Episode 3.10: Where Joel and Misty embrace being late and continue their conversation with Dr. Malia Hite

Have you ever considered how liberating it could be to break away from the shackles of your schedule? Well, Joel and Misty kick off this episode by celebrating National Be Late for Something Day and discuss the importance of slowing down, reconnecting with our loved ones, and appreciating the world around us. 

In the second segment, they conclude their captivating conversation with Dr. Malia Height, a respected figure in the education field, delving into the intricate dynamics of assessment in teaching students with learning disabilities. 

Can you imagine the ripple effects of challenging conventional norms in education? Join them as they explore this thought-provoking subject. They lay out innovative perspectives on the necessity of recognizing each student's individuality, and how it shapes their mathematical experiences. 

And then! It's the first installment of  a recurring segment called Join Them on Their Journey. Welcome three educators - Grahame Sorensen, Maggie Cenan, and Mike Hammar - as they take you through their journey of implementing CPM in their classrooms. These conversations are a goldmine of insights into their challenges, triumphs, and everything in between. 

The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
Twitter: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org

Transcript

Misty: 0:00

Well, here we are. It is the 5th of September 2023, and this is episode 10 in season 3 of the More Math for More People podcast. Cheers.

Joel: 0:30

Hello, there, I'm. Joel.

Misty: 0:31

And I'm Misty.

Joel: 0:33

And you're listening to the More Math for More People podcast, an outreach of CPM educational program.

Misty: 0:39

We have a lot of conversations about math and math education on this podcast. We're passionate about continually improving the way math is taught and we hope that you learn something in every episode that helps you become better at what you do.

Joel: 0:51

And we hope that you have some fun and laugh as well. That always makes things a little more interesting.

Misty: 0:56

Yep, we're pretty passionate about having fun Joel.

Joel: 1:00

So please have a listen and we think it'll be well worth it. Boom.

Misty: 1:10

Okay, so here we are. It is the national day of, and I am wondering, joel, what day is it, joel? Uh, joel, oh, hey, hey, oh, joel, there you are, hey, what?

Joel: 1:23

Did I miss?

Misty: 1:23

anything. Well, I was just asking you what national day it is, but you weren't here.

Joel: 1:31

Well, oddly enough, it's national belate for something day.

Misty: 1:35

Oh well, you're already celebrating, yes, I'm peak celebration right now. Well, great, Okay, so wait, that's pretty self-explanatory. Wait, I mean, it's self-explanatory, but why is this a day? Why are we celebrating? Belate for something?

Joel: 1:52

It's an opportunity to just not be tied to that calendar. Don't waste your time looking at the calendar. Slow down. We live hectic lifestyles, so I think that's the motivation behind the holiday. I see.

Grahame: 2:07

I see Yep.

Joel: 2:08

It's actually been around for a while, like in 1956, the procrastinator's club started and it was an idea to just showcase the upsides of tardiness and I'm not quite sure what the upsides really are Upsides of tardiness.

Misty: 2:25

I mean, I can see that. I can see I'm on board with the. We don't have to quite be so busy all the time. You don't have to be so packed in our schedules and doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. I'm really on board with that. It's a challenge for me. I'm very much in favor of when people say how things are going, not answering busy.

Joel: 2:44

Yes.

Misty: 2:45

It's. It's like become a thing that, oh, we're so busy and I'm so I'm really on board with that, but I'm not sure about the upsides of tardiness like that, that sort of. It feels weird to say yeah, Tardiness has a different connotation, but I mean I it's. It's interesting that we can encourage people to just like schedule or not schedule things, as opposed to just be late for things.

Joel: 3:10

Oh, good point.

Misty: 3:11

That's interesting. Yeah, and I would teach their own and how they want to go about doing a thing.

Joel: 3:16

Exactly and it's really. The description is kind of like maybe take a long nap or take a long walk or take care of yourself, rather than being stuck to a schedule, I think the idea I was I was tardy because I was having self-care. Yes, and this, the suggested ways to celebrate, would be to give yourself a break to reconnect with loved ones. If you're need to do that, and then see the forest for the trees.

Misty: 3:45

See the forest.

Joel: 3:47

Yes, so just sit in the park. People watch says feed the pigeons. I'm feeding pigeons, because I think we don't want to encourage that behavior. But that's the scrooge in me.

