More Math for More People
CPM Educational Program is a non-profit publisher of math textbooks for grades 6-12. As part of its mission, CPM provides a multitude of professional learning opportunities for math educators. The More Math for More People podcast is part of that outreach and mission. Published biweekly, the hosts, Joel Miller and Misty Nikula, discuss the CPM curriculum, trends in math education and share strategies to shift instructional practices to create a more inclusive and student-centered classroom. They also highlight upcoming CPM professional learning opportunities and have conversations with math educators about how they do what they do. We hope that you find the podcast informative, engaging and fun. Intro music credit: JuliusH from pixabay.com.
More Math for More People
Episode 3.22 - Where Joel and Misty talk about potty dances and everyone reflects on the 2024 CPM Teacher Conference
First, it's National Potty Dance Day! Do you or your child have a potty dance? Or perhaps your doggo?
Then Joel and Misty reflect on the 2024 CPM Teacher Conference which just wrapped up in Los Angeles, CA. The PL Team joins them with their reflections and take aways as well.
We hope to see you next year presenting or attending in San Diego, CA on February 22-23, 2025!
And we have another installment of Join Them on Their Journey from Maggie and Grahame.
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
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Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
Hello everybody, Today is March 5th 2024, and this is episode 22 of season 3 of the More Math for More People podcast.
Speaker 2:Cheers.
Speaker 3:Hello, there, I'm. Joel.
Speaker 1:And I'm Misty.
Speaker 3:And you're listening to the More Math for More People podcast, an outreach of CPM educational program.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 3:And we hope that you have some fun and laugh as well. That always makes things a little more interesting.
Speaker 1:Yep, we're pretty passionate about having fun Joel.
Speaker 3:So please have a listen and we think it'll be well worth it. Boom.
Speaker 1:Okay, here we are, and I'm always wondering what national day we will be celebrating today, joel.
Speaker 3:Today is National Potty Dance Day.
Speaker 1:Potty Dance Day.
Speaker 3:Yes Are you familiar.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I'm just thinking that maybe you're talking about little kids when they have to go potty, but they can't get there, so they're holding it and dancing around.
Speaker 3:That's what I was talking about. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I would even argue that it's not just kids.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it happens more with kids than it happens sometimes.
Speaker 3:I think with kids it happens, and I think this is kind of cool. It's like how do I express what I need? And like their body just kind of takes that over for them. Do you have a problem?
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, I do Actually. Thanks for mentioning that. Better go.
Speaker 1:I think it's sometimes, whatever they're doing, they don't want to leave and go potty right, so they're holding it longer than perhaps otherwise, because they're doing something really fun.
Speaker 3:I've done the dance as an adult for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:But I don't use it to communicate with others. I think I use it to get my body to hold it a little bit longer.
Speaker 1:Moving helps you hold it longer. That's interesting.
Speaker 3:I think so anyway.
Speaker 1:That's my experience. My experience is holding me more still.
Speaker 3:Don't touch me.
Speaker 1:Well, dogs do a potty dance too.
Speaker 3:They do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dabby Chick, definitely does Dabby?
Speaker 1:Chick definitely does a potty dance.
Speaker 3:I guess Wendell lets me know.
Speaker 1:She wants to go and she just does her little walking, walking walking, walking, walking, walking, walking until she does a dance. I also think of when I wake up in the morning and I'm laying in bed and I don't want to get out of bed yet, and then Bella decides to jump on my gut she doesn't really do a potty dance Then I have to get out of bed.
Speaker 3:For Wendell. He starts with a paw just on your knee, like puts a paw on your knee, but that could mean pet me, feed me, take me outside and then, like you said, the dance I guess is that walking around sniffing in some places. Oh, I got you A place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know what else to say about my dance.
Speaker 3:I think it helps children. I'm wondering how people celebrate this?
Speaker 1:Celebrate by teaching other people or a dance or talking. What is the celebration suggestions?
Speaker 3:So there is an actual potty dance with choreography and stuff.
Speaker 4:Really.
Speaker 3:You could do that dance, you could teach children about the potty dance, like when you got to go. Give me that signal.
Speaker 1:There is a potty dance song.
Speaker 3:You could Google the potty dance song.
Speaker 1:I'm just imagining teaching children this and then you're like somewhere I don't know the grocery store or somewhere in public or whatever, and then they're like doing their potty dance and singing a song at the top of the switch, Kind of a music.
