Asking the Right Questions: How Collaborative Teams Drive Math Growth

In far too many states, districts, and schools, students are struggling to learn mathematics at grade or course level, yet schools that invest in collaborative teams are seeing measurable improvement from year to year. One such school district is the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) in Southern California. 

I have had the opportunity to work with CVUSD for several years as a Mathematics at Work™ lead associate and coach. Our work started at the secondary level and now extends to third grade. In addition to instructional work, the district also wanted to increase school-level leadership capacity and began having guiding coalitions at each site work with Janel Keating. 

Recently, the assistant superintendent and elementary director joined me for a webinar to share actions that led to higher levels of student achievement in mathematics. This session also highlighted the successes they are seeing in the district for both mathematics and ELA with all student groups. 

What successful schools are doing to grow student learning of mathematics

After the webinar, I paused to consider what successful schools are doing in mathematics teaching and learning. CVUSD is not the only school seeing successes in mathematics. The Mathematics at Work framework, grounded in the four critical questions of the PLC at Work® process, supports schools in building highly effective mathematics teams focused on improving student learning. 

Several ideas came to mind from the research-affirmed actions in the Mathematics at Work framework.

• Schools embrace being a PLC at Work and have collaborative teams answer the four critical PLC at Work questions.
• Teachers: 
  • Design high-quality instruction with intentional, balanced tasks and engage students in learning with classroom strategies such as discourse and random groupings.
  • Develop numeracy and problem-solving skills and use learning progressions in Tier 1 and Tier 2 instruction to accelerate students’ learning toward grade-level.
• Teams:
  • Analyze student work and student learning together to reveal the most effective strategies and instructional practices, as well as possible common misconceptions or errors in students’ reasoning.
  • Teach rigorous standards at grade level–a balance of conceptual understanding, application, and procedural fluency, recognizing all are needed for students to develop reasoning and problem-solving abilities.
• Teachers and teams:
  • Understand the story arc or big ideas of mathematics in their grade or course, and which standards to emphasize.
  • Develop high-quality common assessments that both teachers and students learn from.

Most importantly, in addition to the list above, schools that are seeing student achievement in mathematics have something else in common. They have teachers and teams that are curious. They dig deep into the first big idea of a PLC at Work—a focus on learning.

But what does it really mean to be curious and learn?

How the 4 Critical Questions drive strong team learning

It is easy for collaborative teams to get stuck in a world of compliance. They create a list of essential standards, unwrap standards, create common assessments, and then dutifully enter numbers into a spreadsheet to plan interventions in response to the four critical questions. However, none of these team actions were ever intended to be a checklist.

Instead, these actions were designed as learning opportunities and a way to document that learning from one year to the next.

Teachers on a team build shared knowledge of the grade-level standards students need to learn in each unit of study and check in on that learning. They reflect on instructional practices and examine how students think to plan meaningful, targeted instructional experiences.

Teams aren’t just curious about critical questions one and two. They are also curious about how to answer questions three and four. They inquire. They engage in action research as they work to ensure every student learns. 

The table below outlines questions designed to spark curiosity and conversation as teams address the four critical questions (DuFour et al., 2024).

Addressing the four critical PLC questions

1. What do we expect students to learn? Which standards will students learn in this unit? What have students learned before that we can build from and connect to this unit? What does it mean to be proficient at this standard in this unit at grade level? What are strategies, models, or activities we all agree to use to support student learning?  What has worked in the past when teaching this content to students? Which parts of our textbook should we use to teach the standards in this unit?

2. How do we know if they learned it? What are we trying to learn about student thinking with these questions on our common assessment? What are we trying to learn about our instructional practices from these assessment questions? How will we gather student work and evidence of learning to inform our understanding of our practices and students’ thinking? How will we know if students are learning the standard to grade level or higher? What score will they need to earn? How will we score this assessment?

3. How do we respond if they have not yet learned it? What are the trends in student thinking across the team? What did the successful students do that set their work apart? What is one targeted intervention that will move students from developing to approaching or from approaching to proficient? What is another strategy, model, or activity we can use to reengage students in learning and help them succeed? How might we group our students for interventions?

4. How do we extend learning if they have learned it? How will we honor students’ learning during an intervention/extension time if they have already mastered the standards? How can the standard be connected to the real world or life experiences? Should we teach a nice-to-know standard to a group of students? How can technology be incorporated into deeper learning? How can students engage with the standard in a new way?

A shift in team thinking 

If a team becomes stuck, they learn together by working with a coach, conducting an investigation, analyzing research, or even asking AI for help. Teams that learn and improve are constantly asking, “Did that work? Were we accurate in our understanding of what students needed to learn? What else can we try?” 

They reflect, monitor, adjust, and document their learning—things to avoid and things to do next year—in a place that is easy to locate and access when the next school year begins. 

Learning requires teams to shift their thinking from “What do I need to teach?“ to “What do students need to learn?” and “How can we make sure they learn it?“ (DuFour et al, 2024)

Staying curious leads to better student learning

The teachers in Chino did not start out curious about student learning, but as they clarified what students needed to learn, analyzed student work, calibrated their scoring, and reflected on instructional practices, they began trying new approaches and teaching more rigorously. As a result, more students began learning mathematics at grade or course level. 

The challenge is to wonder and be curious about the standards students need to learn, the most effective ways to assess student learning, and which strategies for intervention and extension will work best. The challenge is to grow collective teacher efficacy so that more students learn. Though it is not easy, every student can learn mathematics. 

So ask yourselves: What are you curious about related to student learning, instruction, or assessment? What will you try next?

About her the educator 

Sarah Schuhl specializes in professional learning communities, mathematics, assessment, school improvement, and RTI. She has been a secondary mathematics teacher, high school instructional coach, and K–12 mathematics specialist.