Courtesy of San Benito High School Superintendent Shawn Tennenbaum:
Dear San Benito High School Parents, Students and Community:
Among its 13 course options, San Benito High School’s Math Department offers classes ranging from Basic Math and Algebra 1 to five different Advanced Placement courses with the culminating math offerings of AP Calculus BC. The collaborative approach of the instructors, their embrace of innovation and their commitment to helping every student succeed exemplify the Baler STRONG spirit that permeates our campus.
Principal Adrian Ramirez said that we can “safely assume that no teacher walks through the door with all the skills, knowledge and time to meet the needs of all students assigned to their classes. Our Math Department has mitigated this variable by building a collaborative culture and taking collective responsibility for student learning, rather than working in isolation.”
Knowing that not all students learn the same way, Principal Ramirez notes that math teachers’ approach “allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in multiple ways. Knowing that not all students learn at the same speed, their approach also includes systematic interventions that provide students with relearning and reassessing opportunities.
Math Week Provides Yearly Focus
Chair Dan Quinn said that for the past 15 years, the Math Department has ended its summer break with a “Math Week,” in which teachers end their Summer break early to spend three or four days discussing the practice of teaching math and “how to best maximize our students’ learning of content standards.” The early years of the program helped the department “teach math using multiple methods,” Mr. Quinn said, “while simultaneously focusing on a cohesive language and structure throughout our math faculty.”
In recent years, the department has focused on identifying the most important standards within each math course, allowing instructors to emphasize those in the classroom. Math teachers get together in small groups on weekends or after school to focus on their teaching practices and how best to improve student learning, Mr. Quinn noted.
Advanced Placement Classes
San Benito High School encourages students to take Advanced Placement classes to challenge themselves academically and prepare for the rigors of college — while also having the opportunity to earn college credit for passing their AP tests.
This year, 166 students are enrolled in AP Statistics, 70 students are taking AP Calculus AB, and 48 students are in AP Calculus BC. Nearly two-thirds of the students taking Calculus BC also take AP Stats, according to Assistant Principal Ed Schmidt, who said that students who take AP exams demonstrate a real academic interest in certain subjects, “which helps a university know that you should be accepted into programs like engineering.”
Co-Teaching Approach
Algebra 1 teacher and Special Education Department Chair Joan Burley works with Tiffani Maria in a co-teaching approach, which identifies students who need extra assistance and supports them with small-group instruction.
“We do station teaching, which allows students to rotate through three to four activities per class,” Mrs. Burley said. “It gets them up and moving and keeps them engaged.” The lower student-teacher ratio allows students to get help more quickly.
“What makes co-teaching awesome in math is that we can tag team the teaching,” Mrs. Burley added. “When we are teaching a concept, we bounce back and forth between the two of us. If one of us sees the kids are struggling we jump in and try to explain it a different way. In math, we teach multiple methods of solving problems. We each have certain ways that we like better to solve the same problem. In our class, we ask the students if they are ‘Team Burley’ or ‘Team Maria.’ We make it a fun way to show that you can solve problems in different ways and still come up with the right answer.”
Algebra I and 2 teacher Kevin Medeiros, who co-teaches with fellow SBHS alumnus Trevor Fabing, said having two teachers in a classroom “really helps us utilize strategies that we would not be able to use if we were the solo teacher in the classroom.” He agreed with Mrs. Burley that a co-taught classroom allows teachers to target students who need extra help and support.
“It really is an awesome experience for both the students and teachers,” Mr. Medeiros said. “Trevor and I get to work together to design and implement lessons, while the students get the luxury of having two teachers to help them move through the content.”
A Veteran Perspective
Rick Dukes, who teaches AP Calculus, Pre-Calculus Honors and Math Proficiency, said classrooms have changed over the past three decades.
“Thirty years ago, math teachers were essentially on their own in the classroom. We had a book and a curriculum, but there was little to no sharing of information, alignment of courses with each other, vertical or horizontal integration,” he said. “You were the one running the show with little guidance from others–and little assistance from them as well.”
Since then, Dukes said there has been a paradigm shift from the “sage on the stage” mentality to a “coach on the sideline” one, “whereby student-centered learning is now the focus and we ‘coaches’ are all on the same staff, using the same playbook.
This teamwork, he notes, “has had the effect of keeping all of us learning things, the veterans learning how to incorporate new technology in the classroom from the new teachers, and the new teachers learning tried and true methods from the veterans. We support each other, both in the curriculum and outside of it, picking each other up when needed and always lending a helping hand.”
Dukes said SBHS math teachers work together to create common formative assessments and a pacing guide, and the textbook is no longer what drives instruction.
“There is definitely more of a feeling that we are all in this together, and that ALL of the students belong to ALL of us!” he said.
A New Perspective
As a newer member of the Math Department, Algebra 1 teacher Nicole Alvarez said she has felt supported by her colleagues and math coaches Kathy Picchi and Marco Orozco.
Working with Orozco in an Algebra 1 Professional Learning Community (PLC), Alvarez said she has felt supported while also being part of the collaboration between colleagues.
“We create common formative assessments to help guide our instruction and to make sure that there is equity among the classrooms,” she said. “Within the department, I have always felt comfortable knowing that I can ask my colleagues for advice. It really does feel like we all share a common goal of supporting the students.”
Alvarez noted that SBHS is “very supportive” of professional development opportunities.
“There are ample chances for a teacher to develop as a math educator,” she said. “It is refreshing to see how many teachers are willing to continually better themselves as a professional.”
Offering Support
Kathy Picchi, the district’s mathematics coach as well as the teacher support program/induction coordinator, said that coaching allows for the continuation of work regarding multiple methods, attention to academic vocabulary, and common mathematical syntax.
“Coaching makes this possible by keeping up the communication amongst teachers and PLCs,” she said, pointing out that coaches “serve as a bouncing board for new ideas and new methods of enhancing teaching in a remote setting.”
Picchi said the math coaches have noticed that more students are using proper math syntax and academic vocabulary in class and that teachers are feeling supported in their efforts to create new curriculum and are “trying new ways of delivering lessons by using either activities that were created for the classes or feeling confident to make their own.”
Something For Everyone
Assistant Principal Claire Grissom said San Benito High School has sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students taking Algebra 1 during Zero Period before the start of the regular school day all the way up to juniors and seniors taking upper-level math courses at Gavilan College because they have already taken everything offered at SBHS.
“The counseling team’s goal is to advance and support students every step of the way in their courses in order to reflect the SBHS mission to ‘educate all students to their highest potential.’”
While the California State University and University of California systems require a minimum of three years of math classes, with four years recommended, Mrs. Grissom said the counseling team encourages every student to take the fourth year of math unless the student has very clear post-secondary plans for which they don’t plan to attend a four-year university.
The dedicated teachers in the Math Department, for whom the success of every child is not just a goal but a daily motivation, remind me that every day is a great day to be a Baler!
Sincerely,
San Benito High School District Superintendent Dr. Shawn Tennenbaum