Misty: 4:03

I guess you could just communicate with pigeons while you're sitting in the park. Well, all right, I think those are. It's hard to argue that any of those is a thing that people shouldn't do more of. Yeah, so, and if you're late to things because you are doing those things, then maybe it's a reconsideration time of your calendar Exactly. All right. Well, if you choose to celebrate national, be late for something day. Don't be late for anything. That's vital, that's right and important. But choose something and be late for it.

Joel: 4:35

That's right. You can even tell people I'm going to be late. I'm celebrating.

Misty: 4:38

There you go.

Joel: 4:43

That would be the reason.

Misty: 4:55

So now we have part two of our conversation about working with students with learning disabilities with Dr Malia Height. If you missed part one of our conversation with Dr Height, then please go back to episode nine and listen to the first part. It's a really wonderful conversation and we're going to finish up that conversation with her here now.

Joel: 5:21

There's kind of a topic I'd like to talk about, but I don't know. I really know how to ask this question, but what role does assessment have in all of this?

Dr. Malia Hite: 5:31

Cool. Assessment is critical. Assessment is what unlocks, which scaffolds and which supports and which accommodations are helpful for your students. I think when we look at assessment, when we say the word assessment, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For me, assessment isn't just the test at the end of the unit where I give them a grade and that goes in the grade book. Assessment for me is how my car of learning drives. It's the engine. What helps me know? What does the student understand? Where are the errors in the thinking? And then, by identifying where the errors are in the thinking, then we can see oh, is this a foundational background knowledge problem? Is this a computational issue? Is this, do we have a misconception that we've got to figure out and unravel so that we can get them back to the correct conceptual foundations.

Dr. Malia Hite: 6:41

The assessment part, which can be you can look at formal assessments, sit down and write it down. It can also be as students are engaging in a task in your classroom, asking them questions about how they're thinking about it, what, explaining their justification or their thinking about why did they approach the problem this way? And understanding how they're thinking about mathematics is something that is really hard to get on a piece of paper and it really is critical. Within that mathematical talk that happens in a classroom when they're engaging in a task is where I do most of my assessment. I believe that if you're doing formative assessment well, by the time the summative assessment comes there should be zero surprises. You should know exactly what that student's going to get on this test before you hand it out.

Dr. Malia Hite: 7:41

But the assessment is what really helps you to know. Do I have to teach background knowledge so that they can get into the task or can understand the mathematical concept we're working at? Do they need some sort of an organizational tool to help them organize their thinking? Because they're having executive functioning problems, because it is the task too overwhelming. The visual load is so much that they're shutting down. Can I give them a tiny chunk of the task to engage in? But it really is talking to your students and finding out what they're thinking and when they're not engaging. It's finding out why they're not engaging and I think that's the ticket. If you can find out why a kid isn't engaging or what the misconception is with their mathematics that they are engaging in, then you can refine either your teaching practices and lesson plans or you can provide an appropriate accommodation or support to help them engage accurately.

Misty: 8:51

As you're saying that. One of the things that comes to mind for me is that a lot of times in that questioning, if I walk up to a student and they're working, they're in their team and they're doing something, I can see that it's not right in asking the questions, that then don't shut them down. Same thing, if they're not engaging and I'm asking them questions, that it doesn't become this sort of a confrontation or some sort of a just pushes them. I often ask kids like oh, why did you do this? And they start erasing right away. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to understand what you're doing and getting into their thinking and helping them know that that thinking is the helpful piece. We need to get at that thinking so that I can help them at some point go oh, I see, but what if you thought of this and then give them that little tiny bit that can?

Misty: 9:38

help change what they're looking, or a bigger bit. But helping them if they're not, if I'm not able to engage with them so that they talk to me, is huge.

Dr. Malia Hite: 9:48

Yeah, and engaging in that train of communication with our students is as important as it is when we see that they have an error. We need to normalize that. That's just a question I asked If I see that they're doing something correctly. Tell me how you came to this answer and I need to understand where your thinking was that you got there, so that then we don't have that knee-jerk reaction oh I did it wrong. Where did me erase it? Because then it's just normalized.

