Math Exchanges

Math Exchanges: Guiding Young Mathematicians in Small-Group Meetings by Kassia Omohundro Wedekind isn't the typical professional book that I would read. I don't teach math, nor do I teach in the primary grades. And yet... I was intrigued. When I heard brief mentions of math workshop in Catching Readers Before They Fall, I wondered what math instruction would look like when aligned to a workshop approach. I smiled as I read the first pages of Math Exchanges and saw a mention of Katie Keier being one of Wedekind's colleagues and shortly after saw connections to Pat Johnson as well. Not only was I going to see an overlap of ideas from Catching Readers, but I could envision a dynamic team of teachers working together. Considering how the thinking behind both of the books was occurring at the same school, before I even got to chapter 1, the acknowledgements had me excited for the thinking and teaching discoveries through a collaborative process that I was going to encounter.

Aside from curiosity about math workshop, I also wanted to get ideas as a parent. At home I support my girls' (ages 9 and 6) reading and writing development much more than I do their mathematical thinking, mainly because of my personal levels of understanding about supporting kids in those content areas. For both purposes, I really loved Kassia's book. While waiting for a chance to sit down and read it since it was published, I started following the posts she put on her blog by the same title and will continue to do so.

Much like Catching Readers, Kassia provided a strong, clear conceptual background for a rationale behind the way she sets up her classroom. There were also plenty of connections between the underlying workshop philosophy that is consistent between reading, writing, and math workshops. As a math outsider, this helped me to better understand her motivation to teach the way she does. The book provides a glimpse into Kassia's journey of wanting to teach some way other than a traditional mathematics instruction approach but not being quite sure how to do so. She provides a background of how she co-constructed her thoughts with colleagues and mentors. She includes ideas such as, "Math workshop certainly is not the easiest path to take. We have plenty of outside resources willing to tell us exactly what, when, and how to teach our students. And yet, none of those resources has the intimate knowledge of your community of mathematicians that you have" (p. 23). The concept of valuing teachers as professionals and their capacity to make decisions about their own students is prevalent throughout the book.

The book also provides a clear picture of various ways to set up math workshop in the primary grades, as she highlighted both her own work and that of her colleagues. There were plenty of examples of dialogue throughout the book, as well as explanations into the intentional grouping. I especially love her mathematician statements that I first heard about on her blog and was interested in learning more about through her book.

Though I won't be implementing math exchanges into my own classroom because of my position, I will definitely be sharing the book with colleagues at my school and she has left me with plenty to think about as a parent. It was just what I needed to be more competent in understanding my daughters' math development, as well as being more intentional with providing support. One of my favorite parts of the book are charts that she provides (such as Figure 4.2 on p. 71 and Figure 4.4 on p. 74) sharing problem types, examples, modeling strategies, counting strategies, and facts and derived facts strategies, as well as strong explanations for how to put the ideas into action. I am starting to see more examples of every day mathematical thinking than I typically would have. For example, as I was teaching my daughters how to play Uno for the first time last week, various problems were running through my head that I could later pose to my daughters.

With so many books to read and so much that I want to do before the school year starts, it would have been easy to not pick up Math Exchanges with the rationale that it wasn't really as relevant as some of the other books in my pile of professional books waiting to be read. I am glad that I treated myself to something outside of my typical content areas as it was so powerful.