More Math for More People
Episode 4.3: Where Joel and Misty discuss King Kamehameha and then IT'S THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!!!
Buckle up! It's the end of the school year and we've got a podcast filled with reflections, advice, and learnings!
First, Joel and Misty discuss King Kamehameha Day. If you live in Hawaii (first, #envious), then you probably already know many of the fun facts that they share about King Kamehameha and a few of his amazing accomplishments.
Then it's time for the FINAL installment of Join Them on Their Journey. Grahame, Mike, and Maggie share their final reflections on the year, make plans for next year, (Happy Retirement, Mike!), and give some advice to their past selves.
And then some of the Professional Learning team also offer their words of encouragement, advice, and reflections on their own school years.
Summer is on its way - but not before you get the Math Joke of the Podcast! Enjoy!
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
Buckle up! It's the end of the school year and we've got a podcast filled with reflections, advice, and learnings!
First, Joel and Misty discuss King Kamehameha Day. If you live in Hawaii (first, #envious), then you probably already know many of the fun facts that they share about King Kamehameha and a few of his amazing accomplishments.
Then it's time for the FINAL installment of Join Them on Their Journey. Grahame, Mike, and Maggie share their final reflections on the year, make plans for next year, (Happy Retirement, Mike!), and give some advice to their past selves.
And then some of the Professional Learning team also offer their words of encouragement, advice, and reflections on their own school years.
Summer is on its way - but not before you get the Math Joke of the Podcast! Enjoy!
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
You are listening to the More Math for More People podcast. An outreach of CPM educational programs Boom. An outreach of CPM Educational Program.
Speaker 2:Boom, here we are. It's June 11th 2024. What is the national day today? Joel?
Speaker 1:Today special day for me. Actually it's King Kamehameha Day.
Speaker 2:King Kamehameha Day. Yeah, that's just fun to. Yeah, that's just fun to say. It is fun to say.
Speaker 1:All right. So King Kamehameha yeah, he gets his own day, gets his own day. Wow, it's a pretty big deal in.
Speaker 2:Hawaii. Okay yeah, how so.
Speaker 1:He founded the Kamehameha dynasty. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:I mean he founded, and he's a king. He probably should name it after himself, of course.
Speaker 1:So there was a dynasty. He was a Hawaiian conqueror. What?
Speaker 3:do you mean, he was a Hawaiian?
Speaker 2:conqueror. He's a really big deal in the history of Hawaii. Unified the islands or something? Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay, by conquering, apparently, but the reason it's important to me is during my student teaching. I got to spend the last month of my student teaching in Oahu and I taught in king. Kamehameha is given to the people of hawaii in the form of education, and so only hawaiian natives can go to the kamehameha schools and it was just a really great experience. They wow, I, I could. I could talk for three podcasts.
Speaker 2:Three podcasts.
Speaker 1:I'll just tell you, it was amazing. It was amazing, that's great yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's King Kamehameha Day. I don't have as much to contribute to King.
Speaker 1:Kamehameha. So what you could do to celebrate, I could, we could look up why King Kamehameha is so important. Okay, we could look at some descendants of King Kamehameha.
Speaker 3:Like you said, it's fun to say Kamehameha.
Speaker 1:But if you want to pronounce his full name. I'm just going to say to our listeners look up King Kamehameha's full name and try pronouncing it.
Speaker 2:I would struggle and I don't want to do that here. I have a hard time even spelling King Kamehameha.
Speaker 1:So that's what year, do you think, king Kamehameha was born?
Speaker 2:Oh, 1800.
Speaker 1:1758. Pretty close.
Speaker 2:That was very close. I mean, I was only off by 42 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What do you think the weight of a Naha stone that King Kamehameha could lift? What do you think that weight would be of that?
Speaker 2:stone, a Naha stone, just like a big rock it's a big stone. Okay.
Speaker 1:And King Kamehameha could lift it. What do you think it is?
