{"id":14131,"date":"2021-02-24T01:00:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T06:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/?post_type=cw_post&p=14131"},"modified":"2021-03-20T10:49:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T14:49:35","slug":"a-mastery-based-math-teachers-journey-part-4-embracing-problem-solving-and-further-refining-mastery-skills","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/a-mastery-based-math-teachers-journey-part-4-embracing-problem-solving-and-further-refining-mastery-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mastery-Based Math Teacher\u2019s Journey, Part 4 \u2013 Embracing Problem-Solving and Further Refining Mastery Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Allison Shelley, the Verbatim Agency for American Education<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is the final post in a four-part <\/em>series<\/em><\/a> by Ashley Ferrara about her ongoing journey to develop a mastery-based approach to teaching mathematics. She is a teacher and interim acting assistant principal at the <\/em>Academy for Software Engineering<\/em><\/a> in New York City, a member school of the <\/em>Mastery Collaborative<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve covered a lot of territory over the three blog posts. In the first post, we explored my not-so-positive initial reaction to the shift to mastery based learning, my first mastery skill (and its limitations), and the \u201caha!\u201d moment that mathematics repeats itself. The second post described how I approached the mathematics content that did not repeat itself, and the third post documented my evolution to mostly year-long skills that were assessed repeatedly throughout the year.<\/p>\n

I also left you with a question at the end of the last blog: \u201cTen years from now, what skill or skills do you want your students to still have from your class?\u201d I was asked this during a professional development session at school a few years ago, and to say my answer surprised me would be an understatement! I wanted students to walk away from my class with stronger comprehension, communication, and problem-solving skills so they were prepared for life after high school.<\/p>\n

Clearly my response has nothing to do with Algebra 1 content. Solving an equation or graphing a line were the furthest from my mind when asked. At the time I was asked this question, my advisees\u2014a group of 14 students I had met with daily from their first day of freshman year to the day they graduated\u2014had graduated a year earlier and most had just finished their first year of college. During that year, I had fielded so many questions from them about how different college was, how difficult some of their classes were, and how unprepared they felt. Unfortunately, this resulted in some of them taking a break from college after their first semester. I just kept thinking, \u201cWhat could I have done differently to prepare them better? What could we as a school have done?\u201d<\/p>\n

The questions I was (and still am) asking are huge, complex questions. Just like with mastery-based learning, I am never going to pop out of a cake and tell you I\u2019ve been hiding the answer from you this whole time and all you have to do is follow my simple instructions. During the current and past school year, my way of addressing these big questions was to remove all content-specific language from my mastery skills and rubrics.<\/p>\n

Wait\u2026what? Yes, you read it right. I removed all content-specific language from my mastery skills.<\/p>\n

Mastery skills are the pillars of your curriculum. They guide what you teach, how you teach, and what you assess. So if I wanted students 10 years from now to have stronger comprehension, communication, and problem-solving skills as a result of being in my class, then I needed my pillars (mastery skills) to reflect that. In a math department meeting, my co-worker brought up Polya\u2019s Problem Solving Techniques<\/a>, and they became the inspiration behind my (millionth?) mastery skill revision. Here are my current mastery skills:<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/p>\n

I know, I took a BIG turn right at the end of this series of blog posts! However, I felt it was important to reflect my authentic mastery journey, which has gone through a lot of changes across a relatively short amount of time. The new mastery skills have, again, shifted how I teach, what I teach, and how I assess. While it\u2019s been difficult to shift yet again, I am very excited about what\u2019s happened so far.<\/p>\n

Prior to making this shift, I asked myself, \u201cAm I really ready to do this? Can this work with my content?\u201d I mapped out a few ideas for what each skill could look like in my classroom, which I\u2019m going to share in the hopes that it may spark some ideas for your classroom.<\/p>\n

Overall: <\/strong>My clearest vision for how these skills would come to life in the classroom is that they would be taught holistically, always. During class, we would dive deeply into one rich problem, and cycle through each of the mastery skills within that problem. The content would be taught through the problems we were tackling as a class.<\/p>\n

Mastery Skill 1<\/strong>: I can analyze a problem.<\/p>\n