3.29

Hi All, 

I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. We got to celebrate my lovely younger cousin Maddie who is welcoming her first baby in mid-May. Rowan was thrilled to be a helper and it was a reminder that life moves at breakneck speed. May this week bring you a moment of pause to celebrate that that's happened and what's to come. Also...how on earth is it almost April?!? 

Observations from the Field

• Joy and fun in so many ways! 
• Adults and students talking about ways to improve their experience in school 
• Folks collectively engaged in reflection and ways to improve practice 
• Teachers giving direct and caring feedback 

                         

News and Announcements 

• Reminder: Please remember to fill out this BES Connection and Belonging Dot-Tocracy. We will utilize this to make next steps for Connection and Belonging in our building. 
• Feedback Needed: Winter Thaw/Wellness **Only 4 responses so far**
• Looking for new ideas for Morning Meeting? Click Here
• Reminder: the tubes in the front lobby are looking low. Don't forget to reinforce wanted behaviors. We're looking for a 5:1 postiive to negative ratio! 
• Here's a great article about teaching regulation by modeling. Only well regulated adults and help regulate students. https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/time-out-teaching-self-regulation/
• We will start VTCAP testing for 5th graders this week. If you are protoring you a small group or a 1:1 session you will get a separate email from me today. Materials will be distributed tomorrow. 
• Reminder: Wednesday 5/6 Specials will happen from 9:20-10:00. 3rd grade will switch with 5/6.

Week 1  —- March 31st — April 2
Day/Date	Time	Who	Activity: Focus
Tuesday, March 31st	12:45-2:15	5th Grade	Science– Session 1
Wednesday, April 1st	10:15-11:40	5th Grade	Science– Session 2
Thursday, April 2nd	**Around Specials	Makeup

• Here is a great article about utilizing a UDL Approach (Low-floor/High Ceiling) for Math students. 
• Snapshot Reminder: iReady MyPath Math 
• The goals of iReady Mypath are: 
• To complete 30-45 minutes of usage per student/per week. 
• Have a passage rate of 80% 

• It's been a while since I've done a snapshot so please know that this is only for last week. I completely understand that weeks fluctuate! 
• Please know that if you're utilizing Fluency Flight that should be used no more than 10mins a day. 
• Upcoming Events: 
• April 8th: Poetry in the Library 5:30-7:30 
• May 8th: 6th Grade Spaghetti Dinner 
• May 19th: Art/Music Show 

 A Low-Floor/High-Ceiling Activity for Young Students’ Math Reasoning

•             In this article in Mathematics Teacher, Tracey Miller (North Carolina State University) describes the Goldilocks Numbers Thinking Routine (GNTR), a fun way to help primary-grade students see numbers in context and build their mathematical reasoning power. Here’s how Miller introduced the routine to a class of second graders. She said they were going to think about the number 25 and where it might be too small, too big, or just right. “We’re going to stick with that number the whole time,” she said. “We’re not going to change it; instead, we’re going to change what it’s about.” She gave some examples:

  -   Eating 25 donuts for breakfast would be too many for me.

  -   Getting 25 oats for my oatmeal wouldn’t be enough. 

  -   25 jellybeans would be enough for one person, but not for a whole class.

  Miller then told students there was no right answer as they imagined different situations for 25, things they were familiar with and cared about – people, objects, time, money – starting with too small, then too big, then just right. As students worked, she asked clarifying questions:

  -   What could you be measuring or counting?

  -   Who is this number for?

  -   When would this be true? For whom would this be true?

  -   Can you explain why that’s too much? 

  -   What would you need to change for that to become just right? 

  “Classroom discourse during this phase becomes a platform not only for reasoning but also for recognizing and appreciating diverse experiences,” says Miller. If a student says 25 chairs is too small to seat their extended family at Thanksgiving, they’re making a connection to their personal world. 

              After students have come up with ideas and presented them in three columns, Miller has an all-class discussion about what came up, asking questions like:

  -   Did any patterns emerge across contexts and categories?

  -   Could someone’s too big be your just right? Why?

  -   Why does that context make the number feel just right? What makes it too much or too little? 