Dr. Malia Hite: 10:22

And I think one of the ways that you can do that in a classroom, if you're engaging in task-based learning, is to have whole class discussions about the task that you're engaged in and having students to present their work and explain their thinking and then model for the students questions to help elicit that thinking process, and then the students will start asking those questions and you don't have to. Is that then their teams? When the team looks over and notices, oh, you've got the wrong answer. I came up with something different and maybe I'm wrong and maybe you're right. How did, what did you do to get there and explain to me how your thinking was to get there? That is going to help everybody, because that mathematical discourse is going to support the learning of all of your students and normalize the. I meant ask you what you're thinking and how you got there.

Misty: 11:26

And what you just said makes me think of shared math authority. Right, because if I'm the one who's coming around asking all the questions, then I'm the one who's deciding what's right and I have all the math authority and the more I can like. Oh, I want to understand what you did, whether it's right or wrong. I want to understand and then having other kids do that same thing.

Dr. Malia Hite: 11:46

Yeah, the. If you want to shut down mathematical thinking, all you have to do is tell a kid they're right, or tell them they're wrong, and that's it. That later they're like oh okay, I'm done.

Joel: 11:56

Another thing I appreciate what you've been saying from the beginning is also not to make assumptions as an educator and to and to share that culture and environment of the classroom with your students to better be able to be able to understand and not shut people down. So I like that.

Dr. Malia Hite: 12:15

Yeah, I think that's that maybe is a. I hadn't thought of it until just now that that might be something. That is we see when we see students who are not engaging in mathematics. We make a lot of assumptions as teachers especially. You're in a classroom, you've got 35 kids and you're trying to navigate that, and you've got an assembly later and someone so just threw up in the court like there's all kinds of things that are happening in a classroom and and so we make a lot of assumptions because we're constantly thinking fast and have to attend to many things at the same time. But I think if we can get into the practice of challenging our assumption and just asking the question what's what's up today? Why are, why are you not engaging today? What's the problem? I think challenging our assumptions can help us to maybe really support students in in meaningful ways.

Misty: 13:10

Building those relationships. Yeah, I know what is happening today?

Joel: 13:13

What is going on with you?

Misty: 13:15

And and I and I acknowledge that that is a challenge if I have 35 students in the classroom in 42 minutes, right exactly Right.

Dr. Malia Hite: 13:23

But if we I always say that if you can't build a relationship with kid and kids don't know how much you care, don't care they don't care about your math. You have to build that meaningful relationship with kids so that then they they know that when you're asking the question of explain to me your thinking, it's not about so that I can assess you and give you a grade so I can do my job. It's about I care about your thinking and I care about your learning, and then they will want to engage with you.

Misty: 13:59

Yeah, some part of that for me was letting them know that I thought found their thinking and reasoning interesting. I'm curious, like I want to know, I want to understand, because I find it interesting Even when it's not, even when it's not quite accurate. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting that you put that together that way. Yeah, let's look at it this way.

Dr. Malia Hite: 14:16

Yeah, I have learned more mathematics from my students thinking than I learned in all of my math learning. It's because they think about things differently and they approach problems from a perspective that I don't know, because my my perspective is very trained and very analytical and very precise. And here's this it has to look this way, and they don't have a lot of those structures that are part of their experience, and so they have this freedom to think mathematically in ways that are not bound by structure.

Misty: 14:58

So, as we start to wrap up, is there anything in particular that we haven't asked you about that you really hoped we would.

Dr. Malia Hite: 15:10

No, I would. I will say this, and that this was, this was an, an experience that is really that has caused me to push into this world of helping students who struggle in mathematics to access high-level mathematics is that? It's not about I Don't think about all of the thousands of students that have been in my math class. It's thinking about the one, whoever that one is. Maybe it's one student. For me it's I've got nieces and nephews and children who have disabilities and the learning for that individual student. For me it's it's maybe one of several hundred, or that I'm teaching in a year, but for that student it is their entire mathematical experience, and if they have one poor mathematical experience, they will choose to opt out of mathematics forever.

