Mathematicians of the Future

By Henry Castaniada, Superintendent, Soquel Union Elementary School District

We have been very fortunate to have Ms. Christina Rucker, a fifth grade teacher at Main Street School, develop an instructional pilot program in the area of Math. Ms. Rucker specializes in fifth grade Common Core Standards in the area of Math that allows her to provide in-depth instructional methodology for all fifth grade students. In addition, Ms. Rucker has received additional training in the area of Math that aligns with Common Core Standards. Ms. Rucker is a highly skilled teacher who has embedded high expectations for all of her students. She is driven to create a learning environment second to none. When you visit Ms. Rucker’s classroom you will immediately recognize the outstanding interactions between her and her students. Her highly effective structure and willingness to teach all fifth graders math this year has resulted in creating terrific mathematicians.

Recently Ms. Rucker conducted a board presentation that can only be described as outstanding and highly professional. Her presentation specifically targeted the challenges that we are all facing with the new curriculum standards developed for Common Core in the area of Math. Early on in her presentation she discussed how many students would be frustrated and that they would demonstrate high levels of anxiety during initial attempts to solve the new math standards.

She provided examples of comments her students were making at the beginning of this year like, “I’m not a math person,” “I don’t get it” and “But I’ve never seen this before,” etc. What she discovered when her students were making these comments is that they also needed support in developing characteristic traits like perseverance, determination, engagement and a willingness to fail in attempting a complicated math problem.

As Ms. Rucker was providing her students opportunities to strengthen these characteristic traits, she also changed the delivery of instruction where groups of students would work collaboratively to develop strategies to begin to solve the math equation. As her students became more proficient in thinking like a mathematician, she was able to incorporate complex math challenges that required higher level thinking skills. It was delightful to hear that Ms. Rucker’s students can now dissect a complicated math equation into sections that builds a solid foundation for a group of students to be able to explain their logic in their attempts to solve this math equation.

Another significant point of reference in Ms. Rucker’s presentations was her statement regarding how students now can articulate the importance of being a mathematician. She provided examples of how Math on a daily basis is affecting the lives of her students. It is a very powerful teaching tool when students can articulate the reason they are learning a subject matter and how becoming a mathematician is going to assist them throughout their math studies.

A byproduct of the exceptional instructional plan that Ms. Rucker has developed is demonstrated by her students taking the valuable characteristic traits of perseverance, determination, engagement and a willingness to fail in other subject areas like Science, History and Language Arts.

A closing comment by Ms. Rucker was the acknowledgement that her students are taking the practice Smarter Balanced questions in the area of Math and they are doing well. She is excited that her students now see themselves as future mathematicians, scientists and thinkers with a positive attitude in addressing math challenges. The positive characteristics of perseverance, determination and willingness to fail are now being applied to other subject areas.

We plan to review other grade level options that will expand the success that Ms. Rucker created in the area of math by departmentalizing for the coming school year.