Speaker 3:Well, it does say some important facts here that it is funny.
Speaker 6:That's an important fact it's universal.
Speaker 3:So maybe you wouldn't have to worry about language barrier.
Speaker 1:Everyone in the universe knows it.
Speaker 3:Good communication prevents messes. That's important things.
Speaker 1:Those are important things. I mean helping young, young children, like potty train, know how to communicate that they. Yeah, we're making it a fun thing to do. Yeah, all those you can see the usefulness of that. Less applicable for adults.
Speaker 3:I, my daughter Samantha, had a thing about public bathrooms and that thing was I want to go in there and I want to look and see what's happening in there. So sometimes they might feign I have to use the bathroom. Okay, then I would be waiting outside. So this is round age five or so and I'm outside and People would come up and say they're just standing in there looking around, like I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you gonna celebrate? I know, I asked you first.
Speaker 3:Okay, I well, I am fairly confident that I will need to use the potty, so I'm gonna commit to doing a little dance as I go.
Speaker 1:Are you gonna do the potty dance? No cuz, I'm not ever really first in the advertised potty dance.
Speaker 3:Perhaps I'll Google the song, maybe I'll play it as I go. Okay could be enjoyable.
Speaker 1:I might, I might. I might look up the song, see if it is a catchy tune, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, decide if I want to get it. So yeah, once I've done that, all right. Well, happy National. It's national potty dance day national potty dance day. All right, enjoy your potty dance, okay so so here we are it's it's so ha ha. So yeah, we had the 2024. I this is what I think. It's hard to remember what year it is. Yeah, it's just became 2024.
Speaker 1:I know, and so it was 2023 for a long time and now we're already talking to start talking about 2025, so my brain gets really confused about what year it is. So we just had the the 2024. Yes, cpm teacher conference we sure did in Los Angeles, but it was. It was amazing like it was it was. It's just. It's hard to even encapsulate it into like one sentence or word.
Speaker 3:So those I don't know, around and say one word about how you feel and I'm like it can't be one word, because I have multiple words and they're there. It opposite, like I'm exhausted but I'm inspired. Yes, you know, like all of those, things are true.
Speaker 1:Well, and I like that because I think that often, often, we or we, we try to like zero into what is the emotion that you're experiencing at the moment.
Speaker 12:And.
Speaker 1:I am often experiencing more than one. I'm often like, well, I'm happy and I'm sad and I'm tired, but I'm also feeling great yeah what on what time frame are we referring to? Also, like the last 10 minutes, last two hours, last?
Speaker 3:10 days two weeks so yes, exactly my entire life.
Speaker 1:That would be really hard, no, so anyway, yeah, it's a Friday pre-conference. Saturday, sunday main conference. We had about 400 people ish throughout the whole weekend and it was. It was good. I've really felt a lot of really great energy from the teachers and other participants who are not teachers who came and Went to sessions. People seemed really excited about the things that they were learning and experiencing and taking back, getting ready to take back to their classroom.
Speaker 3:Well, I can say that I took advantage of the learning, for sure.
Speaker 1:You did. Oh, yeah, I did a pre-conference.
Speaker 3:As a participant, I did Sessions all day, saturday and Sunday, and I presented as well. But I learned a lot and it was really fun to Get that energy again right like the. Yeah, it's it's February, it's the dark days, march is coming and and now it was just a nice boost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that every and I did not get an opportunity to go.
Speaker 1:I mean, I peeked my head in a few times to say things, but I'm doing a lot of Making sure everything's going well answering people's questions, helping them get to where they need to go yes, helping with attendance, all the little things that come up. But every teacher, every participant that I interacted with had a really great attitude about doing what they were seeing, what they were Experiencing. Yeah, it's. It's always exciting to Be able to put that together for people to come and experience, and I know our PL team Works really hard, does a lot of the stuff helps moderating.
Speaker 3:Tear down like everything. Oh yeah, all the supplies, oh my gosh, yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I always want to have a you mongous public shout out to our PL team and the curriculum and assessment team and everyone else who came and helped in the background With the setup and the cleanup and with moderating. We had volunteers who came with help with check-in as well, but the people who work for CPM and helped put it together I mean, there is literally no way we could do this conference without all of them. Oh my gosh. And then I also really want to thank all of our teachers who came in and other speakers who came in and make their proposals and bring the classroom experience back to the rest of us and then to other teachers and colleagues as well, because that is the heart of it also.