  Agency is an important theme, Miller believes. She tells students, “Today you built the unit to fit the number – you got to decide what that number meant.” Different perspectives is another theme. In a GNTR she did with the number 100, a student said that 100 water bottles would be just right and got immediate pushback from other students, who were thinking in terms of that many bottles for one student. But the student clarified that it was 100 water bottles for 100 students. “This sparked a rich discussion about how context and audience shape number interpretations,” says Miller. 

              In another lesson, students worked with fraction, which were above their grade level: how two slices of pizza could be too little if the slices were small, and how half a cookie would be just right only “if it’s half of those big ones,” said a student. This revealed an understanding that the value of a fractional part depends on the size of the whole – an essential understanding when working with fractions. “In this way,” says Miller, “GNTR acted as a scaffold for future rational number learning by encouraging students to shift their interpretation of a number based on changing contexts and quantities.” 

              She’s found that insights from the Goldilocks routine have carried over to students checking to see if their answers to other math problems make sense. She asks, “Would that answer be too much, too little, or just right for this situation?” Over time, Miller has found that students internalize this kind of reasoning and use it to judge the reasonableness of their answers. 

              “By engaging with the GNTR regularly,” she concludes, “students began to approach numbers not as fixed facts to memorize, but as ideas to reason about, adapt, and make meaningful. This empowered them to participate more confidently in mathematical conversations and laid the foundation for the kind of flexible, context-sensitive reasoning that will support them in future learning.” 

  “Math That Fits: Goldilocks Numbers Thinking Routine” by Tracey Miller in Mathematics Teacher, March 2026 (Vol. 119, #3, pp. 193-196); Miller can be reached at tlmille3@ncsu.edu. 

Marshall Memo 1130

Last week I sent out a survey on how AI is being used in teacher evaluation and 1,280 Memo readers responded. Here are the results, and here are the main points from an analysis of the written responses to an open-ended question:

• The use of AI for teacher evaluation is largely unregulated, with very few guardrails, policies, and norms and minimal training.
• Many respondents felt strongly about maintaining human judgment in teacher evaluation. "Supervision is relational and cannot be automated," was one comment. "It should assist, not replace," said another.
• Transparency was an issue, captured in this comment: "Teachers should know if AI is involved."
• There was concern about protecting the privacy of information about teachers and students.

The quotes and articles in this week's Memo come from Communique, Education Week, The Learning Professional, Kappan, How We Frame Machines, Mathematics Teacher, Edutopia, and Reading Research Quarterly. The headlines:

• "Friction by design" in teacher professional development
• Teachers' "time poverty" when launching new curriculum initiatives
• The supports needed to implement high-quality instructional materials
• Five things we know about how teachers are using AI
• A low-floor/high-ceiling activity for young students' math reasoning
• Creative performance tasks to boost world language learning
• A tribute to Courtney Cazden

If you want an HTML version of this week's Memo, please click here. To listen to a podcast of last week's issue (#1129), click here. For a podcast of this week's Memo, log in at www.marshallmemo.com later this week and click Podcasts.

What's Happening at BES?

Monday 3/23
Tuesday 3/24
Wednesday 3/25	K-6 Teacher PD 8:20-9:20 Staff Meeting 3:10-4:45 Art Room
Thursday  3/26	2:55-3:25 Whole School Meeting
Friday 3/27	Team Meetings K-2 Attendance/Behavior  3-6 Academic

Where is Celia?

Monday 3/23	HJC 8:15 Union Meeting 9:15-10:00 Meeting at Central Office 11:00-12:00
Tuesday 3/24	Student Meeting 8:30-9:30  Principal's Meeting 10:00
Wednesday 3/25	K-6 Teacher PD 8:20-9:20 Meeting 12:00-1:00  WCLT Nuts and Bolts 1:00-2:00 Student Meeting 2:15 Staff Meeting 3:10-4:45 Art Room
Thursday  3/26	Student Meeting 8:15  Celia/Susanne Check In 10:00  BES SST 10:00-10:45 Meeting 1:00  2:55-3:25 Whole School Meeting
Friday 3/27	Student Meeting 11:40-12:10  Team Meetings K-2 Attendance/Behavior 3-6 Academic