🤔 Is Your School a Place Where Students Do Math🧠—or Just Watch It👀?

Walk through a typical math classroom for just a few minutes, and you can usually tell whether the lesson is “under control.” Students are quiet, the teacher is explaining a concept, and everyone seems on task. But pause for a moment and ask yourself this:

Who is doing the thinking?

It’s easy to mistake a calm, compliant classroom for an engaged one. But just because students are looking at the board and writing things down doesn’t mean they’re actually doing mathematics. In fact, many of our most well-behaved classrooms are filled with students who are watching math happen—but rarely engaging in the deep thinking, reasoning, and sensemaking that true learning requires.

As instructional leaders, we have to ask the hard questions:

• Are students being given real opportunities to engage with mathematics?

• Are we equating quiet classrooms with effective teaching?

• And most importantly, are our systems encouraging active learning—or passive compliance?

🌀 The Illusion of Engagement

In many walkthroughs, what gets praised are things like:

• Smooth pacing

• Clear teacher explanations

• Students on task and “following along”

But these are often surface-level indicators. If we’re not careful, we end up using walkthroughs to confirm what teachers are doing, instead of investigating what students are experiencing.

This kind of observation model centers teacher performance, not student learning. It overlooks whether students are being invited into the work of doing mathematics: making sense of problems, defending ideas, exploring mistakes, and applying strategies.

🔗 ICUCARE Lens: Release Control

When leaders focus only on what the teacher is doing, we reinforce teacher-centered instruction. But deep learning doesn’t happen until students are the ones doing the heavy cognitive lifting.

🚦 Signs That Students Are Just Watching

Let’s name a few common signs that students are passively engaging in math class:

• The teacher is doing most (or all) of the talking.

• Students are copying notes or examples without discussion.

• The task is procedural, with little room for reasoning or choice.

• Mistakes are corrected immediately, rather than examined or explored.

• Only a few students are regularly called on to share their thinking.

This dynamic can be especially common in classrooms serving students who’ve been labeled as “low performing.” Out of a desire to help, teachers often over-scaffold—doing the explaining, choosing the strategies, and rushing to the right answer. But that support can unintentionally silence student thinking.

🔍 What We Should Be Looking for Instead

Engaged math classrooms look—and sound—different. There’s a buzz of ideas, not just a quiet hum. There’s confusion and struggle—but also curiosity and discovery.

In student-centered math classrooms, you’ll see:

• Students making sense of problems before the teacher explains them.

• Multiple strategies being discussed, critiqued, and refined.

• Students talking to each other—not just the teacher.

• Teachers using student thinking as the foundation for instruction.

• A culture where mistakes are welcomed as opportunities to learn.

👁️ICUCARE Lens: Expect More

High expectations aren’t about moving fast or covering content. They’re about creating space for every student to engage in rich mathematical thinking—not just the ones we already perceive as “advanced.”

🛠️ Rethinking the Role of Walkthroughs

If your walkthrough tools focus only on the teacher—what they’re doing, saying, or writing—you’re missing the bigger picture.

Instead, ask:

• Who is doing the mathematical thinking right now?

• What kind of task are students working on? Is it open-ended or procedural?

• Are all students engaged in reasoning—or just a few?

• Do student conversations reflect sensemaking, or just right/wrong answers?

When we center student thinking in our observations, we begin to shift what we value. And what we value is what teachers begin to prioritize.

🧑‍🏫 Practical Moves for School Leaders

Here are a few ways to move from “watching math” to doing math—starting with your leadership practices:

✅ 1. Focus Observations on Student Thinking

Ask yourself during walkthroughs:

What evidence do I have that students are reasoning, discussing, and constructing understanding?

✅ 2. Create Safe Spaces for Teacher Risk-Taking

Let teachers know they don’t have to have a “perfect” lesson. Encourage experimentation with open tasks, group work, and discourse routines.

✅ 3. Model Feedback That Centers Students

In post-observation conversations, ask:

• “Where did students get to struggle today?”

• “How did you see students making sense of the math?”

• “What surprised you about your students’ thinking?”

✅ 4. Adjust What You Measure

Use walkthrough and evaluation tools that track student engagement in the Standards for Mathematical Practice, not just teacher delivery.

🔄 Closing: Shift the Spotlight

Students can’t become confident, capable mathematicians by watching someone else do the work. They need time. They need space. And they need leaders who understand that true engagement isn’t quiet compliance—it’s active thinking.

So the next time you walk through a math classroom, don’t just look at the board. Don’t just watch the teacher. Look at the students.

Are they watching math—or doing it?

And what will you, as a leader, do to make sure it’s the latter?