Speaker 2:200 pounds 2.5 ton?
Speaker 1:What? Yes, that's what it says right here 2.5 tons 2.5 ton.
Speaker 2:I'm skeptical.
Speaker 1:It's pretty big.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like 5,000 pounds, right? Am I doing the math right?
Speaker 1:Well, a ton is 2,000. Right, so that would be like 5,000 pounds, right? Am I doing the math right?
Speaker 2:Well, a ton is 2,000.
Speaker 1:Right, so that would be like 5,000 pounds.
Speaker 2:I think, I don't think he can live to 5,000. I don't think you could even get your arms around a 5,000-pound rock. It's right here. It's right here, Clearly it's on the internet. It's true. How many children did King Kamehameha have? 18 35.
Speaker 1:Did he? Have more than one wife. I was just going to say how many wives do you?
Speaker 2:have. Okay great, I really hope he had more than one wife. No one should be subjected to having 35 children themselves.
Speaker 1:Any guesses on wives?
Speaker 2:How many wives? I'm going to guess a dozen wives.
Speaker 1:It's rumored to be 20 to 30, in between 20 and 30 wives.
Speaker 2:So maybe not all of them had children. Perhaps, how long did King Kamehameha live?
Speaker 1:So he was born in 1758.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember that, and he died in 1819. Wow, 42 plus 19. Right, 42 plus 19. Mm-hmm, right, mm-hmm, which is going to be 62 minus 1. So there's only 61?.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Think of all the things I did my mental math out loud.
Speaker 1:That happened in those 61 years yeah.
Speaker 2:That's impressive.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I would suggest to anybody to look up and research King Kamehameha. Like I said, I had a wonderful experience teaching in his schools and that legacy is going to live forever awesome, alright.
Speaker 2:Well, enjoy your King Kamehameha day celebrations well, do Will do big. Thank you to Maggie and Graham and Mike for joining this year and giving us a glimpse into their journey with CPM this year. We know that it was an added task for them throughout the year and we super appreciate it. We've gotten a lot of really good feedback from people enjoying hearing about how things are going for them and feeling that connection, and we will definitely be looking into some other variations on this theme coming up in season four. Today we have our final post from our Join them On their Journey teachers and we hope you enjoy their reflection of their year Cheers.
Speaker 5:Hey CPM folks, graham here, wow, I can't believe we're at the end of the year. I am feeling exhausted but also accomplished in a lot of ways. I'm ready for a break and I appreciate this opportunity to reflect on what I've learned, what my students learned and some takeaways from this year. One thing I was excited about with CPM were the team roles and I'm happy to say I'm still using the team roles and I have found them to be effective with managing the teams and students know what they're supposed to be doing. It gives them purpose and I found that students were usually able to contribute to their groups in different ways based on the roles. As I reflect on the year, I also remember the first few weeks. I also remember the first few weeks. The first chapter of Integrated 1 and Integrated 2 were really foundational for setting up the team roles, setting up the classroom norms, and it was a lot of work to prepare for but it was definitely worth it. I even had a student today recall back on one of the activities that involved the spreading of a virus that we modeled with beans and she said oh, it's just like that activity we did at the beginning of the year. That really showed me that it stuck with her and she still remembers that experience. Those are the activities that I have appreciated over the year, where students create experiences and they have something memorable that they can relate the mathematical concepts to.
Speaker 5:I recently gave an end-of-the-year survey to students for feedback, checking in to see how they felt with the class and the CPM pillars. I was pleased to see how many students liked collaborative learning and working with their groups. It seemed that a lot of students felt supported in their groups. It seemed that a lot of students felt supported in their groups Not everyone, but they felt that they could check with their teams and they enjoyed problem solving with their teams. Many students also said that they felt more confident at the end of the year than at the beginning approaching difficult problems and they said that they felt that they had strategies for approaching those problems. That feedback really made me happy with what we have done this year. If students can problem solve and have confidence in their ability to persevere and grapple with difficult concepts, that will serve them a lot more than remembering or memorizing a formula. So I would say I'm really proud of my students' willingness to persevere and do difficult things, embrace confusion as part of learning. I have also seen a lot of growth with my MLL students in their reading proficiency as well as math proficiency, which is really exciting to me, and I think the CPM reading routines has a lot to do with that. I've heard teachers say that CPM can be wordy, and while I sometimes agree, I think that having students read through the problems together and make sense of the problems has been a really beneficial thing for all my students.
