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Math “Look Fors”

Positive Impact on Student Learning

Teacher’s Name / Building
Observer’s Name / Date
Classroom Environment
Posting of math basics (i.e. key vocabulary, math rules with examples, Calendar Math in K-5 classrooms, problem solving strategies and mathematical practices)
Examples of student work
Resources for struggling students
Flexible seating to promote various size group activities, partnering and independent work
Easily accessible math tools, (calculators, rulers, protractors, etc.)
Classroom Instruction / Evidence: What specific evidence did you see or experience?
Multiple instructional methods, appropriate to individual student needs
Variety of writing and talking activities, especially justification of thinking
Technology integration
Connections between lessons and other content areas
Real world math applications
More formative than summative assessment (so that assessment informs instruction)
Mathematical academic vocabulary is used in questions and instruction.
Student Engagement and Performance / What specific evidence did you see or experience?
Math understanding communicated in a variety of ways
Effective work in whole group, small groups, and independently, knowing the procedures for each
Justification of answers and solution processes
Selection and application of specific strategies to problem solving
Independent and appropriate use of math tools as needed
Use of district adopted math resources:
Investigations / Calendar Math / Math Connects / Glencoe McGraw-Hill / Other

Examples of Effective Instruction in Math include 1, 2

  • Recognizes that mathematics is a language and science of patterns
  • Builds on students’ prior knowledge—students create their own representations
  • Utilizes real world applications for both instruction and assessment
  • Embeds mathematical content in the mathematical practices (CCSS)
  • Provides open-ended problems and extended problem-solving projects
  • Integrates reading about, writing about, and listening to math ideas
  • Allows students to work in collaborative groups—as do real mathematicians
  • Uses a variety of assessments—written, oral, and demonstrations formats
  • Adjust and adapt curriculum or instruction according to student need (see below)

Examples of Classroom Interventions and Accommodations in Math3

  • Pair students to summarize key information (with opportunities for both to contribute).
  • Provide resources at a lower reading level when covering difficult content.
  • Have students restate the problem in their own words.
  • Introduce new vocabulary to students before they begin a new unit. This is important for all students.
  • Provide students with a checklist to follow when they are completing complex tasks.
  • Provide students with a math reference sheet to keep in their notebook or desk (math facts, formulas, etc.).
  • Show as many physical objects as possible as part of explanations or directions and have the student manipulate objects as the operation is described.
  • Allow students to teach someone else when they have mastered a concept.

In math classrooms with a high level of mathematical discourse, students

  • Create and discuss multiple representations of the same problem or situation
  • Justify their thinking
  • Reason inductively and deductively
  • Question and make conjectures
  • Apply their learning to new situations and problems

In standards-based math classrooms

  • Grades relate to academic standards and course expectations, based on the Math CCSS.
  • Students are assessed on what they know and are able to do at the end of the school year or term, not on an average of their learning over that time span.
  • The emphasis is on what is learned, not what is taught.

1 Zemelman, Steven, Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde. Best Practice, Third Edition: Today’s Standards for Teaching & Learning in America’s Schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005.

2WashingtonState Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

3 McCarney, Stephen B. and Kathy Cummins Wunderlich. Pre-Referral Intervention Manual, Third Edition. Columbia, MO: Hawthorne Educational Services, Inc.,2006.

10/13: Sumner School District, K-12