Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about implementing Investigations district-wide or school-wide:
- How long does a district need to fully implement Investigations?
- What do teachers need in terms of professional development and meetings?
- What if we can't afford such extensive professional development?
- What could we offer teachers who want more professional development in math?
- What sort of preparation time should teachers expect?
- How much time is needed daily in the classroom?
- Besides the teachers, who else needs to be informed about Investigations?
- Our district is strapped for money. What materials do we really have to buy and what can we do without?
- If implementation is that difficult, why bother?
How long does a district need to fully implement Investigations?
At least 3 years. Don't underestimate the time, money, and effort needed for a successful implementation of Investigations. Even teachers who have experience with innovative math programs must make a major commitment in their first two years of implementation. On the other hand, teachers who have been creating their own lessons to reflect the NCTM standards are often relieved to find a curriculum that takes this burden away from them.
What do teachers need in terms of professional development and meetings?
Investigations implementation should not be attempted without substantial time set aside for professional development and teacher meetings. Ideally, teachers should first participate in a five-day summer workshop to introduce them to the philosophy of Investigations. The purpose of this initial workshop should NOT be to walk through activities at a certain grade level, but to give teachers a feel for the important mathematical ideas in the program from Kindergarten through fifth grade. Teachers should engage in activities from Investigations that are extended to their own level, so they can experience the mathematics as learners, like their students.
After the introductory workshop, it is essential that teachers meet monthly or bimonthly during the first year of implementation. The two most important reasons for these meetings are to preview the next unit to be taught and to discuss how things are going. Don't skimp on time for the "how's it going?" discussions. Especially in the first year of implementation, these discussions are useful for validating teachers' concerns; reflecting on the unit just taught; sharing successes, failures, and good ideas; and building the collegiality needed for such a big expenditure of effort.
Other topics for meetings or workshops during the first few years of implementation might be: assessment, communicating with parents, computation and algorithm invention, using Investigations with special needs students, and using Investigations with the top 10% of your class. As your teachers become more familiar with the program, their professional development needs will change. For instance, in their first year using Investigations teachers may be in "survival mode": just trying to teach the unit at a reasonable pace and not worrying about assessment much. In their second year, teachers may be looking harder at what the program offers in the way of assessment and trying this out with their students. In their third year of using Investigations, teachers may be asking for some time with their colleagues to write their own assessments that will fit the program. In general, as the years go by, teachers will probably be less passive about their professional development and more eager to actively work together on program enhancements during this time.
What if we can't afford such extensive professional development?
You are better off starting by training a few teachers well than to give minimal training to all your teachers. Develop Investigations teacher leaders at each grade level for a couple of years, so that by the third year they can lead the training and/or the meetings and you will save money on presenter fees and travel costs. Your teacher leaders could use the "Bridges to Classroom Mathematics" materials for staff development, which are very affordable.
What could we offer teachers who want more professional development in math?
We recommend "Developing Mathematical Ideas". DMI is a new professional development program that helps teachers examine the major ideas of K-6 mathematics and how children develop these ideas. Susan Jo Russell, director of Investigations and one of its authors, is also a principal developer of DMI. Many teachers have found DMI to give them the mathematical foundation they need for teaching Investigations. The program now consists of two courses of 24 hours each, with more courses planned for the future. Materials are available through Dale Seymour.
What sort of preparation time should teachers expect?
The need for time for teachers goes beyond their professional development hours and official meetings. Teachers must find time on their own for the extensive preparation that the program demands, especially in the first year. Most teachers new to Investigations spend as much as an hour every evening, reading from the unit and preparing the materials for the next day's lesson. Administrators need to recognize this time demand, and not put other demands on teachers, such as a new reading program, during their first year or two of implementation. Some districts have used parent volunteers to help with preparation of materials, especially making copies.
How much time is needed daily in the classroom?
Administrators and teachers should note that Investigations requires at least an hour of classroom time each day for students in grades one to five. Seventy-five minutes a day is ideal for the first year of implementation, when pacing is harder for teachers. Forty-five minutes a day is not enough and will leave teachers frustrated. If an hour a day is more than you're used to spending on math, keep in mind that Investigations also helps students improve their writing skills.
Besides the teachers, who else needs to be informed about Investigations?
Don't overlook the need for workshops and meetings for administrators and parents to become acquainted with the goals and philosophy of Investigations. Administrators need to have more than a general knowledge of the NCTM Standards to properly evaluate teachers using Investigations and to answer parent questions. For parents, samples of student work and mini-lessons taught by enthusiastic teachers are good ways to allay their concerns and get them excited about Investigations. It is also recommended to inform the middle school and high school teachers of your implementation plans and educate them about the program.
Our district is strapped for money. What materials do we really have to buy and what can we do without?
Ideally each teacher would have a set of units at their grade level, consumable student booklets and "at home" booklets for the units s/he is teaching, a teacher resource package, a student materials kit, and a copy of the book "Beyond Arithmetic". (All of these items are available from Dale Seymour Publications, or through Scott Foresman Addison Wesley).The more well-equipped a teacher is, the more likely s/he will work hard to teach Investigations as intended. But if a district cannot afford the complete package, where can corners be cut?
