Stick the Landing

Daniel Henderson, Millington, MD, danielhenderson@cpm.org

I have been thinking about the best structure for a math lesson. In one powerful simile, a lesson is like a cruise, a mission to Mars, or a vault in gymnastics. In each of these cases, you launch, have a special journey in the middle, and then you land. Launch. Journey. Land. For most of my career, I focused way too much on the first two parts and not nearly enough on the last part. The landing is critical.

Before you @me for my simplistic simile, I am aware of all the acronym models taught in teacher preparation programs – MARGE (Motivate, Attend, Relate, Generate, Evaluate), PERMA (Preview/Present, Explore, Refine, Master, Apply), IEEA (Invite, Experience, Examine, Apply), EMPOWER, GEMS, CRA, CPM, CPR, BRICK, FAANG, KAROLI, TACOS. I might have made some of those up. I have built lessons and units around several of these acronyms. I know they are helpful as structures. Even still, these acronyms do not pump my intuition the same way this launch-journey-land simile does.

To me, the lesson-as-journey simile clarifies a lot about what matters in a lesson and why. The launch matters because it gives me access to the journey. It quickly propels me from where I am onto a path of discovery. Sometimes there are stages to a launch, and the simile carries forward. Maybe I burned up on the launch pad because I failed to generate enough student interest to lift off. Maybe I never reached escape velocity because I did not take time to properly fuel up the knowledge tanks. Maybe I got us into low Earth Orbit but then flubbed the ejection burn that (CPM author) Dr. Leslie Deitiker might call a plot twist. Maybe I scrapped the whole lesson before I even started the launch because of bad student weather. Launches of any kind are tricky – they need a lot of forethought and meticulous preparation. Being off by just a degree here can mean missing the landing by a significant distance.

Like the launch, the journey itself is shared between students but experienced differently by all of them. We are all headed in the same direction but maybe doing and seeing different things. The skills my students bring to the journey can make their voyages unique: If the lesson is a cruise, everyone can enjoy it even if some swim and others parasail; if the lesson is a gymnastics vault, some students simply bound over the vault while others do a Yurchenko with a twist. If the lesson is a mission to Mars, some students measure the position of the stars while others focus on deploying solar panels. There are twists and turns and complications along the way. The journey is really about seeing and experiencing new things, smelling the flowers, and noticing things you had not before. In class, as on a cruise, at a gymnastics meet, or on a mission to Mars, there is a crew making sure you get where you are going safely and helping you choose interesting experiences along the way. In my class, I, the teacher, am the crew, and my curriculum is my guide book.

At the end of your journey, you absolutely must STICK. THE. LANDING. If you miss this critical piece, the entire journey can be for naught. Here are a few famous missed landings to prove my point: Titanic, Hindenburg, Mars Climate Orbiter, Olympic gymnast Francis Samir Ait Said (youtube it), and me in about 40% of my lessons. More than half of all US missions to Mars have failed at the landing stage. (NASA named their recent attempt Perseverance for a reason.) The Produnova, aka the death vault, has ended more gymnasts’ careers than that old show The Apprentice because it is incredibly hard to stick that blind landing. When you fail at the landing, much of what came before is wasted, sometimes disastrously, and anything you wanted to do after is…limited.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of NASA’s failed Mars landings have math-class counterparts. My classes have missed landings because I came in too steep and burned up student interest by mathematizing too quickly or because I came in too shallow by letting the students be too self-directed so we bounced off the target without actually landing. More than once, I have turned off the burners a little too soon and left my students to plummet an unsurvivable distance to their target. An embarrassing number of times I have crashed headlong into the rocks by not leaving myself enough time for a proper descent. I have failed to properly convert student work into mathematical notation and wrecked in the confusion that followed. I have not properly oriented the heat shield against too-broad generalizations and burned up on approach. I have safely reached an endpoint only to lose contact 20 seconds later. I have gotten to the time I set for the landing only to realize that I should have redirected students a half-hour earlier to better approach the planned landing site. Sticking the landing is hard, and it does not happen without proper preparation and thought long before the launch. Sticking the landing is the hardest part of the journey, and it does not happen without constant monitoring and adjustment throughout the journey.

