I am SO excited to share with you that this summer, I will be doing a 6 week blog series on Guided Math, or as I often refer to it as Math Rotations! This series will talk about why Guided Math is an effective way to teach math, how to get started next school year with Guided Math PLUS I will be sharing many tips and tricks throughout this series about teaching Guided Math in an upper elementary classroom.
I don’t want you to just take my word about Guided Math and the difference it can make in your elementary classroom! So, to lead up to this blog series, I will be doing 4 different blog posts over the next two weeks that are interviews from other elementary teachers about why they use Guided Math in their classroom. Let’s get started…
First, let me introduce you to Marcy! Marcy is a veteran teacher with 9 years of experience teaching 1st and 2nd grade before becoming an educational consultant for teachers. Through her educational resources on TeachersPayTeachers and professional development, Marcy has been able to serve thousands of teachers worldwide. You can find her at www.saddleupfor2ndgrade.com and www.managingmathstations.com. Marcy has so much knowledge about Guided Math and math stations. So, I knew she needed to be one of the first people I interviewed. Here are a couple questions that I asked Marcy:
Why did you start using Guided Math in your classroom?
Marcy: Funny story actually…it was my 2nd year teaching and I was attending a service center PD day. I attended training over math centers and thought hmmm I can do this. I literally thought, I could just start implementing small groups the very next day. Little did I know, that wouldn’t work!! My first few years of trying guided math were so bad I almost gave up. Finally, I was determined to figure it out for myself. I dove into research and came up with a plan that worked. Once I had my classroom management down, things began to change. I saw growth in my students that I had never seen before. I was able to target my instruction based on THEIR NEEDS. It was truly amazing. Having the ability to teach through small groups changed my instruction. The kids enjoy it and they learned so much more than they would in a traditional whole group setting.
What has been a challenge with teaching math that you have been able to overcome with using Guided Math?
Marcy: Classroom management by far is the most challenging part of Guided Math. You can’t expect students to just know how to do math stations or how to work with a group of 3-4 other kids. Routines and procedures need to be modeled and reviewed constantly before you even think about having your students rotate.
Fill in the rest: Guided Math has changed math instruction in my classroom because…
Marcy: No child gets left behind. Each student is working on their own level so they have continuous growth throughout the year.
I loved interviewing Marcy and hearing how she got started with Guided Math! Marcy’s story is SO relatable. So many of us have similar stories and started Guided Math, or are thinking of starting Guided Math, for the similar reasons. My story is very similar to Marcy’s and I can definitely relate to her challenge with Guided Math management as well. I will be sharing my story of why I started Guided Math in this blog series, but in the meantime, check out my blog post on 3 Reasons Why You Should Try Math Rotations!
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