Speaker 5:When I asked students some suggestions on things I could change, a lot of students said that they did not like homework and that I should assign less of it. I can't say that that's too surprising, but it got me to think about how we frame homework, and I really appreciate how CPM frames it as practice, review and preview. I love the idea where students are continually reflecting and practicing concepts that they've learned from the past and get ready for concepts in the future, and so it's got me to rethink how I frame homework, as maybe check your understanding questions and maybe assigning less importance to it. I'm not sure how it would work if it is ungraded with some of my classes, although I do think that grading based on correctness might communicate the wrong message, and so I've really been trying to think about how to feedback and not attach too much importance to whether they're getting it right or wrong. I think posting a key with the homework might be a helpful addition to communicating that this is really about practice.
Speaker 5:Another thing from this survey that I am still thinking about and grappling with is students feeling supported when they are solving difficult problems. A lot of students felt like either they weren't supported or did not feel like they knew what to do if they couldn't answer the question. I think overall my students grew a lot in maturity and with their problem-solving skills, but I would like to think about how to support those students who still didn't feel supported. I had some students throughout the year say that they did not like the style or the curriculum, and I think it was helpful to have a discussion with them and validate their feelings, but I tried to ask them what value they could find in the curriculum and how they could see the skills they were building as useful for other situations.
Speaker 5:Some advice I'd give to teachers new to CPM, or even to myself for next year, is to really emphasize the closure activities and try different methods for closing lessons, like walk and talk and peer edit and trusting students that they can reflect on their own learning and record the important concepts that they learned. I have found that students will write things that surprise me and are really valuable to them and other students. So, in closing, it's been a great year. I love that. I've seen students grow in their approach to math and problem solving in general, and I really appreciate you joining me on my journey. I'll be attending the Teacher Research Corps this summer with CPM and I'm really excited to see where that goes and investigate some interesting topics with other teachers. Thanks for listening. Take care Bye.
Speaker 6:Well, hello world. This is Mike, again from the upper lower peninsula of Michigan, and this is my last installment for CPM. I was asked to reflect on how the year went. I was asked to reflect on how the year went, so as I look back, there really are some things that just stood out. One of the nicest things and one of the most rewarding things is I got to work with a wonderful group of teachers, and, whether it be through our ISD having conferences where teachers in the area get together and talk about CPM, or just the teachers in my building, we created a CPM group and we met every Wednesday after school and we just talked about how things are going. We talked about the STTSs and how we're utilizing those within our classroom. We talked about the pros and cons of each one and whether things were going well or not. We also were able to just talk about how do we want to do assessments and what's working for us and what wasn't, and I found that having that connection with people really did help make working with CPM a really, really enjoyable experience. That training and the people has been very, very helpful throughout this process. I also just wanted to talk a little bit about what I learned and what really stood out for me this year. With my students we recently just had our NWA assessments and things like that and talking with the other teachers, we noticed that our kids did better on those assessments and we are going to partially attribute that to the CPM curriculum and how it really makes kids think about math and it really hones in on those important topics and important concepts that are important in a person who has general math knowledge. So we were very, very pleased with how that went and how things turned out for our kids.
