Room to Grow - a Math Podcast
38 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsRoom to Grow is the math podcast that brings you discussions on trending topics in math education in short segments. We’re not here to talk at people. We’re here to think and learn with others — because when it comes to mathematics there’s always room to grow!
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Episodes
Balancing Instructional Modalities
March 12, 2024 10:00 - 37 minutes - 25.5 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts look for the balance between instruction that is teacher-driven, traditional lecture-style, and inquiry-based, discovery-style lessons. They recognize the value of both types of teaching, understanding that there is a time in learning for both exploration and for direct and explicit teaching. The conversation offers explanation of what conditions may require different teaching strategies, based on the goals and content of the lesson as well as how...
A conversation with the National Teacher of the Year
February 13, 2024 11:00 - 48 minutes - 33.7 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts share conversation with Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year (NTOY). Rebecka is a high school math teacher at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on leave for the 2023-24 school year to fulfill her NTOY responsibilities. She views the NTOY not as an award, but rather a job, that of spokesperson and ambassador for the teaching profession. In this conversation, we learn about her teaching journey and the lessons she learned along...
Uncovering Student Thinking
January 16, 2024 11:00 - 33 minutes - 23.2 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie consider ways to uncover how students are actually thinking about the mathematics they are learning. Using a real-life, recent incident between Curtis and his sixth grade son, our hosts consider the challenging fact that many students think that success in math class means figuring out what answer the teacher (or the computer program/app, or the back of the book) is looking for. They posit that when educators are always focused on the math...
Deep Mathematical Thinking Using Math Milestones Tasks
December 11, 2023 12:00 - 42 minutes - 29.3 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, special guests Sandra Lightman and John Staley help Joanie and Curtis understand the Math Milestones. These one-page resources include 12-14 math tasks that provide a visualization of and engagement with the math standards of each grade. The Math Milestones tasks present grade level math, not as a list of standards or learning outcomes, but as a groups of math tasks, a language understood by teachers and students. The Math Milestones project was supported b...
Impacting Teaching Practice with Routines for Reasoning
November 13, 2023 11:00 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie continue their conversation with Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta. In follow-up to our previous episode, this conversation shifts to a focus on teachers and how the Reason Routines help them to be more effective with more students. We begin by talking about what makes teaching hard – including the fact that teachers make a million decisions every day in response to the students in the room and how they are engaging with the content; and tha...
Routines for Supporting Student Thinking
October 16, 2023 10:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta join Curtis and Joanie to talk about how routines can provide the “opportunity and support for each and every student develop mathematical thinking and reasoning.” Although routines are used by most educators for a variety of reasons, Grace and Amy focus on “Routines for Reasoning,” which are specifically designed and structured to surface the ways that students are thinking about the mathematics and to better understanding the...
How Important is Teacher Content Knowledge?
September 12, 2023 10:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis host special guest Dr. Katey Arrington to discuss the importance of teacher content knowledge. Dr. Arrington is the Associate Director of the UTeach Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also serving in the Presidential line for NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education from 2022-2026. Previously, she led the K-12 system services work at the Charles A. Dana Center, served as a mathematics coordinator for a growing, diverse...
Learning Experiences Aligned to Post-Secondary Goals
August 14, 2023 11:00 - 36 minutes - 25 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis talk about an important role of math education: preparing students for the life they want to pursue after high school. Whether it’s college, trade school, the military, or directly into the work force, a student’s goals and desires should drive their learning experiences throughout their PK-12 years, and the course offerings, counseling and advising, and school system overall should, ideally, prepare all students for the outcomes they desire...
We Don’t Just Teach Math, We Teach Students
July 17, 2023 10:00 - 33 minutes - 22.8 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis explore ideas around the emotional side of learning and how it impacts students in their academic growth. Because we and our students are humans - and humans have emotions - it is impossible to learn without a connection to our emotions, whether those emotions are positive or negative. As educators reflect over the summer and begin to plan for the upcoming school year, we hope you’ll consider the emotional side of your students’ experiences ...
Don’t Lose the Mathematics
June 12, 2023 12:00 - 31 minutes - 21.4 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis talk about teaching strategies for remembering in mathematics, such as mnemonic devices, tricks, and gimmicks. They challenge the notion that teaching with tricks is inherently bad, and discuss how to determine when a strategy intended to help students learn might actually work against their understanding of the underlying mathematics. For instance, “FOIL” and “SOH-CAH-TOA” are both frequently taught in high school math classes, yet one is...