Dr. Malia Hite: 16:10

And and when we try and support students who struggle in mathematics, we need to think about not only their only experience in that moment, but all of their future engagement in mathematics, because the trajectory of where that student is going to go depends on what they're experiencing today. And If they have a great experience engaging in mathematics today, they're going to be willing to persist tomorrow a little bit more, and they're going to be willing to persist Next year. Maybe they have a teacher who doesn't support them as much and Doesn't recognize the needs that they have, that need accommodations, but they will be able to persist a little bit longer because of the positive experience they have today. And so when we support students, I think it's really critical to think of the one that each student is. Their own Person and their mathematical experience and their lived experiences All impact that moment in mathematics, but that moment in mathematics impacts a thousand future moments in mathematics.

Joel: 17:31

That is.

Misty: 17:35

Yeah yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast with us and giving us your insight and your knowledge and your inspiration. Just really appreciate it. So thank you.

Dr. Malia Hite: 17:45

Well, thank you, it's been really fun and I just I love math and I love students more than I love math. That's, that's why I do it.

Misty: 17:58

Great. Thank you so, misty. Here I want to introduce a new segment that we have Called join them on their journey. So what'll happen is we have two teachers and one admin who are going to record for us Just a brief little insight into how they're doing, what's happening in their classroom, some of their struggles, some of their challenges, some of their successes throughout the year as they implement CPM. One of our teachers is implementing CPM for the first time and that is Graham Sorenson. He's a high school teacher in Salt Lake City schools, so he'll be telling us about his implementation of CPM.

Misty: 18:57

We also have a middle school teacher, maggie Chenin. She is from Archer School for Girls in LA and she is a veteran CPM teacher but will be transitioning to inspiring connections this year, so we'll hear about her journey. And then we'll also have Michael Hammer. He is an assistant principal in Benzy Central Middle School High School in Michigan, so we'll hear how CPM is going for him and his school as they continue to implement CPM. So we hope you enjoy this. It's going to be a recurring segment. We might hear from one or two or three of them each podcast, depending on how they are doing and how they can get things for us, and this is this launch. So here you go. Enjoy First up Maggie Chenin from Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles. Go, maggie.

Maggie: 19:55

Hi, it's Maggie, and this year I am going to be sharing my journey, as you know, as teachers, regardless if it's your 15th year teaching or not, like myself, each year brings a new host of exciting moments, challenges, and we all go on a little journey. A little bit about myself this is my 15th year teaching. I have taught from sixth grade all the way up to twelfth grade and content from sixth through algebra two. In the last 11 years I've primarily focused teaching middle school. There is just something about the budding maturity, about the students in middle school, the roller coaster that sometimes you are on from the beginning of a school year to the end, maybe even sometimes from the beginning of a class period to the end of the class period. So I have primarily taught seventh grade for the last 11 years and this is actually my fifth year teaching CPM.

Maggie: 21:10

I will be honest, I was a little reluctant to switch to the CPM and the main focus of the hesitation was mainly that you're switching to a totally different curriculum. So I at first was a little reluctant, but as I got into it and I was told just to follow it, just do what I can do for the first year, and I think that gave me the space and the grace to really follow it and trust the process, and I remember a teacher in the middle school who had been more familiar with CPM just said trust it, and I can say I am the biggest fan. I am also the department chair and I've been able to bring in CPM curriculum from sixth grade all the way up to what we have as our. I am three, and so I have loved teaching CPM for the last five years, and this year the journey that I will be sharing with all of you is that I'm switching again to a new curriculum, but this time to the CPM inspiring connections, specifically course three, and so I I'm excited.

Maggie: 22:24

I am a little overwhelmed. I am a planner and I like to be able to see that through line from this August 22nd, when we start school, all the way through till June. And yes, I've taught CC three before with the core connections, but it's different. So I I am nervous, but with looking at the curriculum and the new interface online, I have been able to see some amazing elements. For example, there's clothesline math that was incorporated into a lesson I was looking at the other day and it's like I I've seen that I've been to a conference where they presented on it and I would have to bring it in, but this time my curriculum is bringing it in, and so it is really exciting to see the new implementations, including the culturally responsive teaching practices and the explanation of why behind those practices. So this journey that I will be sharing about is going to to give you some some insight into what it's like to switch to a new curriculum, being a veteran teacher, and so I look forward to sharing these moments and thank you for listening.

Misty: 23:43

Is Graham Sorensen. Take it away, Graham.

Grahame: 23:47

Hi there. This is Graham Sorensen from Salt Lake City, utah. I teach at Highland High School in Salt Lake City School District. I teach secondary one and secondary two extended and I just started using CPM this week. We just started and finished our first week of school. So far, so good. I am exhausted but I enjoyed it.