Speaker 6:Now, on the flip side, there are some things, as any teacher knows. There are things that you go through and you also make mistakes on and again, my biggest mistake this year was I did go through and I didn't make it as far into the book as I probably should have. When you are transitioning with CPM and there are things that the kids have never been exposed to in any of the prior years, you lose some of that scaffolding that CPM has very naturally built into itself. As you grass through sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, that storyline and those skills just aren't built in. So when I had a group of sophomores and juniors and they're trying to do some of the things that CPM is asking you to do. I had to go back and reteach their strategies and those types of things. Slowly but surely, the time frame got lost and now I'm trying to catch up a little bit and making sure that I'm moving kids along with the skills that they need to have. So that is my biggest mistake.
Speaker 6:Next year I think, now that the group coming up would have had two years of CPM. I think that could really help in the pacing of doing the CPM curriculum. The other thing that was still an issue is we have kids who are not used to working together and me learning all the new STTS strategies, them getting comfortable working together and things like that really was an interesting journey. In the end we got there was to do it again is I probably would do more team building activities, just short ones, to get each group a little more comfortable working with each other prior to just doing the math. But one of the things I have as an issue in my district is we only have 48 minute class periods and that's a really short period of time to try to get stuff in, so oftentimes I felt like I was really trying to rush going through this.
Speaker 6:The final thing is, I was asked what advice would I give to somebody who is just starting this out? And this is a bittersweet question because next year I am going to be retiring and going off and doing something different and starting a new journey. But if I was to give advice to the new teachers coming in to fill my position, it would be really, really latch on to people in your building doing CPM and do not be afraid to ask people for assistance or connect with people in your ISD that are doing the same curriculum. Because when I first did this way back when and in my first installment that I said, I said I came from a really small school up in the UP and I transferred down here and we had a math department of two. We did not have math meetings. I mean, we just would meet in the hall and that would be a math meeting.
Speaker 6:Finding people that are like-minded and doing the same thing that you are doing really does help make moving through this process stronger. It makes it better, and when you have a solid curriculum like CPM and you have connections to people that are also working with a solid curriculum like CPM, you really really can make changes in a building. And I'm going to tell you, I think just in this year we've seen changes in our math students and our kids doing math. They're a little more prone to work harder on problems. They're starting to understand some concepts and with the mixed space practice and I'm always doing the same problems and coming back again to those problems I really think there's starting to be some remembering of those skills and being able to apply them later on. So this is Mike from the upper lower Michigan, and I just want to wish all of you doing CPM a wonderful journey through this process and I hope it all goes very, very well for you in the upcoming school year.
Speaker 7:It's Maggie and I want to start out by saying thank you for joining me on this journey. It was an amazing experience to implement Inspiring Connections after teaching Core Connections for several years. There were moments that I felt like I was teaching for the first time. There were feelings of uncertainty as I was going into lessons and how that might play out, but I would say overall, I am very thankful for the process of implementing Inspiring Connections. I am really happy with all of the changes or the updates of Inspiring Connections and I would say overall, if I'm looking at my practice, even as a teen year teacher, that I grew this year. I had implemented some new topics that I had not in the past. I had shared about the generational wealth lessons or looking at systems in connections with climate change. So I really stretched myself and I grew as a teacher, and I think that is really how we continue to be excited about being in the classroom, and I think if we're not growing, then there are times that you might be questioning, or I might be questioning, should I be staying in this profession or not? And so I think it's really nice that I had a year that I felt like I had grown as a teacher. And so I think, as I'm ending my year, I'm taking some time to reflect on the lessons that I've learned and really thinking about what do I wish that my past self knew, maybe took into consideration to make this year, or elements of this year maybe run slightly smoother. And so, thinking about what I wish I knew, I'm going to take those things and apply them for the next year as I'm going to be continuing on with Inspiring Connections.
