Transcript

Text on screen: Coaching Cycle: Plan (24–36 months).

Logo: Count, play, explore—for early education.

On screen: The coach and the educator sit outside and are turned slightly toward each other. They both have a notebook and pen in their lap.

Coach: We talked a little bit about you wanting to focus on some of the M to the 5th practices with the CAEMI? [California Early Math Initiative, pronounced “kam ee”]

On screen: While the educator talks off-screen, an image of the M to the 5th diagram appears on-screen. The M to the 5th diagram has a central circle with the text, “Mutual Learning” inside. An outer circle around the “Mutual Learning” circle is split into four equal parts. The top left part has the text, “Meaningful Investigations.” The top right part has the text, “Materials and Learning Environments.” The bottom left part has the text, “Multiple Representations.” The bottom right part has the text, “Math Vocabulary and Discourse.”

Educator: Yeah. I’d like to be a little more aware of what I’m doing with that. I’m aware of them, but not thinking about it when I’m teaching the kids as much.

Coach: Yeah. As soon as I walked into the door, you were already counting up frogs, and there are pieces of that that are already happening. But it sounds like we just want to talk about what all the M to the 5th practices are -

Educator: Mm-hmm.

Coach: - and how they already fit into our day, and maybe how we can extend some of them even a little bit further.

Educator: Yeah. That would be great.

Coach: So for example, Materials and Environment. We have the ramps and balls that are already set up out here.

On screen: While the coach talks, an image of a child standing at one end of a ramp appears on-screen. A second image appears—a wood crate holding several wiffle balls.

Coach: Or inside, you already have the green and speckled frogs set up for them to use.

On screen: A cooking tray with a half-green, half-blue laminated paper positioned on it. On the green half of the paper is a log with five speckled frogs. On the left corner of the blue half of the paper is text that reads, “Five green and speckled frogs, Sitting on a speckled log, Eating the most delicious bugs, YUM! YUM! (rub tummy). One jumped into the pond (remove one frog from the log/stick), Where it was nice and cool, Now there are four green-speckled frogs. Continue until all the frogs are gone!” In the next scene, the coach and the educator resume their conversation.

Coach: So, that plays into the Materials and Environment, how you set the space up, and what you put in their space to encourage math practices. With mutual learning, I think that is an ongoing process. You watch the child do something -

Educator: Yeah.

Coach: - you gather information from that, and then, you move forward and decide, “Okay. Well, I’m going to extend it this way.” Or “I’m going to follow her to this direction.” And ...

Educator: Yeah. That’s something I’ve been actively working on, too, in the classroom is trying to notice the kids’ observations or just what they’re doing. And in the moment while I’m watching them, connect it to whatever concept they’re learning, especially with, we have our conferences coming up. And so, I’m very much trying to focus on “what skills are they working on right now,” and noticing that in my brain so I don’t have to think back and be like, “Oh, was it that ?” No. I know they’re working on this so I can get this out next week and build on that .

Coach: That’s awesome. So I’m hearing you say since you’re working on that and since your conferences are coming up, maybe what we do is focus on materials and environment -

On screen: While the educator talks off-screen, the M to the 5th diagram appears on-screen.

Coach: - and that way we can put the mutual learning piece together at the end and say, “This is what you are able to gather from the activities that were going on.” And then, use that toward when you have your conferences—the different math practices that the children are working on. Does that sound good to you?

Educator: Yeah, that sounds good.

Coach: Okay.

Educator: Yeah.

Coach: Cool.

Text on screen: A special thanks to the children, families, and staff of the Cuesta College Children’s Center, without whose help these videos would not have been possible.

Logo: Count, play, explore—for early education.