Hot Takes on Important Math Topics
May 19, 2023 16:00 - 22 minutes - 15.8 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis share a friendly debate about which math topic is the most important for students to learn. There are many math topics that could be argued as the most important, and we’d love to hear your hot take, too! Take a listen to Curtis explaining why the meaning of the equals sign is crucial and Joanie arguing that proportional relationships are especially important. Then reach out to agree with one of them, or share a different topic that you ...
Unleashing the Mathematical Brilliance of All Students
April 10, 2023 11:00 - 37 minutes - 26 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis talk with Rachel Lambert, known for her research on teaching mathematics to students with disabilities. Rachel’s passion and enthusiasm is matched by her knowledge, and the combination makes for a powerful conversation full of great resources, ideas, and suggestions for classroom teachers. If you haven’t heard Rachel speak before, you are in for a treat! We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode: Rachel’...
Teaching and Learning Math from an Assets Perspective
March 13, 2023 09:00 - 29 minutes - 20.1 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis discuss and asset-based approach to teaching and learning mathematics. They emphasize that all students bring strengths to learning mathematics, whether it be from a cultural, language, or ways of thinking lens, and that by assuming that all students have and bring strengths, math educators invite even more learners to be successful. As usual, our hosts share their personal experiences, anecdotes and ideas that they hope you’ll relate to. ...
Tapping Into Identity and Equity in Mathematics
February 13, 2023 15:00 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis share a powerful conversation with Dr. Julia Aguirre, co-author of the book The Impact of Identity on K-8 Mathematics: Rethinking Equity-Based Practices. This publication, and additional work led by Julia at the University of Washington, Tacoma, has influenced countless math educators across the country who want to ensure that all students have the opportunities, support, and classroom experiences that lead to deep learning of meaningful m...
Math Puns, Memes, and GIFs, Oh My!
January 17, 2023 10:00 - 31 minutes - 22 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis take some time to have fun with math. We share some of the puns, memes, and GIFs about math that make us laugh, make us think, and have been or would be great to share with students. We all appreciate the chance to laugh, and although puns and memes are often silly and sometimes groan-worthy, sharing the lighter side of ourselves and of math with students is a great way to build relationships and classroom culture. No doubt, your students w...
Ensuring Access to Mathematics for ALL Students
November 04, 2022 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.2 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis build the conversation from NCTM's description of access, described as "ensuring that all students routinely have opportunities to experience high-quality mathematics instruction, learn challenging mathematics content, and receive the support necessary to be successful." Our hosts tackle this challenging topic by considering some important high-leverage components, particularly those that are within a classroom teachers’ locus of control. E...
What’s the Deal with Data Science?
October 13, 2022 20:00 - 35 minutes - 24.1 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie dig into a conversation about data science. They start by trying to define what data science is, describing it as the intersection of content, statistics, computer science, problem solving. It is complex, and allows people to interact with information that content, statistics, or computer science couldn’t do alone. In our current technology and data rich world, this topic is timely, relevant, and growing in importance. Curtis and Joanie des...
Intervention for Middle and High School with Kevin Dykema
September 12, 2022 18:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie welcome Kevin Dykema, new President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). As a practicing classroom teacher, Kevin brings practical knowledge to his NCTM leadership. He reflects on they ways that most school systems have historically addressed students who are struggling in math class, to give them more-of-the-same, or a slower-and-louder approach, and how these typically don’t result in resolving students’ struggles. K...
Breaking the Struggle Stigma
August 15, 2022 15:00 - 31 minutes - 21.4 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie welcome Juliana Tapper, Math Intervention Specialist and Founder of CollaboratEd Consulting. We start by apologizing for mispronouncing Juliana’s last name when she is introduced at the start of the podcast! Please note that her last name is Tapper, rather than Trapper. We are so sorry, Juliana! Juliana brings her experience teaching and supporting middle and high school math teachers and math interventionists to help us consider ways to...