Speaker 9:Yes, how do we?
Speaker 1:take the learning that what people are doing in their classrooms and really fire it back into everyone else right.
Speaker 3:Well, in my experience with this conference and I've been quite a few years, but what happens at this conference affects what CPM is putting out there, right Like we're just such a great community of people that come together and share ideas and I just love it.
Speaker 1:So we asked the PL team to give us their reflections, their takeaways, what they might have been inspired about, what if they might have noticed or wondered, or what they took away from the conference. And so we have a one go around sort of structure here, where each person will just have their little recording of what they talked about.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to hear.
Speaker 1:I know it's going to be exciting. I haven't even heard it yet, so I know, here we go.
Speaker 7:My name is Nicole Gorgas and one of my favorite parts of the conference this year was going to a session about throwback Thursdays. The session helped me visualize a way to organize a class period that would allow time for some one-on-one conferencing with students that I've been wanting to do ever since I read about learning alliances in Zoretta Hammond's book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain.
Speaker 4:The best part of the CPM conference was meeting teachers who teach CPM from across the country. I talked to several teachers attending their first CPM conference who just wanted to network with teachers outside of their school district. I always look forward to connecting with teacher that the annual conference, Attending sessions and hearing what other teachers have tried in their CPM classroom. That's also a great experience.
Speaker 9:I thought one of the most powerful parts of the conference was during Janine Scott's Ignite Talk, when she'd said something along the lines of we keep giving high school students elementary mathematics and are shocked when they are disengaged. It's like giving them a Dick and Jane book to read and being surprised that they don't enjoy it. I paraphrased her words there, but that really hit home to me because I see this so often in math support courses at the middle and high school level. Too often teachers take away the rigorous mathematics and replace it with lower level procedural skills and don't allow students the opportunity to engage in the rich content and then they don't understand why their kids dislike math. I hope others were as inspired as I was to keep providing all students opportunities to learn mathematics at high levels.
Speaker 11:Hi, this is Kathy and I'd like to share some of the highlights from my experience at the 2024 teacher conference. The opening session with Mandy Janssen was engaging. She talked about what happens when mathematics teachers integrate rough drafts and revising into their mathematics classes. We were able to engage in some of that rough drafting and revising together. During the session. Nicole Kelly, allison Heinhol and Heidi Sullivan shared about their experiences for planning powerful professional development. This session guided us through five steps of planning and implementing impactful professional development.
Speaker 11:Tom Strickland shared his school's journey for providing equitable grading, clarifying communication while measuring understanding of the standards. His interactive session allowed us to reflect collaboratively on research while processing ideas on retakes, grading scales, homework and the pitfalls of grading non-academic behavior. Erin Kinney's social emotional wellness workshop was an opportunity for me to gather resources and to join a community of support so that I can show up as my best self every day At those ignite session. They were truly inspiring. These speakers bravely share personal stories from their life journeys in just five minutes using 20 PowerPoint slides. So I want to give kudos to Nick Law, madison Shaper, jeanine Scott, joe Sebastian, jesse Thiel and Adam Barr. They each did a great job.
Speaker 11:I was also able to share some of my experiences with teachers by cold facilitating sessions. Theresa Riley and I shared making middle school math come alive with manipulatives, games and activities. Cheryl Tucker and I shared have you prepared to teach an equitable lesson and how do you know? Also, mike Locas and I shared an inspiring connections course one lesson During that 2024 teacher conference. I was able to experience a variety of session offerings and I was able to get reacquainted with teachers and coaches of CPM with whom I previously were, and I met many more implementers of CPM and learned from their stories. The beautiful venue was surrounded by king palm trees and was conveniently located near the airport. And added bonus for this location, the weather was sunny and much warmer than it is in my home state, and the beach was just a three mile walk away.
Speaker 5:The 2024 CPM conference was phenomenal. There were so many great sessions to choose from, from the pre-conferences to the conference sessions. So many relevant topics, so many prepared presenters. What I love about the CPM conference is that they allow those that are in the trenches to have an opportunity to present at their conference. It's exciting to meet new people and they'll remember their face, even if you can't remember their names. But when you see them again the next year, you don't want to miss the 2025 teacher conference. Great presentations, great food, great company, youthful nuggets to take back home with you. We had an awesome time in Los Angeles this year, looking forward to next year.
