PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES
IN MATH
Michele McKinney, Jessica McCurdy
Monarch School.
Santa Cruz City Schools
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY AND
SCHOOL WIDE PROBLEM OF THE MONTH
8 step process:
1. PLC – 1 POM per trimester
2. Staff chooses based on strand focus and student need
3. Staff does the POM together in Staff Dev Mtg
4. Review Teacher Notes together after struggling with the
problem
5. Plan how to differentiate for different grade levels
6. Staff implements POM in classroom (ind., sm. gr. or
whole class)
7. Cross Classroom Gallery Walk
8. Staff reviews student work and critiques the process
LINKS TO COMMON CORE – GEORGE POLYA
“A PROBLEM IS NOT A PROBLEM IF IT CAN BE SOLVED IN A SINGLE DAY.”
POM provides opportunity to apply CCSS
Mathematical Practices
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in
solving them
3. Construct viable arguments and critique
the reasoning of others
Critical thinking, group work, have several days to
work on the problems
Progressive cognitive load is modeled in the CCSS
assessments example
SMARTER BALANCED TEST QUESTION
IMPACT FOR STUDENTS
Students struggle with complex, rich problems.
Increased perseverance.
 POM problems are differentiated.
 Opportunities to explain their thinking, share
strategies, and critique each other’s thinking.
 Poster/gallery walk provides opportunities for
anonymous feedback, different solving
strategies, and multi-format expression of
solutions.

LESSONS LEARNED
Try, try again.
 Allow for individual and small group time to
work on problem.
 Scaffolded process – teach a new step each
time you do a POM.
 Student choice – poster levels and partners.

RESOURCES AND TOOLS
svmimac.org – MARS and POM
 Illuminations.nctm.org
 Insidemathematics.org for videos of POMs
 Mathsolutions.org
 Kise, J. A. G. (2010). Creating a coaching
culture. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press
 Jessica Branch – [email protected]
 Michelle McKinney – [email protected]
