Without Equity & Teacher Voice, HQIM Is Just Paper

I was a brand new District Middle School Math Specialist with nine campuses and 7,000 kids on my plate when HQIM landed in my lap.

During one of my first meetings with campuses, I got an earful:

“It can take a long walk and play in traffic.”

“This ain't aligned.”

“I feel like a robot.”

All of it.

As an Instructional Coach just a few months prior, I realized that coaching one campus of eight teachers and 1,000 kids was one thing, but district-level was something else. I heard their concerns. I didn't assume I knew best. I didn't throw my title around. I saw an opportunity to grow teacher efficacy, content knowledge, and pedagogy. We were asking close to 70 teachers to leave behind their Google drives and TPT accounts and trust a process they didn't choose. We had to build capacity. Build efficacy. Quickly.

And that is where equity for teachers came in. I went back to the office and dissected each concern, figuring out how to make it work for them.

• Pacing too fast?

  Bet. We cut it from 187 days down to 165.

• Need review days?

  Cool. Those 22 days we just found could stretch to 30 when we look at where standards overlap and couple them so time is more purposeful.

• District assessments taking too long?

  🤔 Let’s all uniform on one assessment that measures learning. No more 15-question tests when 7 will do, and we weighted them so kids could earn multiple points.

• Professional learning that makes teachers sick? Gone. Sure, you still have the mandatory sessions, but breakouts now get creative. Themed celebrations occur. Partnering with vendors for teacher incentives. Presenters with real personality. Teachers leading sessions. Models of how HQIM lends itself to special services and interventions. You know, the things teachers really want. Conversations with them, not at them.

  
  

Once we got some of those surface-level things out of the way, we addressed their deeper concern about their voices and choices. That’s where #offthepage came in. It gave teachers the freedom to showcase learning by taking HQIM and making it come off the page.

Jessica turned her space into a football field for the integers lesson. Ms. Obi taught distributive property on the sidewalk with chalk. Ms. Harris used soft cookies to let her kids learn fraction division. Jasmine had her kids create a t-shirt business when she taught linear equations. Ms. Powers and Mrs. Williams created learning spaces surrounded by hip-hop.

That's growing teacher efficacy. It's making curriculum real. HQIM didn’t take away their creativity. It gave them the floor. Their voice made it come alive.

That is also equity too, in a sense. We celebrated each other’s creativity, and that celebration built the confidence to model how teacher voices could shine through the use of the materials, in the way they needed.

HQIM gave us equality. Teacher prep and support made the equity possible.

But let's not label HQIM as an enemy. It's not. It ensures every student has the same materials. That is equality. But equality is not enough. Equity must be present.

Equality is making sure the students in the apartments with the broken gate have the same instructional materials as the students in the subdivision with the gated entry.

Equity gives each one the support they need to actually use it. One may need language supports, scaffolds, or reteaching. The other may need enrichment, extensions, or challenges that push their thinking. Both need something different, but both deserve to access the same high-quality curriculum in a way that fulfills their learning.

HQIM gives equality. Equity makes it real. Teacher efficacy locks it in.

This post is a huge celebration for me because it marks the first full month of MathEdEfficacy.com! Thank you for coming back each week to read and engage. This truly fills my bucket.

Thank you for reading, sharing, and engaging!

Next up, a series on what math teacher efficacy has to do with student belief. Stay with me!