Speaker 7:At the beginning of this year, knowing that I was introducing or implementing Inspiring Connections, I allowed myself just to trust the process, to follow the curriculum, really starting at chapter one and then working through, and just allowing myself to go through and not necessarily be like, oh, I'm going to combine these lessons or maybe I can implement this in a different way, and just really trust what the process is. And so, if I'm looking back at my year and how this journey for the students went, I would say one thing that I want to think about is I didn't get through as much content as I wanted to. If I'm looking at the kind of the chapters we didn't really get to the last third of the curriculum and if I'm looking at what I was able to get through with core connections and maybe the small adjustments that I made. I had gotten through more content. And so the reality is for our school is that we only have 95 teaching days, so I only meet with the students 95 times for 60 minutes. It is not possible for us to get through everything. We understand that. But in looking at my pacing and maybe how much I was able to get through, I think what I would have wished I did was maybe did some more prior review on some content from sixth grade so that when we got to it in second semester it wasn't overwhelming. So I'm going to go through that process of what I wish I knew.
Speaker 7:So first semester was great. We were going over statistics, scatter plots, introducing some geometry with transformations, introducing linear representations and patterns and, just a few days on expressions, feeling very confident. Thinking about my parent-teacher conferences, I definitely had multiple parents say my student had really struggled in the past and they felt so successful. So I would never want to change that. I think what we were going through was accessible for all students, so it was very helpful in building their confidence. But what happened in the adjustments that I'm thinking about is that second semester got into expressions, equations, linear representations, slope systems of linear equations, and so students who may have struggled with fractions and decimals or integers in the past, in sixth grade all of their challenges came back and really impacted their confidence. And so in thinking about the success of first semester and where we were in second semester, I felt like I would. I guess adjustments is really thinking about how can I set up the students for success in the second semester with building maybe some of those skills periodically in the first semester. And so thinking about pacing, I think, is on my mind right now, and how first semester felt very comfortable and didn't necessarily challenge the students in the way that I think second semester did, and so I want to.
Speaker 7:I guess my goal for next year is to think about how I can balance that feeling for the students out while still following the curriculum. So the advice that I gave in terms of trusting the process, I think I would still go through and just trust the process. For this first year. I would say any new teacher that's approaching or is thinking about implementing a new curriculum, like, do trust it, because I think those lessons can't be learned until you have gone through it or trusted it. So I am still thankful that I allowed myself just to follow the curriculum as it is, but if I am thinking about my next year, I'll probably try to balance out the first semester versus the second semester. So thank you for joining me on this journey, and I hope that all of you have a relaxing next few months as we head into the summer, because, as we all know, we'll be starting another journey come August and September. So thank you.
Speaker 2:So here we have some special end of the year reflections and advice from members of our professional learning team.
Speaker 8:Enjoy. Hi, my name is Marjorie Kusich and I teach Inspiring Connections Course 2 in Chico, california. Throughout the school year, I keep a notebook handy to dot down my thoughts on what I think I need to change and how I can improve. I visit the notebook each December and May to help me plan how I want to move forward the following semester. As I look over my notes, I usually ask myself the following questions what is going well? What could be better? As I look over my notes, I usually ask myself the following questions what is going well? What could be better, what do I want to do differently and why?
Speaker 8:After I reflect on these questions myself, I like to have a discussion with my teaching partners to see where their thoughts are and how they want to improve. After this discussion, we try to find some articles, podcasts and our books to help us implement the changes for the next year. This year I've been reflecting on students and homework. I'm looking at how I can get my students to have a bigger buy-in to doing their reflection and practice problems on a more regular basis, even though they do not receive points for doing them. This summer, I'll be looking at how to help my students become independent learners.
Speaker 9:Hi, I'm Danielle Boggs in Champaign, illinois. Congratulations you made it to the end of the 23-24 school year or for some of you, you almost have and you can do it. The end of the school year always brings lots of activities and planning, and when it's done, it can be impossible to think about anything besides melting into your couch or sitting poolside to recover for weeks. However, one of the things that I always made sure to do before I closed up my classroom is to take a picture of all the different parts of my classroom so I could remember where I liked to put things or to remember what didn't work. This helped me remember in August how to organize my personal happy space of pictures and mementos and all the student spaces as well. It also helped me take inventory of all my stuff so I can make sure it all made its way back into my room come August.
