1. Educators Working
Together to Identify and
Support Students’
Mathematical Strengths
DorothyY.White,
University of Georgia

2. Overview of Presentation
● Background of our PLC - Mathematics
Pedagogical Problems Solvers
● Why Students’ Mathematical Strengths
● Creating the Taxonomy
● Teacher Stories: Using Students’ Strengths in
the Classroom
● The Power of Collaboration
● Next Steps

3. Our Guiding Principles
Teaching is a complex endeavor that requires
teachers to tackle many problems of practice.
Problems such as motivating students,
differentiating instruction for diverse learners,
and navigating new curriculum materials and
district mandates, are more likely to be resolved
when teachers collaborate with colleagues in a
professional learning community.

4. Our Guiding Principles
Little and Horn (2007) suggest,“talk within
teacher communities is likely to be
generative or professional learning and
instructional improvement to the extent
that it invites disclosure of and reflection
on problems of practice.” (p. 81)

5. The Mathematical Pedagogical Problem Solvers is a
professional learning community (PLC) designed to
provide mathematics teachers and teacher educators
with opportunities to:
• discuss the problems teachers encounter when
they teach mathematics
• examine how these problems signal both the
nature of the tasks and students’ understanding,
and
• explore and generate instructional strategies to
resolve these problems and to prepare the next
generation of teachers.

6. History of MPPS
● Established in 2010
● Members meet monthly
● Purpose:
○ Address our pedagogical problems of practice
○ Improve instruction of diverse learners
○ Learn to motivate all students
○ Navigate through new curricular resources and
district mandates
○ “Normalize problems of practice”

7. Why strengths?
● Allow us to look at our students from a positive
lens
● Increase student self efficacy
● Promote our continued growth and reflection
● Development of the taxonomy of students’
mathematical strengths
○ brainstormed strengths we wanted to see
○ observed our students
○ found additional strengths and modified our list

8. Taxonomy of
Students’ Mathematical Strengths
● Challenges of constructing taxonomy
○ Defining strength(s)
○ List was too long
○ Being able to look past behavior to see strengths
○ Getting to know the student as a person not just an
individual in the classroom
○ Making time to document strengths
○ Changing focus of lesson planned

9. Mathematical Knowledge
Knows basic facts
Mental mathematics
Motivation
Excited about what they solved
Perseverance
Desires to learn and understand
– wants to know why
Identity as a Doer-of-
Mathematics
Self-awareness of what s/he
knows and can draw upon in given
situations
Confident in what they know
Thinks deeply
Generates
examples and
counter-
examples
Communication
Explains ideas to other students
well
Takes risks – willingness to
contribute
Shows work
Problem Solving
Creates a diagram of problem
or thinks simpler problem
Remembers
context of
problem
Pays attention to details
Has reasoning skills
Ability to think
of alternate
methods
Taxonomy of
Students’
Mathematical
Strengths

10. Think about the students in your
classroom.
What mathematical strengths do they
display? How do you know?
Share your thoughts with the person
next to you

11. Think about your behaviorally
challenged student(s)
What mathematical strengths do they
display? How do you know?
What was the same or different about
thinking about the various students in
your classroom?

12. How we use the Taxonomy
● Infuse students’ strengths during lesson
planning
● Use students’ strengths to reword tasks
● Recognize students’ strengths that are
often overlooked
● Acknowledge students’ strengths to
encourage participation

13. Teacher’s Stories

14. Teacher Collaboration
How has the collaboration helped improve
mathematics teaching practices?
• Sharing how to incorporate instructional
materials across classrooms
• Knowing your concerns are normal and that
the group will discuss solutions
• Learning what it means to teach in today’s
classrooms
• Being accountable to the group for improving
instruction

15. “Opening up more ways to do
math creates more opportunities
for more children to see
themselves, and for others to see
them, as smart in math.”
Featherstone, Crespo, Jilk, Oslund, Parks, & Wood (2011, p. 16)

16. OurNextSteps
Use students’ strengths to enhance
group work.
Examine the various ways
students in groups interact with
each other and how we can
incorporate their strengths.

17. Questions??

18. Thank you!
Dorothy Y. White, dywhite@uga.edu
Fred Rushing, rushingf@clarke.k12.ga.us
Nick Hussain, hussainn@clarke.k12.ga.us
Kristina Patel, patelk@clarke.k12.ga.us
Jason Pratt, prattj@clarke.k12.ga.us
Nick Gomez, cgome00@uga.edu