TEACHING STANDARDS

ORCHESTRATING A VARIETY OF LEARNING TASKS

Effective mathematics and science teachers orchestrate a variety of tasks that promote problem solving, active learning, and making connections to other disciplines.

Tasks are what the students do either in class or in conjunction with class work to learn mathematics and science. Tasks can be projects, problems, investigations, exercises or applications. Tasks provide the context for the students' mathematical and scientific development. Good tasks develop knowledge and skills and demonstrate their usefulness.

Like a song leader or band director, highly accomplished teachers understand how different aspects of the learning environment contribute to the music of learning. They orchestrate learning­select and adapt instructional resources, including technology, laboratory and community resources, and create their own tasks to engage students in active explorations of mathematics and science. They use different teaching strategies at appropriate times to facilitate learning. They also use a variety of assessment techniques to gather information on the performance of students.

Teachers who are good learning facilitators select, adapt and create worthwhile tasks and materials that provide opportunities for students to build mathematical and scientific understandings, competence, interests, and habits of mind. They:

• select, adapt, and generate worthwhile tasks based on three areas of concern: the content, the students' learning needs, and the ways in which students relate those tasks to other life experiences,
• include tasks that foster students' abilities to solve problems, to reason, and to communicate mathematically and scientifically,
• strongly consider the developmental and cultural appropriateness of concepts and procedures associated with the tasks,
• offer students the opportunity to choose from a variety of sources, including mathematics and science problem booklets, computer software, calculators, puzzles, manipulatives, and textbooks,
• are responsive to students' varied learning styles, cultural perspectives, and points of view,
• encourage creative thinking and expression and the development of oral and written communication skills,
• pose questions that seek divergent and evaluative thinking rather than memory recall,
• view assessment of student learning as an integral part of the instruction.

Teachers who are skilled learning environment managers shape and direct students' opportunities to engage meaningfully in the learning process. Learning is best facilitated when teachers create and manage flexible, diverse, and rich classroom environments. They:

• create a "community for learning",
• include and share learning responsibilities with families and the community and its resources,
• foster student leadership and peer teaching,
• help students affirm and develop respect for individual differences,
• instill in students confidence that they can learn mathematics and science and develop motivation in being independent, responsible, and persistent learners,
• organize and manage the classroom by doing long-range task analyses, troubleshooting problems for student learning, defining clear rules and expectations for students, establishing a system to make students responsible and accountable for both their academic work and behavior, and continually monitor and keep students apprised of the appropriateness of their work and behavior.