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 4.9 Where Joel and Misty discuss bowling and how you can get involved with the Site-Based Leadership Program
Ever struggled to find the perfect bowling ball or wondered how handicaps actually make the game fairer? Join Joel and Misty for some light-hearted fun as they share personal tales of bowling triumphs and mishaps, from dropping balls on toes to their goals for "no gutter balls!"
Then John Hayes and Pam Lindemer join Joel and Misty to talk about the Site-Based Leadership Program. They break down how this comprehensive resource supports principals, classroom teachers, and other educational leaders by focusing on three key priorities: classroom support, teacher collaboration, and leadership capacity building. Get a sneak peek at the upcoming book study on the "Framework for Leadership in Mathematics Education."
You can find more information and a link to register for the Site-Based Leadership Program at https://cpm.org/sbl.
Curious how CPM aligns with the California Mathematics Framework? Join our CA team for a webinar on Sept 11, 2024 at 4pm Pacific time. More details at https://cpm.org/events!
Then advice for Misunderstood in Minneapolis from Dear CPM and your math joke of the podcast!
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
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You are listening to the More Math for More People podcast. An outreach of CPM educational programs Boom. An outreach of CPM Educational Program Boom.
Speaker 2:Here we are, september 3rd 2024.
Speaker 1:Here we are.
Speaker 2:What's the national day today, Joel? It is US Bowling League Day.
Speaker 3:US Bowling.
Speaker 2:League Day. Yeah, that's interesting, because so it's not National Bowling League Day, it's US Bowling League Day. Us Bowling League Day? Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Because so it's not National Bowling League Day, it's US Bowling League Day US Bowling League Day. I wonder if there are bowling leagues in other nations.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I imagine there would be I don't know, I've never bowled out of country before. I don't think I have either. I don't know if I've even had a conversation with someone who lives abroad about bowling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think I have either.
Speaker 2:That's interesting, but it's curious to me why they're calling it US. Is that maybe US Bowling League is an association or something?
Speaker 1:It is, and in fact I have my US BA official card.
Speaker 2:US BA. Yeah, I'm a.
Speaker 1:US Bowling Association. Yeah, I'm a member of the US Bowling Association. I'm a member Because I have some friends who are in leagues and then sometimes they need a sub and they take their bowling very seriously. So you need to be a member. You have to record your handicaps, you have to keep track of all your stats.
Speaker 2:I don't know how bowling handicaps work. I don't really either I don't know how bowling handicaps work. I don't really either.
Speaker 1:I don't know how golf handicaps work.
Speaker 2:There's like a computer that figures that stuff out. Well, you have to have a certain number of recorded games, right, yeah? And it says this is how many points I mean with golf. It's like how many strokes below par or whatever you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, above par. Or if you bowl a perfect game, maybe that goes in something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I don't think that they're against a perfect game. Do you think that your handicap is, compared, to a perfect game?
Speaker 1:That'd be tough. That would be like a high bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't seem like that's average Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you spend much time bowling?
Speaker 2:I mean, I understand how the concept of a handicap works.
Speaker 1:You just if I have a handicap of six then you basically get six extra whatevers to try to beat, try to level the playing field, right, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:What was your question? Do you do much bowling. I do not bowl very frequently, maybe once every two to three years. Okay, I do like bowling. My goal is always no gutter balls. That's a good rule and to beat 100 points, which if there's no gutter balls.
Speaker 1:It's not too hard to beat 100 points, I'm with you, 100's a good mark for me too. But you know they have those bumpers now Like you can, just yeah, but that, yeah, that doesn't. Those are for children. Oh, I mean, they're designed, they're not for I use them. Ideas are for children.
Speaker 2:I think I use them. I mean adults could use gutter balls and like particularly no gutter balls, because eventually, like sometimes I'm really lucky and I'll get a strike or a striker yeah and then followed up with gutter balls, which is really just.
Speaker 1:It feels like a waste.
Speaker 2:That's really my goal. Right, that's really my goal is if I do get lucky, yeah then no gutter ball following, but you know it's like anything you can't you can't bowl and sit there thinking no gutter ball, no gutter, no gutter ball, no gutter ball, no gutter ball. That doesn't work.
Speaker 1:No, you have to think hit the pins, hit the pins, hit the pins, that's right. That's right. Yes, it's a mindset.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. What are you focusing on?