Rigor for Sustained Learning
July 18, 2022 13:00 - 35 minutes - 24.5 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie tackle ideas around rigor in mathematics. We start by defining what we mean by rigor, acknowledging that it’s a frequently used term that invokes different ideas and meanings! We believe that it means something different than just “difficult,” but frames a way of describing deep, robust, and applicable understanding of mathematical ideas, and we share a couple of visual images that help make sense of this complexity. Through our exploratio...
Uncovering Assumptions in Math Instruction
June 13, 2022 15:00 - 34 minutes - 23.4 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie consider assumptions that we make during math instruction and how these have the potential to interfere with students’ understanding of the mathematics. Teachers know more math than their students, and as a teacher, it can sometimes be a challenge to remember what it was like before we knew and understood a math concept. This can lead us to inadvertently assuming that students are following our thinking or considering external knowledge that...
Celebrating Learning with Self-Reflection
May 16, 2022 14:00 - 28 minutes - 19.7 MBAs we approach the end of the school year, this episode of Room to Grow addresses using self-reflection to celebrate the learning of the year. Our hosts use this definition: “Self-Reflection is the evaluation or judgement of one’s performance and the identification of one’s strengths and weaknesses with a view to improving one’s learning outcomes (Damore, 2017),” and start with unpacking this quote from John Dewey: “We don’t learn from experiences, we learn from reflecting on our experiences...
Giving Meaningful Feedback
April 11, 2022 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.5 MBIn this episode, we discuss considerations for providing meaningful feedback to our students. We think this is a great follow-up to our last episode on grading! In preparing for our discussion, we learned about the research supporting effective feedback for learning, which includes suggestions around the type of feedback to give, when to give it, and how meaningful feedback is separate from grading. Our research articles suggest that feedback is not advice or criticism, but information tha...
What’s in a Grade?
March 14, 2022 14:00 - 30 minutes - 20.9 MBIn this episode, we discuss grades in mathematics courses. Although we don’t claim to have a recommendation or even an opinion about what might be the right way to handle grades, we hope to bring up considerations for our listeners to talk about and think through as they reflect on their own grading practices. We wonder if many grading practices are in place are just legacy practices, handed down and sustained by teacher teams and departments, or schools with prescribed grading requirements...
Supporting Curious Students
February 15, 2022 15:00 - 33 minutes - 23.3 MBIn this episode, we build on our previous conversation about fostering curiosity in our students by focusing on the role of math teachers in encouraging students to be curious and creative in math class. With full awareness that we are teaching and influencing students who will leave our classrooms and schools to go contribute to the world, and that we are preparing our students for jobs that don't exist now, we acknowledge how important it is to attend to a culture of curiosity and creativi...
Curiosity and Exploration - Passing the Legacy to Our Students
January 13, 2022 19:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBIn the first episode of Season 2, Curtis and Joanie discuss one of Curtis' favorite ideas - fostering curiosity and exploration in the math classroom. It's a common idea that math teachers can support students in "exploring the world through math," but in this episode we think about turning that phrase on its head and wondering how we can "explore mathematics through the world?" With this goal in mind, educators could provide experiences where they are asking the questions that drive their l...
Balancing Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Fluency
December 09, 2021 15:00 - 41 minutes - 28.5 MBIn this episode, Joanie and Curtis consider the balance between conceptual understanding and procedural fluency in mathematics teaching and learning. Acknowledging that this idea is like a pendulum that has swung back and forth over several decades, they unpack the meanings of these terms and discuss the impact and implications on student learning. They use the 2001 publication Adding It Up to describe how conceptual understanding and procedural fluency come together with three other ideas ...
Addressing Math Anxiety with Robert Ahdoot - Part 2
November 22, 2021 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBIn this episode, Joanie and Curtis continue their conversation with Robert Ahdoot, founder of Yay! Math. We continue the conversation from Episode 9, digging into how teachers can address students’ math anxiety. We discuss the idea that teaching could be considered a service profession, and how that perspective can support teachers in building trust with their students. Robert shares a powerful story of a discipline issue in his classroom, and how approaching the situation with the humanness...
Addressing Math Anxiety with Robert Ahdoot
October 25, 2021 15:00 - 36 minutes - 25.3 MBJoanie and Curtis host their first guest on this episode of Room to Grow. Robert Ahdoot taught high school math and found his strength in connecting with and engaging students, leveraging his enthusiasm and creativity to build strong relationships with students. He found that his humor, compassion, and excitement for mathematics content helped students overcome their anxiety about and struggles with learning math. Robert brings a contemplative and self-reflective spirit to our conversation...
