect to upper elementary concepts like factors, multiples, and growth patterns. We will offer thinking routines the presenters learned from Harvard Project Zero that provide a framework for developing student understanding. 

Affinity Group: Student Council (Kate): Student councils are a wonderful opportunity for your school to develop service learning, community building, and establishing a voice for all students. This affinity group meeting is intended for those currently facilitating a student council and/or for those interest in how to get started. This will be a generative workshop focusing on a range of ideas and possibilities for overseeing student councils, including common constraints, and how to problem solve. Please come share your wisdom and curiosities.

Affinity Group: Performing Arts in Elementary School (Kim): Attention K-6 music, dance, theater teachers! Are you in need of new ideas to implement in your program? Do you have successful activities you love in your own classroom and would like to share? Come join us to share, learn and get inspired from fellow teachers. Bring at least three activities to share: movement, games, songs, etc., and be prepared to describe or lead each one. Fel free to bring handouts or activity instruction copies to distribute.

A sample of the workshops the six of us attended includes, by title:

Books, Rehearsal, Action!: Tools for Disrupting Gender Role Stereotyping in Elementary School

Building a Positive School Culture

Head's Session with CAIS Executive Director Jim McManus

Never Enough Time! Creating a Comprehensive, Effective, and Engaging Math Program

Ukelele - Strum and Sing

What are Little Boys Made of?

Heart to Heart & Hand to Hand: Singing and Movement Games from Many Cultures

As the Administration representative on the committee that helped plan the event, I spent the morning at the presenter check-in table, helping people get their name tags, figure out where  they would be presenting, and problem-solving the various issues that arise in any convention (signage, room changes and cancellations, etc). I greatly enjoyed doing this, to the point that I took an extra long shift at the table! I was also responsible for cultivating the selection of workshops specifically for administrators from among the submitted proposals, which was very enjoyable and also informational -- especially because I have begun to submit proposals to present at various conferences lately.

Stay tuned for a write up and newsletter with pieces and perspectives from each of the TBS attendees  coming out soon!

Math Club!

From Sima Misra, about today's math club:

We celebrated "Pi Day" in Math Club today with circle problems and ollalieberry pie, even though Pi Day is actually on Thursday, March 14 (3.14).  Students measured the diameter and circumference of many round objects, looking for patterns, and found that the circumference was a little more than 3 times the diameter--a key to why the mysterious number Pi is so important.  Other students pulled apart a pizza problem, figuring out how much to charge for differently sized pizzas and slices given the cost of a small pizza and its area in square inches.  Next math club on March 26.

Math Night x2

This week saw two wonderful math-related program events at TBS.

On Monday, Sima Misra, our Differentiated Curriculum Specialist, presented a parent education event on how math is taught K-5 at TBS, to a fantastic turnout of over 25 parents. Sima began with an overview of the curriculum scope and sequence, and then ran the parents through a series of activities to give a sense of how some of the lessons actually work to build numeracy and fluency.

This included doing quick imagery to investigate how we count and group numbers; using a series of rules that eliminate numbers from a pool to  examine the intersection of logic and number sense (ex: among a pool of 1-10, the number is odd, prime, and more than the number of legs on an ant); and modeling multiple ways to execute a multiplication problem including the standard algorithm, the box method, the lattice method, and the array method.




Sima also spent some time looking at how activities can be scaled up or down for enrichment or differentiation for individual students. For more on that concept, check out this handout with instructions for how to play Close to 20/Close to 100/Close to 1000.






On Wednesday, a veritable river of parents poured onto campus for our annual Math Night festivities. Students in all K-5 classrooms took the lead in teaching their parents about their own math learning, and how math instruction happens in the classrooms. In the Depot, 100s and 1000s projects from the 2nd and 3rd grade students were set up for a gallery walk to be enjoyed by all attendees. Check out the great pictures below!

A collaborative 1000 project created by five 3rd grade students

NAIS in Philadelphia

The Liberty Bell hangs just a few
blocks from the Convention Center

I feel so lucky to be supported - nay, expected(!) - to attend to my professional development here at TBS. This past week I attended the NAIS Annual Conference in Philadelphia, where I was able to attend several workshops, network with other school administrators from around the country, catch up with members of my cohort from the Fellowship for Aspiring Heads, and have the thrilling opportunity to present a workshop for the first time.