Grahame: 24:17

I am a type of teacher that did not start off the week, start off the year using math. I tried to do more, get to know you activities and tried to build community and not be too intimidating. So I was a little bit nervous to hand ninth grade students expressions that they had to evaluate, but I felt like it went fairly well. Students were already helping each other and it got them right into doing math and maybe seeing that it wasn't so intimidating and getting a feel for the class.

Grahame: 24:59

I really enjoyed the collaborative learning, the building of the teams and the structure of the team roles. So I'm excited that I'm using that. Students already know their roles and I'm excited to continue to develop that. I think that's a really great thing and I enjoy doing the activities where they had different stations around the room. I investigated the different rectangles that had an area of 26, the pandemic situation and timing each other finding their name. I thought that was a great activity and the students seem to enjoy it. It's great to kick off the year seeing students already engaged in math and enjoying it. I'm looking forward to this journey and can't wait to report back after using more CPM and getting to know my students. Thanks for listening.

Misty: 26:10

Well, thank you, graham. And last up we have Michael Hammer from Michigan. What's got, michael?

Joel: 26:17

Hi, my name is Mike Hammer and I have a very strange journey through this CPM experience. In the early 2000s I was teaching at a small school in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and I went to a conference and there were people toting the CPM curriculum. So I went and had a lovely chat with a young lady and after that I went up to my small district and I said I think I found a math curriculum for us and the next year our department of two. We decided that we would go with CPM and we went and we picked up CPM and we got the textbooks and we started with this journey. One thing we didn't realize is there was all this amazing training that you can get with CPM. We just started doing it on our own.

Joel: 27:09

For 10 years I taught CPM at the small Upper Peninsula School, fast forward to about six years ago. Six years ago my wife and I transferred to a different school that is in the northern lower Michigan and we were in a school that had no set curriculum for math. We were following the standards but we didn't have the curriculum in place. So for about four years I was teaching under that system and then, in a weird sort of way a friend of mine also here at the district we decided to get our admin degrees. So we went through all the coursework together and we got our admin degrees. So for the previous two years I've been an assistant principal at the school that I transferred to downstate. Part of that thing is I knew that we needed a math curriculum. So last year we started the process of picking out a math curriculum and CPM did bubble to the top for us. So we went through a whole process of things and in the end my department picked up CPM. So this current year, coming up 3.24, we are planning on implementing the CPM curriculum. Now a little twist is we could not find a chemistry teacher. So now I am actually moving out of the assistant principal role and moving back into the classroom and we'll be teaching a section of geometry using the current CPM curriculum and also teaching chemistry and things like that. That's my CPM journey. It's been a little convoluted and a little strange.

Joel: 28:51

A few other facts about me. I have been teaching for this will be 25 years now, with two years in there being an assistant principal. I'm very excited to start this curriculum. This past summer, myself and the math department here at my current district. We went to the three-day training and the excitement that is coming around our staff and almost the camaraderie that we have, that we now have something we can work through together is really, really exciting to see. So that's where I am at at this point. We are very excited to be starting the CPM curriculum journey and I think, with all of the support that CPM offers, I think we are going to be in very good standings in a couple of years, especially in getting the implementation of this curriculum set for. Thank you so much. You probably will be hearing me from me periodically because this is our first year. So, being the first year, we'll go through some of our pitfalls and downfalls and successes as the 2023-2024 school year continues. Thanks for your time and I hope all of you have a wonderful school year.

Misty: 30:12

So that's all we have time for on this episode of the More Math for More People podcast. The music for the podcast was created by Julius H and can be found on pixivaycom. Thanks, julius. Join us in two weeks for the next episode of More Math for More People. What day will that be, joel, our hippie.

Joel: 30:40

September the 19th, 2023. National talk like a pirate day. That's the best I got, alright, so it will be National Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is also known as the National Meow Like a Pirate Day. So I'm interested to investigate that a little bit here. Misty's pirate accent and interpretation of what a pirate might say. Maybe tell a few jokes. We'll have a little bit of fun and we'll see you on September, the 19th, national Talk Like a Pirate Day. Oh, by the way, it's my birthday. We'll be celebrating that too. Alright, see you then.