Speaker 9:After that, before I closed up my room, I also took a little bit of extra time to organize my stuff, including student work letters and drawings from them and that pesky Google Drive that got all those files dumped in there. My future self was always very grateful that I started the year with everything organized instead of stuffed in a box to deal with later. It may have taken me a little longer to shut down my classroom and turn in my keys for the summer, but it always felt well worth it come August. Last but not least, I want to send you wishes for a summer filled with all the things that fill your cup, so that you can come back fully charged.
Speaker 3:Congratulations, you made it. Hi, my name is Victoria Holt and I am from Columbus, Ohio. As the school year ends, one thing I'd like to do is to request feedback. I am currently an instructional coach, so I request this feedback from my teachers, but I also used to ask students when I was in the classroom feedback from my teachers, but I also used to ask students when I was in the classroom. I send a Google form asking specific questions about PD newsletters, resources, ideas for next year, and the list goes on. This allows me to reflect throughout the summer on the support that I provided or the lessons that I taught, and be able to make adjustments for the upcoming school year. The goal is for students and our teachers to feel heard and for you to have the time to reflect.
Speaker 10:Hello, my name is Tom Strickland. I'm from Salem, oregon. This is my 24th year in education. It's crazy to think about that. This last year I've taught Algebra 1, geometry and a couple sections of Credit Recovery for Sen seniors. As I think about this end of the year, as I think about it all wrapping up, my thought is that I need to capture the new learning. Like I've learned some things this year, I have some ideas already about what I should have done differently.
Speaker 10:Right, students are changing every year, and my students a couple years after COVID. They're different and they need a different set of approaches at times, and so I've learned a ton and, as I think about next year, I already have ideas about what I want to do. How do I want to communicate with them? What is involved? How do I want to set the tone at the beginning of the year? This year, I did a lot with vertical non-permanent surfaces. This year, I did a lot with random non-permanent surfaces. This year, I did a lot with random teaming and I learned a ton about what works with my students and what is challenging. I've got some really good ideas.
Speaker 10:So I need to capture the moment. I need to capture these new ideas. I need to reflect on them and I encourage all of my fellow teachers out there as you wind down, as you finish up, what did you learn this year? Put that pencil to paper, jot that down and don't let that learning slip away, because what we have learned, it really affects where we go. And I want to go forward. I want to make some changes and I'm excited about the risks I took, the things I tried, and I definitely have more to try next year in light of what I learned.
Speaker 10:So capture the moment, reflect on what you're learning. Don't let that new learning get away from you. Even as you finish up your year, think about what would you do differently. And then, how are you going to make sure right? How are you going to make sure you put that plan to action? So my goal in this last week or two is to take some time to journal, to reflect, to set some personal steps for myself, some personal goals. What do I want to make sure I do next year in light of what I learned? I don't want to lose the learning that I have. It's been a fantastic year. There's always high points, there's always struggles. Education is wonderful and it's challenging, but that's why it's so important, so grateful for my year. Good luck all of you out there. I wish you the best in your own work and in your own world.
Speaker 11:Be well. Hello to my fellow teachers. My name is Marcus and I are from Louisville, kentucky. This past school year I wanted to try a tracker to assess students' understanding of certain learning targets or standards, depending on what you use in your school or district and I wanted to do this while the students were working on their vertical services. So as a classroom teacher, our job is to assess students, provide feedback in a timely manner, and I've been teaching with CPMs for almost 13 years.
