WEBVTT

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>> My name is Katie Shepard.

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I teach here at University
Park Campus School, seventh-

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and eighth-grade math.

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Our student population

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at University Park Campus
School is very diverse.

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About 65 percent of our students
don't speak English at home.

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Many come in below grade level
in both reading and math.

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Students are thinking, reading,
and writing in every class.

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In my math class, I don't
go in there and say, "Today,

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we are going to discover
the Pythagorean theorem,

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it's a squared + b squared
= c squared, write it down,

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fill in these numbers, plug
it in, and get an answer."

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Instead, the students
are given a problem,

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they are given manipulatives,
they are given visuals.

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And I ask them, "What
do you notice?

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Is there a relationship between
the squares along the sides

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of the triangle?"

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And they themselves come
up with the formula;

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they act like little
mathematicians.

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They are acting like
scientists in science class,

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historians in history
class, and so on.

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They are doing the
problem solving,

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they are doing the
thinking, and they are writing

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about it in every class.

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>> Shepard, to class: Today,
what we are going to do is each

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of you is going to get your
own little right triangle.

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I have them in envelopes;
I have your names on them.

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Okay? Everybody gets their own.

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Don't worry.

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Nobody is left out.

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What you're going to end

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up doing is putting
squares-and I have a sheet

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that explains this step-by-step,

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so don't worry-but
you put squares

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around the outside
of the triangle.

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>> Student A: I get it now.

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>> Shepard, to student: So it's
okay if we only know something

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about the squares
because knowing something

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about the squares will help us
find something about the sides.

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>> Student B: So, can we say a
squared + b squared = c squared

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divided by c?

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Because that will give
us the square root,

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which is also the regular thing.

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>> Shepard: So when I
first get seventh graders

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in my math class, one of
the things I need to work

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on with them is to take the
focus off getting the right

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answer and more on the thinking.

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I almost have to
deprogram them in a way.

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And with the emphasis
put on the thinking,

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all students can think.

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All students might not
be able to add fractions,

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but all students can think.

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And they need to be shown

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that if they can think,
they can do the math.

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>> Shepard, to class: The board
says each of you is to read

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and interpret at least one of
the word problems on that sheet.

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You're not expected to
know how to do this.

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All right?

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But you are expected to figure

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out what the problem
is asking you to do.

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Okay? You have two minutes
of silent thinking time.

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Look over your set of problems.

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See if you can figure
out what it's asking,

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what the problems
have in common.

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>> Shepard: I think one of
the most important things I do

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at first is to convince
students that they can do math,

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and I think the teachers

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of the other subjects
do the same thing.

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A lot of students, when
they have come to us,

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they have encountered so much
failure that they have quit;

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they don't see themselves
as learners.

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So we need to convince
them that, yes,

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you can do this thing
called math; yes,

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you can write; yes,
you can read.

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And then, after that, we can
go back and fill in the gaps

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that they come in with.