The best general session of the conference featured Jim Collins, author of the Good to Great books and coiner a number of notable organizational metaphors, including "the bus" (as in, who is on it) and "hedgehog" (as in, know and be yourself). Jim is a fantastic public speaker and he inspired the crowd to forgo good in the pursuit of greatness.

This copy of the Declaration of Independence is the one
that was read aloud to the citizens gathered in the courtyard
of Independence Hall immediately after the signing event.

Of the many workshops I attended, three stood out for their usefulness and applicability at TBS. Two were focused on the topic of faculty evaluation, and the third looked at models for developing an inclusive and diverse faculty body.

My workshop came during the third session of the first day of the conference, on the topic of "Changing School Culture at the Division Level".

This is thought to be the George Washington's
final proof copy of the Constitution.

The process of developing the Powerpoint presentation was an interesting one, as my first draft was overly reliant on images, in response to my concern that I not bore attendees by simply reading the slides. After a test-run with Kate Klaire, I reworked the slides to be more focused and less representational, as well as changed the order of some of the content for improved coherence. This work paid off in multiple ways; I felt great about the presentation, and the response of several of the attendees who came up afterwards to ask me for digital versions of the presentation offered a confirmation of my efforts.


The Liberty Bell and Independence Hall are just a few blocks from the Convention Center, so I made sure to nip over during a break and take in some amazing history.

Math Night next week!

Below is the email I just went out about next week's math night. Don't forget that on Monday, Sima Misra (TBS Differentiated Curriculum Specialist) will be presenting a parent education event on our math program.

Dear families,

We’re excited to invite you to visit TBS on Wednesday, March 6 from 6:00-7:30 pm for our annual Math Night celebration.

The goal of the evening, which occurs near the 100th day of school, is to celebrate and learn about the mathematical thinking, teaching, and learning that occurs in our classrooms. You’ll have a chance to learn from and with your child as you play games, look at work, and experience different materials. We hope that the evening helps develop your understanding about how and why we emphasize strategies and processes of mathematical thinking, and how accurate final products develop from those deeper understandings. You’ll see the interconnectedness of our use of problem solving, reasoning, and communication, and also how we go beyond number fluency and operations to include geometry, data analysis, probability, and algebra in the curriculum.

One of the key values we hold at TBS is that our students view learning as incremental, rather than seeing themselves as “bad at writing” or “good at math.” When students believe that they become better at things with effort (a growth mindset), rather than being inherently good or bad at a particular subject (a fixed mindset), they develop resiliency when working in areas they find difficult.  This permeates our program, from using the language of “gifts and challenges” in the younger grades to increasingly sophisticated self-reflection in the older grades. For this reason, we want to encourage you to model specific messages to the students during your Math Night visit.  For example, we have often heard parents say some variation of “I was always bad at math”, which makes a negative identity statement, whereas saying “This is really challenging math” acknowledges the difficult work that is being done, and also leaves open the possibility of learning to master it.

Most of your time will be spent in your child’s classroom; you will not be visiting other classrooms on Math Night, though we do invite you to look at the 100s and 1000s projects from the 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms, which will be on display in the Depot. Please note that all students are expected to accompany - and lead, and teach - their parents for the duration of their visit.  Because students take this responsibility very seriously, teachers and students spend considerable time coming up with specific structures and plans for the evening. To ensure that students can be as successful as possible in carrying out those plans, we ask families to support them in three key ways:

1)  Help students (and any attending siblings) avoid any “off-limits” areas on campus:  the play structure and the K/1 playscape will both fall into this category.

2)  Keep the focus on your child as she/he leads you through mathematical activities, and save in-depth socialization for either before or after the event.  Making plans with other families to get together for dinner is a great way to ensure that the socialization everyone enjoys can happen without detracting from the evening’s focus.

3)  Allow your child to “run” the evening by executing the plan that she or he has developed. To parenting adults, Math Night can often seem like a perfect teaching opportunity to extend a child’s thinking to a new concept, or to give her or him a push towards mastering a new skill.  However, our experience is that children see the night in very different terms:  they want to show their families what they are learning and the progress they have made since the beginning of the year, and have their growth recognized and appreciated.

Even if you can only stop by for 20 minutes, we encourage you to come learn with and from your child about the mathematical teaching, learning, and thinking that occurs in our classrooms. You’ll be receiving some information from your child’s teachers shortly, if you have not already, with details about the classroom’s presentation.

I hope to see you there.