Eight weeks into the implementation of newly adopted math materials, we had the opportunity to walk through classrooms in Tustin Unified School District. Across grade levels, we saw students working together in math centers, playing games, discussing strategies, and building toward grade-level fluencies.
Eight weeks in and implementing centers in elementary mathematics: that is no small thing.
Implementing new materials is hard. Teachers are learning unfamiliar routines, tools, and lesson structures while attending to the students in front of them. Even when a curriculum offers strong guidance, it takes time to understand how its components fit together and what each one makes possible for students. So what helped make these experiences visible so early in implementation?
Tustin began learning well before the districtwide adoption. At a lab school, one of the schools in the district identified to test ideas, study implementation, and understand what it takes to make change successful, teachers taught with the new problem-based materials while educators from across the district studied what implementation would require. The lab site surfaced questions and pain points early enough to inform how the district would support teachers across its 18 schools.
One experience at the lab school, which would prepare us for the district-wide adoption, concerned math centers. Centers are a core component of the curriculum, yet they could easily be perceived as an add-on. Suggestions appear at the unit level, and center activities are often introduced during core lessons. But using them regularly requires teachers to plan beyond the suggested 60-minute lesson. With so much to take in, it was understandable that teachers might set centers aside.
Looking more closely at what happened at the lab site revealed why implementing centers in a productive way mattered: they provide many opportunities for students to develop fluency. If fluency was important to students, families, and educators, then understanding and using centers needed to be part of implementation support.
That early learning at the lab site had implications for every role. District leaders could make the purpose of centers clear and create time and structures for educators to learn how they work. Principals needed to understand what they might see during center time: students practicing, choosing strategies, explaining their thinking, and becoming more efficient and flexible. Instructional coaches could work alongside teachers to plan for centers, observe what students were doing, and support teachers to plan a synthesis of the learning. Teachers needed opportunities to experience the activities themselves and consider how they connected to the mathematical goals of a unit.
This is one example of what a system can learn before asking every teacher to implement something new. The system can learn what it takes to understand why certain activities or features are embedded in the curriculum and how to support teachers to understand how to implement it, while understanding what student learning to look for.
A first year with new materials will involve uncertainty. We should expect questions, adjustments, and learning from classrooms. We should also work toward what students deserve during that year: access to grade-level mathematics, opportunities to build fluency, and teachers who are supported as they learn.
A district gets one first year of implementation. The work before adoption can help make that year a meaningful beginning for both teachers and students.
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