One thing that became clear to me as I thought through this launch-journey-land simile is that the Karolyis and NASA administrators of the world are right to assert that the landing is the most critical step in any journey. We would do well to listen to them. If we do not stick the landing, we have failed in our mission, no matter how things were going up to that point – see the Hindenburg for a case in point. Most of you may not recall that the Hindenburg had just successfully crossed the Atlantic ocean before ending the era of airships. Interestingly, the flip side is also true: if we stick the landing, especially after a rough journey, we become real-life heroes. Even when things go sideways, sticking the landing has amazingly positive outcomes! Hi, Apollo 13! Hi, Kerri Strug! Hi, Captain Sully! I see you all!

I love what this simile has helped me see about teaching. I love its power to elucidate why each part of the lesson is important. I love its power to illuminate all the parts of a lesson that need enough attention and preparation to make it come together. And I love that in exploring it, I developed a further appreciation for the masters who stick the landings in their own fields. I hope that you find this simile as helpful as I do. If so, then I stuck this landing: BRICK!*

*Brick is what gymnasts shout when their friends stick a landing.

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Algebra Tiles Blue Icon

Algebra Tiles Session

  • Used throughout CPM middle and high school courses
  • Concrete, geometric representation of algebraic concepts.
  • Two-hour virtual session,
  •  Learn how students build their conceptual understanding of simplifying algebraic expressions
  • Solving equations using these tools.  
  • Determining perimeter,
  • Combining like terms,
  • Comparing expressions,
  • Solving equations
  • Use an area model to multiply polynomials,
  • Factor quadratics and other polynomials, and
  • Complete the square.
  • Support the transition from a concrete (manipulative) representation to an abstract model of mathematics..

Foundations for Implementation

This professional learning is designed for teachers as they begin their implementation of CPM. This series contains multiple components and is grounded in multiple active experiences delivered over the first year. This learning experience will encourage teachers to adjust their instructional practices, expand their content knowledge, and challenge their beliefs about teaching and learning. Teachers and leaders will gain first-hand experience with CPM with emphasis on what they will be teaching. Throughout this series educators will experience the mathematics, consider instructional practices, and learn about the classroom environment necessary for a successful implementation of CPM curriculum resources.

Page 2 of the Professional Learning Progression (PDF) describes all of the components of this learning event and the additional support available. Teachers new to a course, but have previously attended Foundations for Implementation, can choose to engage in the course Content Modules in the Professional Learning Portal rather than attending the entire series of learning events again.

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Building on Instructional Practice Series

The Building on Instructional Practice Series consists of three different events – Building on Discourse, Building on Assessment, Building on Equity – that are designed for teachers with a minimum of one year of experience teaching with CPM instructional materials and who have completed the Foundations for Implementation Series.

Building on Equity

In Building on Equity, participants will learn how to include equitable practices in their classroom and support traditionally underserved students in becoming leaders of their own learning. Essential questions include: How do I shift dependent learners into independent learners? How does my own math identity and cultural background impact my classroom? The focus of day one is equitable classroom culture. Participants will reflect on how their math identity and mindsets impact student learning. They will begin working on a plan for Chapter 1 that creates an equitable classroom culture. The focus of day two and three is implementing equitable tasks. Participants will develop their use of the 5 Practices for Orchestrating Meaningful Mathematical Discussions and curate strategies for supporting all students in becoming leaders of their own learning. Participants will use an equity lens to reflect on and revise their Chapter 1 lesson plans.

Building on Assessment

In Building on Assessment, participants will apply assessment research and develop methods to provide feedback to students and inform equitable assessment decisions. On day one, participants will align assessment practices with learning progressions and the principle of mastery over time as well as write assessment items. During day two, participants will develop rubrics, explore alternate types of assessment, and plan for implementation that supports student ownership. On the third day, participants will develop strategies to monitor progress and provide evidence of proficiency with identified mathematics content and practices. Participants will develop assessment action plans that will encourage continued collaboration within their learning community.

Building on Discourse

In Building on Discourse, participants will improve their ability to facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse. This learning experience will encourage participants to adjust their instructional practices in the areas of sharing math authority, developing independent learners, and the creation of equitable classroom environments. Participants will plan for student learning by using teaching practices such as posing purposeful questioning, supporting productive struggle, and facilitating meaningful mathematical discourse. In doing so, participants learn to support students collaboratively engaged with rich tasks with all elements of the Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices incorporated through intentional and reflective planning.