Speaker 1:Hitting the pins. That's right, excellent, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah For through and just being consistent, because I'm not, I'm not very flexible anymore, so I have really good form right trying to lay the ball down as smoothly as possible, not drop it onto the lane my, my grandma took me bowling a lot when I was a young lad and I can remember dropping the ball on my foot quite often, actually actually like to the point of bruising, maybe even breaking. My interesting fact about me my big toe doesn't have a knuckle joint in the middle of the toe, so it's just like one solid bone and I kind of wonder if it's because of all the bowling balls that I've dropped on my foot.
Speaker 2:You mean, it wasn't always like that.
Speaker 1:Who knows, don't have a memory of it before I don. Dropped on my foot, you mean, it wasn't always like that. Who knows, don't have a memory of it before dropping balls on your toe? I don't have a memory.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's interesting about my feet I don't know how we're getting on Joel's feet, but I was born with, my feet were like curved in, like sideways, and so I had to wear special shoes with a bar. So when I learned how to crawl I would do it like an inch, where my mom told me, and so maybe that has something to do with the joint too.
Speaker 4:Maybe that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, but we're talking about bowling, not Joel's feet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know. One of the things that's hard for me with bowling is that I feel like it's hard to find a ball. That is the right weight yes, Right, because I always get balls that are too light, which then they like normal or one pin because they don't have any momentum, but then also has the right sized finger holes.
Speaker 2:You got to have a good size thumb hole, because they're like way too far apart, or they're way too skinny or they're like the thumb's too loose and my thumb gets very sore from trying to hold on to it you're kind of making an argument that maybe you should order your own ball that you could take with I wouldn't, but I wouldn't know what I mean. Clearly, I could just they'd be like okay, put your feet, fingers that's right, they probably have a fitting, but I don't know what size to get, and then you have to have a bowling bag and you might as well have your own shoes now exactly, yeah well, that just sounds like a lot for doing something once every two to three years but it might enhance that one time every two to three years I would be interested.
Speaker 2:So, like golf they I don't know why I'm comparing it to golf, because that's probably something I do about just the same amount of time yeah, but you know they have like driving ranges with golf where you can just go and hit the ball. They have bowling.
Speaker 4:Wait, you just I don't like it.
Speaker 1:As many times. I guess that just is like go to the bowling alley and pay for a couple of games and just practice, right.
Speaker 2:And just practice, I guess, because I guess you don't need a range. Yeah, never mind, I retract the question. I realize it seems obvious. Yeah Well, I do like bowling. I think bowling is fun.
Speaker 1:I think so too, for sure when I do go because I don't care.
Speaker 2:I mean, my goals are all about what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:They're attainable. I like it.
Speaker 2:Rarely do I. Sometimes I can beat the other person, but it doesn't. And rarely do I. Sometimes I can beat the other person, but it doesn't I never beat the other person.
Speaker 1:If they beat the other person, then that's because they're a really bad bowler. Clearly, yeah, and I'm just really.
Speaker 2:I'm just going for consistency, right? I'm just going to hit some pins every time.
Speaker 1:There's something to be said for consistency.
Speaker 2:Well, so.
Speaker 1:I mean, what do you do for US Bowling Week Day? Well, I guess I'll go bowl, why not?
Speaker 2:I mean that sounds like a reasonable thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how about you?
Speaker 2:I might be bowling, it depends on my schedule.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to get to Omaha.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to say on September 3rd, yeah, I might be traveling myself, I can't remember.
Speaker 2:So that'll be hard. They had bowling always at airports might be traveling myself. I can't remember, so that'll be hard. Yeah, but they had bowling alleys at airports.
Speaker 1:Oh, that would be cool. That'd be a good way to wait for your plane, like a good yeah all right well think about this.
Speaker 2:Enjoy us bowling league day and we'll see you next time sounds good all right. So today we have two guests on the podcast. We have John Hayes and Pam Lindemer, who are both professional learning specialists here on the PL team, and two of the people primarily responsible, co-responsible, I don't know, jointly responsible with lots of other people to take care of our site-based leadership program, and so we're here to talk with them today about what's going on with site-based leadership program this year.
Speaker 1:So welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thanks for joining us again. It's an honor.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So let's start with talking about. Just tell us a little bit about what is the site-based leadership program. Can you give us your like two minute right now? I?
Speaker 6:know Pam wants to start on that one.
Speaker 4:Well, the Site-Based Leadership Program is a collection of resources for site-based leaders to support implementation in their schools and to continue after implementation, bringing new learning to their colleagues. We invite anyone in a leadership role, whether it's defined like you're a principal or an assistant principal or a coach, or not necessarily defined you're a classroom teacher, but you're a leader for your district and we invite everyone to come any leaders, all leaders to join us and we're going to have. We have live events and we also have a module with a whole resource library that can be accessed anytime at your convenience to support mathematics education in your district.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like it's a combination of resources and networking and support to continue on after implementation. Do the sites need to be beyond their first year of implementation? Would it be helpful if they came during that first year, or how far beyond that first year can they start?