Speaker 2:One of the most exciting cards about the conference for me is just the opportunity to meet so many different people across the country in different levels of experience A new teacher who's just implementing, I see, and to see that excitement to meeting some of our founders and how this company has grown and how the curriculum has changed over time. Seeing Judy Kishigamish's phenomenal talking about her history and then I see her mentoring a teacher from my district and it's just so rewarding and warm. Talking to Leslie Diddaker again and hearing her share her stories about cool connections throughout the math topics. The intention now between that story line and geometry, down to the details of every character in the story in our books, were an actual student that the authors taught. Just a lot of fun to rehear that rich history. See how CPM is brying to meet the needs of students.
Speaker 13:Hi, my name's Bree and one of my favorite parts about the CPM teacher conference is just the opportunity to be in community with so many amazing educators and leaders in math. I just really love learning about what other teachers are trying in their classrooms and being able to relate to some of the challenges that others are facing, and then just hearing about how they overcome those challenges. That's just always very inspiring to me. I was very inspired by a session about supporting students with exceptionalities using vertical learning, and I learned about ways to provide students with an entry point and effective feedback as they're working at vertical spaces and how vertical learning spaces can position all students as doers of math, especially those students who often see themselves as just spectators.
Speaker 10:I was reminded at the conference how important it is to move past complementing students and teams and to assign competence instead. And it is way, way more challenging and it has to be specific and public and it will really help shift the narrative that students have for themselves about what it means to be good at math. And all of that was from the asset-based feedback. Yes, you Can. Conference session.
Speaker 6:One of my biggest a-has or takeaways from the teacher conference is how important it is to spend time with other folks who are passionate about finding ways to meet the needs of all students in their classrooms.
Speaker 6:It can be really easy to get stuck in certain patterns, either in our practice or in our thoughts, that are not really the most productive, and an environment like the teacher conference is the perfect place to break out of our default network and find a more asset-based approach to everything we do in our classrooms. Another major takeaway for me is that it's important to take the time to be creative. When it comes to assessment, I learned that when students have the time and space to be creative in their expression of what they know, they often make more organic and meaningful connections to content instead of parroting back. They saw the week or month or whatever prior. One of the challenges that I have is making sure that I prioritize the space that I need to let those creative juices start flowing, instead of being impatient with myself and defaulting back to the previous way of doing things.
Speaker 1:So that's our wrap of the 2024 CPM Teacher Conference. The 2025 CPM Teacher Conference will be in San Diego and it will be on February 22nd and 23rd. That's when the main conference will be and the pre-conference will be on the 21st of February and we're gonna be in San Diego, which I'm very excited about. The speaker proposals will open up about April 1st. We're hoping to get the forum ready and have that out for everybody around the first, and we'll send out an announcement to everyone who is a participant this year. It'll be on the eBook landing page, it'll be on the website, it'll be everywhere. So hopefully you are inspired to put in a speaker proposal for us.
Speaker 1:We'd love to have more teachers presenting at the CPM Teacher Conference. Additionally, we'll open up registration for the teacher conference Usually in September. We try to get it open by around September 1, maybe September 15. And then the early bird deadline is usually around November 15th. So I expect that'll be the same this year. So you'll wanna get in early if you wanna save money for yourself or for your school, and then we'll have some various deadlines all the way up until middle of January is usually when we try to wrap up registration for that. So hopefully you are inspired to come to the 2025. If you came to the 2024, thank you so much. We hope to see you again in 2025. ["the CPM Teacher Conference"]. Here's our next installment of Join them on their Journey. Enjoy.
Speaker 8:It's Maggie, and this is where I am on my journey. I am feeling energized, I am feeling inspired, as this past weekend I have just attended the CPM conference. I love going to conferences and I go in with a mindset that I'm not gonna take back everything that I heard, and I think that for myself, it's overwhelming to be fully changing it. But what I look at is how can I move that 1%? What small component of each of my different sessions that I attend can I implement? And I think that changing that 1% is why my practice is so different now than it was five years ago. Another component, and what I wanna really say, is that I encourage all of you to become speakers.