Addressing Math Anxiety with Robert Ahdoot - Part 1
October 25, 2021 15:00 - 36 minutes - 25.3 MBJoanie and Curtis host their first guest on this episode of Room to Grow. Robert Ahdoot taught high school math and found his strength in connecting with and engaging students, leveraging his enthusiasm and creativity to build strong relationships with students. He found that his humor, compassion, and excitement for mathematics content helped students overcome their anxiety about and struggles with learning math. Robert brings a contemplative and self-reflective spirit to our conversation...
Reframing Learning Loss
September 20, 2021 20:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis discuss the challenge of pandemic “learning loss” and provide ideas for math teachers to reframe this concept. They speak about the potential negative impacts of deficit language as students return to classrooms across the country, and emphasize the importance of creating a positive classroom culture for learning, grounded in beliefs that all students can and will be successful. Acknowledging that educators are facing significant pandemic-re...
Creating a Classroom Environment Fertile for Learning
August 23, 2021 20:00 - 29 minutes - 20.2 MBThe article referred to in the podcast for building back better can be found here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindadarlinghammond/2021/04/05/accelerating-learning-as-we-build-back-better/?sh=33b314156722&fbclid=IwAR2QaW5oCyel5PxBECCziT9c6bKr3osAUSTj81ZP5gdi09cyvIJQN8JmT7U Restart and Reinvent report: https://restart-reinvent.learningpolicyinstitute.org/ Effortful Thinking: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-06-28-better-questions-in-the-classroom-lead-students-to-think-harder-and-learn-d...
How Beliefs Impact Achievement
July 27, 2021 14:00 - 34 minutes - 23.4 MBHow does what we believe as teachers impact our students and their learning? What about their beliefs about themselves as learners and doers of mathematics? In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie explore these ideas and more from the perspective of continuous improvement and growing awareness as educators. They share stories from their own experiences where naming a fundamental belief about teaching and learning mathematics provides a powerful reminder of habits, actions, or deci...
Helping Students Struggle Productively
July 06, 2021 13:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MBProductive Struggle is a key component of students’ mathematical learning. But struggle can shift from “productive” to “unproductive” at different rates and for different reasons for different students (and teachers!). Ensuring that students engage in productive struggle is complex, nuanced, and dependent on a healthy classroom culture and strong teacher-student relationships. In this episode, Curtis and Joanie explore what productive struggle looks like and how to recognize when a student...
Mathematical Representations
June 14, 2021 13:00 - 34 minutes - 23.7 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts discuss the importance of mathematical representations for students' deep learning of mathematics. The five representations described in NCTM's Principles to Actions include Physical, Visual, Symbolic, Verbal, and Contextual. Research shows that attending to and making connections between these multiple representations. National Research Council (2001), "Because of the abstract nature of mathematics, people have access to mathematical ideas only thr...
Mathematical Exploration
May 24, 2021 12:00 - 27 minutes - 19.2 MBIn this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie dive into ideas around exploration and play in mathematics. Although this may seem frivolous and not a priority for time-constrained math educators, our hosts discuss the positive implications on student learning, mindsets, and engagement in the mathematics. By framing an activity as “exploration,” the stress many students carry around learning math can dissipate, opening their minds to better understanding and enjoyment, and allowing them t...
Ensuring Every Student is Learning
May 03, 2021 13:00 - 28 minutes - 19.6 MBOne of the biggest challenges math teachers face is the variety of mathematical backgrounds students bring with them to math class. Although state standards describe what students should know and be able to do at the end of the grade, more often than not, students move to the next grade or course with an incomplete mastery of pre-requisite content. In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie suggest that we reframe this reality: instead of thinking this is a problem to be solved, edu...
Making Modeling Accessible
April 19, 2021 15:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBMathematical modeling is a cornerstone of students’ K-12 mathematics learning experiences. In their debut episode, your Room to Grow hosts discuss ideas for including more mathematical modeling in your classroom. Joanie and Curtis start by acknowledging that the term “modeling” conjures up many ideas for educators and for students, and define their non-negotiable characteristics of mathematical modeling. They suggest the differentiators include that students must have the opportunity to app...