Speaker 6:No, anyone could start, Like anyone could start anywhere, and it is just designed to. I mean, we restructured our priorities in the site-based leadership program and that might be helpful to explain.
Speaker 6:So we kind of restructured them in terms of supporting teachers in their classroom. That was one of our priorities. And then we have a priority about collaborating with teachers in terms of like, maybe in the PLC or just in a math community. And then the third one we just recently added this year, which was building your leadership capacity, and so I think that's an important designation to make in terms of who should be in the site-based leadership program, because we do support people with just building their own capacity to be leaders, so I think anybody can join it.
Speaker 2:So how do they join? What do they have to do?
Speaker 4:They just need to register for this high-based leadership program. Our meetings are held in the professional learning portal and that's where the resource module is, and we would. It's just a simple registration process.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we'll put a link for that in the podcast description.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and please listeners. Reach out cpmpodcasts at cpmorg or support at cpmorg if you want some more information how to register.
Speaker 2:So what are some of the things that they could look forward to this year as being part of the site-based leadership program? I think we have something very cool planned, don't we?
Speaker 6:So last year our theme was centered around Dr DeRubal's work, which was discretionary spaces, and this year we were thinking about what might our theme be and, to tell you the truth, we kind of sat back and said, well, we hope that our leaders are using their resources as well as they can, and that kind of fed into this idea of building the leadership capacity of the leaders in particular, right. So we were thinking like what would be a good event or talk to do about building leadership capacity and we said, well, why don't we do a book study and use some of NCSM's work? So this year we're doing a book study and the book is Framework for Leadership in Mathematics Education by NCSM, and that book study will be over four sessions throughout the year and focusing on different ways that you can build your leadership capacity in your school or on your site.
Speaker 1:Awesome. What drew you to that book then? Just have you worked with it in the past yourselves.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so we're obviously both members of NCSM and we had been to events that they had had about coaching in the past and based on that event and based on the publications that they put out, it seemed like a good fit, so that's what drew us to it.
Speaker 4:Awesome. This won't be my first time through the book, and I've been rereading it over the last couple of months and there's a lot there to digest.
Speaker 6:So every time I read it there's something new. There's a ton of resources in the book already that NCSM provides and those classrooms that are. Well. You could use those resources certainly, but if you have a CPM classroom you might want to use something that's a little bit more tailored. So we're going to kind of intermingle our resources in with NCSM's resources as we do the book study.
Speaker 3:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:And when is the first book study? Like people do need to get right on it, this is going to be September 3rd, right when this podcast launches, so they'll want to get in there and figure it out, and the first meeting will be on. I believe it's September 17th. Okay, so, in addition to the book study, what are there other things that are planned for this year as part of site-based leadership?
Speaker 4:We are going to have a couple of webinars with nationally known mathematics leaders. Mathematics leaders. We hope to be able to announce our first speaker soon, maybe even at that first book study event, we'll be able to announce our first speaker.
Speaker 6:One thing we're doing differently this year is we're going to design some short videos about the intent and the purpose of some of the resources and then provide participants with an opportunity to talk to maybe a more knowledgeable other for that resource, like how do you pull it off in this building and ask questions? So that's one of the things we have planned also.
Speaker 1:Is there going to be any sort of site-based leadership component at our national conference this year?
Speaker 4:We believe that there will be sessions that are about the site-based leadership program at the conference. So, yeah, there'll be some coaching and some leadership events in the pre-conference and sessions spread out throughout the conference weekend, I know.
Speaker 6:Bruce Brusso and Lisa Comfort are doing a session at NCSM about the site-based leadership program. I'm doing one with Sharon Rendon and Jocelyn Dunnick at Learning Forward in December, and then I think both of those teams are doing a site-based leadership session at our teacher conference Very cool, so you can see us there also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we have things planned for the pre-conference and the main conference sessions for sure. So okay, anything else we need to know?
Speaker 6:I recommended. I worked with some coaches last week and I recommended that the coaches come. So if you're a coach, I would recommend that you join the site-based leadership program, Maybe take part in the book study If you're coming. I would also think about a different level. So, for example, who might be the building leader that might benefit from experiencing the site-based leadership program? Who might be a mass leader that might benefit from being in the program? So it doesn't have to be one person per site, it could be multiple people and that might spur conversations about who is doing what job or who is in what role in terms of leadership.
