Eureka Math and Your Grade Level Team

As teachers, we have so much to do on our own plates to get done each day. 

I find sometimes I am up late working and looking for new resources to help my students to support my Eureka Math program.  Then I think, “If I am putting in all of this extra time, maybe my colleagues are as well.”  That's when I realized, we are all putting in our all and ending up in the same place. 

​So, what if we divided and conquered as a team! Imagine! We could get twice as much materials prepared and planned in the SAME amount of time.  That’s when I realized I needed to reach out more to my grade level team and stop feeling like I had to do everything on my own.

It isn’t always easy at first to feel comfortable enough to ask for help or even ask to help someone.  Teachers have different styles of teaching and that is all validated in the way they work.  It may be harder at times to slide materials or activities to make them fit your needs.  This is why the hand off of materials and resources isn’t always the most effective way to support one another.  I think it is great when other teachers share materials, but without the input and collaboration as well, it tends to get set aside.
 
The beginning of the year is the best time to come together and create a cohesive team and curriculum for your Eureka Math program.
 

Here are some helpful ways to work together to make the MOST of each each teacher’s talents, time, and resources:
 
Plan Your Time:  Choose one planning period or day after school a week to dedicate to Eureka Math discussion and planning.  This is a great way to work out any questions you might have come across during your lessons.  It is also great to see how other teachers may have presented a skill or unit.  The designated time is also helpful to be sure you are working around all other meetings and making sure the time for math doesn’t get pushed aside for the other things.
 
Bring What You Already Have: If you have a great resource that is working well for your class, bring it to share with the group.  Use this time to explain how you are using and what skills you are addressing.  Chances are, your team will see the other students struggling with the same concepts.  
 
Keep Students Aligned: Working as a team not only provides support for us as teachers, but the students as well.  As a grade level we want our students to be aligned with the materials they are presented with and concepts that are taught.  This helps us to create a laterally aligned curriculum in each school.

Plan Ahead: Use the Curriculum Planning Guide to look ahead as a group to look at concepts that are coming up later.  This will help to know what is coming up and what to prepare for.  This helps to stay organized to know what to be ready for.  It also gives each teacher time to navigate what resources they may already have in their classrooms to make use of before finding something new.
 
Divide and Conquer: Use your team to split up the work.  Instead of all working on the same Module to plan and find additional resources for, split up the Modules and then provide for each teacher.  This is a more useful way to use our precious time and will make a lot more progress across the curriculum as a whole.
 
Although, using our grade level teams does make a great way to progress in our Eureka Math curriculum planning, they provide much more!  Creating this support system makes a sense of unity.  This helps us feel like we are not in this alone.  We should be there for extra support for the first year teachers too! This  type of support is equally important to help us grow and master the Eureka Math program. The teachers we work with are some of our most valuable assets.  When we work in isolation we are not only missing out on the knowledge our colleagues possess, but we miss out on feeling happy and confident about our work.  Sharing out our success stories about our kids is important!  It is equally as important to share what didn’t go so well and use each other to troubleshoot where to go from there.  Most of all, having the team approach makes us appreciate our team and happy working together. We all need to feel the sense of love for our jobs. We also want to be happy with the people we are lucky enough to also work along side of each day.