Speaker 8:I have really taken to speaking at different conferences over the last five years, and the reason why is because it is inspirational. It holds you accountable for the work that you're doing, and so I would say that when I was encouraged by here's a little shout out to Debate Math and Chris Lesniak, he really wanted me to just share the work that I was doing, and I think what was giving me pause was this belief of I don't know if I'm a true expert, and I think you can be an expert, and I would say I speak often about assessments and grading. And am I the only expert? Absolutely not. But I think that mind shift of you are an expert of what you do and that is what you can share, and being able to articulate what I do has actually really held me accountable in my own classes to constantly innovate, to constantly adapt and feel confident in my own classes and what I have done. And so I would say I encourage all of you to look at what element of your class do you feel really confident in? And maybe you're an expert, maybe you're the expert at your school, maybe you're an expert in your district, and that is amazing and you should share that.
Speaker 8:But I think, even if you are just that expert of your own class, that is what you can share and share it in a way that makes you proud, because I think what speaking to me has done has given me continuous confidence to still iterate and adapt my own practices. And so I encourage all of you to speak and to speak Maybe it starts out with just within your department and sharing about what you're doing, because I think sometimes in practices we can get really siloed and not necessarily share what we're doing and get into other classes, and I think all of that is part of this idea of sharing our practice, because, as teachers, I think that's what makes our practice amazing is that we have this ability to lean on each other, to use each other's resources, and in that, we're growing ourselves, but we're also growing the people around us. So I encourage you to always speak and share all of the great work that you're doing.
Speaker 12:Hello, miss Dianne Joel Graham here reporting after the second round of parent-teacher conferences and a good time to reflect on parent and student feedback. I first was a little surprised at how much positive feedback I got from parents. I had one parent say that his daughter switched into my class and since then said that she was happy and that she was doing all of the homework on her own and didn't seem to be having a hard time, and so they were happy. Another parent said that their student had been struggling in math since the fifth grade and that it was really good to see positive results and that they were enjoying the class. Another parent was really happy that their student was able to explain the concepts and talk about their learning rather than just sit there and follow procedures that the parent went over. Another parent said that they struggled with math but that they were doing the homework with their student and the student's grandparent, which I thought was just an awesome scenario and an awesome experience for that student to work with the math and grapple with the problems with their family. It was cool to talk about and it was exciting to hear about the successes of students and how that made parents proud of their students and excited about what they were learning.
Speaker 12:I did have a parent talk about how their student struggles with the curriculum. She said that her son used CPM last year. I'm not sure if that's true because he would have been in eighth grade but she said that he didn't like it and he has not been attending class. So it's hard for me to really gauge what exactly he's having a hard time with because he frequently is not present in class. His mom had the idea that I should check in with him and make sure to communicate with him that it's normal and okay if he doesn't understand something right away.
Speaker 12:I think students can have difficulty when they are faced with the problem and ask to approach it without given a strategy.
Speaker 12:So I really appreciate CPM's collaboration pillar and the team strategies to help students find those supports when they struggle. I have noticed students persevering more and more as the years progressed, which I think is just an awesome quality that will benefit students in the future. I also mentioned to some parents that it would be great to see their student explaining their ideas and sharing how they think about and solve problems, because that will help that student understand the concepts at a deeper level. I felt like that wording would help parents see the benefit of explaining and helping teammates rather than thinking of them as extra teachers or that they had a job to teach other students, even though I think it's a beautiful experience when students collaborate and take that on themselves to help each other learn. So, all in all, it was a really good experience talking with parents about their students and how their students are succeeding. I think the alternative assessments in presenting portfolios and presenting projects that they came up with has also helped students engage more with the curriculum and going to keep thinking of different ways that students can demonstrate their knowledge.
Speaker 12:Thanks so much for listening. Let you know how it goes. Take care now.
Speaker 1:So that's all we have time for on this episode of the More Math for More People podcast.
Speaker 3:For more information on Estate Connected, find CPM on Twitter and Facebook. You can find our handles in the podcast description.
Speaker 1: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?
Speaker 3:It'll be March 19th, national let's Laugh Day and we'll get to talk about all the ways we laugh and why we laugh. I'm excited for this one because I know what it feels like to laugh and it feels so good and just excited to hear about how misty laughs and talk about ways that laugh helps our day and there's a lot of history around laughing, comedy and things like that. So excited to hear about our conversation. And again, it'll be March 19th, national let's Laugh Day. Let's give it a go.