Speaker 4:And we know how busy leaders are, and so we just want to encourage anyone to join us at any time. Don't feel like if you miss our events in September, that you can't come and join us. We want you to pop in and out of the program when it's convenient for you and when you have the time, so don't feel like you'll be behind at any time. There are resources for you to engage with, no matter where you are in the progression of the school year.
Speaker 6:That's a great point.
Speaker 2:I was thinking and the live events are usually recorded right, so if they miss the orientation or they miss a thing, then they could be able to watch the recording of the event as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, that kickoff that was held a week and a half two weeks ago has been recorded and will be available for anyone to watch at any time.
Speaker 6:That's a great point, Pam. I think even with the book study, if you can't make the first one or the second one, then join the remaining couple, right, so yeah?
Speaker 3:Please Excellent.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we'll have more information and some links in the description for people to register or ask for more information. We look forward to having a great year with site-based leadership.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to it myself. Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 2:We have a news flash for you today. Do CPM programs fit the 2023 California Mathematics Framework? Well, if you are a California teacher or administrator asking yourself this question, you'll want to join CPM's California team for a fall webinar CPM and the California Mathematics Framework Making the Connection. It's happening on September 11th at 4 pm Pacific. Visit cpmorg backslash events to register. That is all. End of news transmission.
Speaker 5:Dear CPM, the good news is that I'm getting better and better at facilitating my CPM lessons, as the teacher notes describe, within my 47-minute class periods. Unfortunately, because I'm so focused on facilitating the lesson, I struggle to connect with my students, especially the introverts. Sometimes I feel like I'm treating my students like walking brains. How can I connect with my students in a short amount of time? How can I show how much I care for them as people and not just their math brains? Help Signed Misunderstood in Minneapolis. Dear Misunderstood in Minneapolis.
Speaker 5:First of all, I'm so glad to hear that you're starting to feel comfortable facilitating a CPM lesson within a class period. That's awesome to hear, and I'm glad you're finding those teacher notes helpful. I certainly rely on them a lot. Now about connecting with your students, I get where you're coming from. Class can feel like a juggling act and it can be overwhelming trying to build meaningful connections with students on top of everything else you're doing. So here are some suggestions that might be helpful.
Speaker 5:Start each day with a door question. A door question is a question that you ask students as they enter the room. It's all about getting to know them better beyond being a student in your math class. Some examples are who's your favorite musical artist? How many siblings do you have? What languages do you speak? What's a country you'd love to travel to? Door questions are great because they're a quick and small way to communicate to students that you want to learn more about who they are, their experiences and the important and interesting things to them, even by simply asking them how they're feeling today as they enter the room. You'll learn a lot about your students with very little time investment.
Speaker 5:I'd also encourage you to sprinkle in icebreaker activities that aren't necessarily math-related whenever possible. One of my favorites is the art of compromise, where each teammate shares three of their favorite things, like their favorite ice cream, movie genre or vacation spot. Then, as the team, they have to compromise on one of these things to share. Icebreakers are a lighthearted way to let students be themselves, have some fun and help students feel like they're a part of a community. I found that even my most introverted students warm up to icebreakers. You'll find a lot of great icebreaker suggestions under the team resource tab in your ebook.
Speaker 5:Lastly, try weaving in personal anecdotes or stories related to the lesson. It's a subtle way to show your students that you're not just about the math, but you're genuinely. Lastly, try weaving in personal anecdotes or stories related to the lesson. It's a subtle way to show your students that you're not just about the math, but you're genuinely interested in them as individuals. Remember, building these connections takes time, so be consistent and patient with yourself. Keep trying different things. You can never show that you care too much. Hang in there and keep up the great work.
Speaker 3:Sincerely, Bree, Hi Misty and Joel. This is Erin from Louisville, Kentucky, and I have enjoyed the podcast for these years and the new segment on Mac Jokes. So here is my favorite Mac joke. I hope you have not heard it before. What does the little acorn say when he grooms up? My favorite Mac joke I hope you have not heard it before. What does the little acorn say when he grooms up? Gee, I'm a tree. Y'all have a great day.
Speaker 2:Bye. 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 and 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 September 17, National Monte Cristo Day, and not the Count of Monte Cristo, which is a great story. I remember staying up nights actually listening to an old radio show as they would reenact that book, which I really loved. But this is the sandwich Monte Cristo, which its origins are in France, but it is the most delightful sandwich you'll ever try and I can't wait to talk about it. It's one of my favorites. If it's on the menu I usually can't say no. It's hard to steer me away from that and I have a good story about a local Monte Cristo sandwich that I'll share with you on the 17th. See you then. Thank you.