Curriculum units:
You could buy only the units you will be implementing that year, and plan to buy more next year as you add units. But it is a bad idea to ask teachers to share curriculum units. Teachers should be teaching the units at the same time so that they can support each other better, and they need their own copy of each unit so they can write their own notes in it, highlight passages, etc.
Manipulatives, Supplies:
Some of the supplies teachers need are generic (e.g., pattern blocks) and some are specific to Investigations (e.g., array cards). The Student Materials Kits and Packages consist of generic items, while the Teacher Resource Packages consist of mostly items specific to Investigations. If your classrooms are already well-stocked you may not need many of the generic supplies Investigations requires. Instead of ordering the entire Student Materials Kit for each classroom, you could order individual items as needed. Be sure that you have enough of each item, however, especially for pattern blocks and multilink (snap) cubes. You need about a thousand pattern blocks and a thousand multilink cubes for each classroom. Note that unifix cubes will not work as a substitute for multilink cubes; the cubes must connect on all sides for most activities. The Dale Seymour Investigations Order Form makes it easy to order individual items or the complete package for each grade. What's not easy, of course, is taking an inventory of your classrooms and figuring out exactly what your teachers need!
The Teacher Resource Package includes sets of primary number cards (grades K-2), numeral cards (grades 3-5), and array cards (grades 3-4). You need at least one set of cards per pair of students, but it's a good idea for students to have a set at home too, so that they can play the Investigations games with their families. There are a few alternatives to buying these expensive cards. The least desirable alternative is to have each teacher make enough for his/her own class, copying the templates in the back of the curriculum units onto cardstock, and cutting, cutting, cutting until very late at night. This is a good way to turn teachers against Investigations! Another alternative for the upper grades is to have the students cut the cards out, but this takes up precious class or homework time. You could also use parent volunteers to make the cards. A more feasible alternative for the primary number and numeral cards is to use regular playing cards, especially for students to use at home. Just make aces the ones, one face card the zeros, another face card the wild cards, and remove the third face card. Regular playing cards still cost something, though, so many districts just bite the bullet and buy the cards that Dale Seymour offers. They are glossy and nice, and teachers love to have them.
Student booklets:
When Investigations first came out, teachers had to make copies of the student sheets found in the back of the curriculum units. This was a huge burden, so the student booklets were published. These are simple, flimsy booklets that contain all the student sheets for a particular unit in black and white. Pages are perforated and some have notes to parents on the back which you would not get if you made your own copies from the masters in the back of the unit. Student booklets are available for all units from grades 1 to 5 and cost $2.70 each, no matter how big or small the unit is (or $1.95 each if you order over 25 copies of the same unit). This definitely adds up if your teachers end up teaching six to eight units per year. (At this time, there is no book that contains student sheets from all the units at a grade level; you have to buy each unit separately).
If you want to avoid buying these student booklets, you could do one of the following:
- have the teachers do the copying themselves. Again, this is a huge burden, even if you have good copiers in your schools. If your copiers are unreliable, forget about it. have parents do the copying, if you have extensive parent volunteers and good copiers.
- pay a professional copying place to make the copies the summer before. This comes out to be cheaper than buying the booklets from Dale Seymour.
Investigations at Home booklets:
These come in a similar format to the student booklets, only they are thinner. They cost $.50 per unit or $.40 if buying more than 25 copies of the same unit. These booklets inform parents about the math in each unit and provide extra practice. We've heard both from districts who love these booklets and districts who don't think it's worth it. Our recommendation is that the first year you buy one at home booklet per unit per teacher, and the teacher can copy individual pages s/he likes to send home. At the end of the year, teachers can get together and decide if they think it's a necessary item. You could also buy a few copies per unit and place them in the school library for parents to check out, although they are not very durable.
The book "Beyond Arithmetic":
If you can afford it (at $13.95 a copy), giving this book to each teacher as s/he begins to implement Investigations is a nice touch. Written by Investigations authors Jan Mokros, Susan Jo Russell, and Karen Economopoulos, "Beyond Arithmetic" addresses many questions about how and why mathematics instruction is changing. It is written for a general audience of K-5 educators, not just Investigations users, but it cites many examples from the curriculum and its field testing. If you can't afford to buy every teacher a copy, buy a few copies for the school library. Note that teachers who attend a TERC summer workshop for Investigations will receive a copy of this book there.
A final word of advice:
Beware of skimping too much in buying materials. The better supplied each teacher is, the more supported they will feel by the district as they take on this new program. There's enough work to be done while teaching this curriculum, without making it a hassle for teachers to round up the supplies they need.
If implementation is that difficult, why bother?
After reading about how time-consuming and expensive Investigations is to implement, you may be wondering: is any curriculum worth all this? To justify the expense and effort, it helps to think of the process as achieving more than just implementing a new math program for students. The curriculum units are brilliantly written to help both teachers and students. Teachers regularly report how much they themselves learn mathematically from teaching Investigations, and especially how much their number sense improves. Their appreciation and understanding of both mathematics and mathematics education deepens as they teach this curriculum. The reason the time, money and effort are worth it is because you are providing a powerful math program for students AND you are helping teachers to transform their teaching so that it truly embodies the principles of the NCTM Standards.
by Wendy Gulley
Center for the Enhancement of Science and Mathematics Education
Northeastern University
http://www.neu.edu/