Speaker 11:I'm very, very strongly doing it at the collaborative teams, but doing it at the vertical services was always a challenge for me because there was just so many moving parts and I could just stand in one location and just see where every kid was, what they were doing, how they were using their knowledge and mobility and things like that. So this fast school year I created a table and what it had on there was each team number according to the vertical surface and as they went to their vertical teams, I was in the first two or three minutes just putting the initials by each team of the students in that period, and at the top of this cable, or tracker as I call it, I will put the line target, such as I can write a logarithmic equation from an existential equation and then I will put the core problem that they were working on. So when was I looking at that particular core problem? As some of you may know, who've done our building on assessment that's sometimes known as a hinge question. And then my categories for that table would be beginner, intermediate, advanced. So as students were working or as I had conversations with students or as I was circulating through the vertical services, I would just check off where their understanding was. Were they at a beginner, intermediate, advanced?
Speaker 11:But the issue with me is I have a really hard time keeping track with papers and like organizers and things of that nature.
Speaker 11:So I can always take mental notes of where kids are. Like organizers and things of that nature, so I can always take mental notes of where kids are. So eventually I would just get so engulfed in the conversations with my students that I would sometimes forget to check off where they were or what they had said in terms of this tracker that I was keeping on. So as I reflect at the end of the year, as we should do as educators, maybe next year, I will post the tracker near their team board so when they get there, they can just put their initials or their name and then, as I circulate to them and have those conversations, I just take a dry erase marker and just check off where they are in terms of their progress towards that learning goal. I think it was a great tool in terms of tracking data and be able to transfer something into our gradebooks, but in terms of me keeping up with it, not so much. All right, folks, enjoy your summer.
Speaker 4:Hi all. My name is Madison Schaefer. I'm a seventh grade math and language arts teacher just outside of Columbus, ohio. I'm excited to have an opportunity to share some things from this previous school year and then also things that I'm looking forward to for next year.
Speaker 4:One thing that I loved this year was that I created a version of a game called what's in the Bag and so what's in the Bag? The concept is that you have two different teams, so I would split my class into two teams and one student from one team would come up, they would pull a vocab term out of the bag and they would have to try to describe it in as many words as possible. That's the first round. The second round students would only get one word to describe as many times as possible and then the third round. They had to act it out in some way and again their teams had to guess. So each team would get a minute and then it would switch who got to go. So it goes back and forth from team to team. The students loved this game. They were begging to play, even when I would give them free time. They were like, can we play what's in the bag? So it went so so well, and I felt like they were way more connected with the vocab terms than in previous years.
Speaker 4:One thing that I'm looking forward to for next year is trying a self-reflection wall where students can post areas where they feel like they need a little bit more work in, and then I will base some small group work off of that. I'm still figuring out what that will look like, but I'm excited to give students another opportunity to self-reflect on their strengths and their weaknesses, areas that they can make growth in, and I think that they'll be really honest with themselves. So I'm looking forward to that a lot. One thing I would recommend for a summer activity because you must enjoy summer while it's here is just trying new restaurants, going out to a brunch, going out to a little cafe. Summer's my favorite time to go and just try new places, and I tend to have a rotation of the same places over and over again, so I like to use time in the summer to go and try other places. I hope you have an awesome summer and try something new in your class next year.
Speaker 2:Here's a math joke of the podcast. Take it away, Adam.
Speaker 11:This is Adam Varnes from San Dimas, California, and this is my favorite math joke. What do mathematicians do in the snow? They make snow angles.
Speaker 2:So that is all we have time for on this episode of the More Math for More People podcast. If you are interested in connecting with us on social media, find our links in the podcast description, and the music for the podcast was created by Julius H. It can be found on pixabaycom. So thank you very much, julius. Join us in two weeks for the next episode of More Math for More People. What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1:It'll be June 25th, global Beatles Day, and it's not the insect of Beatles, or it's not scarabs or anything like that. It's the band the Beatles. Have you heard of them? I know I have. So I'm excited to talk about the legend, the myths, our music and anything else that we know about the Beatles. It'll be fun to hear what Misty has to say. It'll be fun to just reminisce about those songs. The first album I ever listened to was the Whiteout and I really just played it over and over and over again, loved every second of it. Big part of my life. So I'm happy to celebrate this day with everyone. See you on June 25th, thank you.