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 4.20: Medjool Date Day and an update from our Join Them on Their Journey peeps
It's Medjool Date Day! So first we discuss our ideas about dates...
Then we get some updates for Where They are on Their Journey NOW. Maggie is not in the classroom this year, but Grahame sends us a recording of how he's doing in his second year with CPM.
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 program Boom. An outreach of CPM Educational Program Boom.
Speaker 2:Here we are. It is February 4th 2025. So, as usual, I would like to know what is the day today, joel.
Speaker 1:Today is Medjool Date Day. Medjool Date Day. Yeah, medjool Date Day.
Speaker 2:Medjool Date Day yeah, medjool.
Speaker 1:Date Day February 4th.
Speaker 2:Date Day. I like saying Date Day, so Medjool dates, not any other kinds of dates. I don't know what other kinds of dates there are. Yes, I assume there are other kinds that they're going to specify Medjool dates.
Speaker 1:I think so too In my research. They do just differentiate between medjool and other dates. They don't list the other.
Speaker 2:So all the others are just lumped. Yes, they don't get specific call-outs by other dates. So I wonder what I mean. Clearly it's just a different kind of spree, maybe, but I wonder what else differentiates medjool dates from other dates.
Speaker 1:Well, funny, you should ask. Because, yes, first of all, the date is just a very nutritious food, fruit that takes the place of sugars, takes the place of a lot of different things, but jewel dates have more of a caramel flavoring to them, right, and also they are higher content of calcium than other dates. Interesting, yes, good.
Speaker 2:All right, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they've been around, they're dating dates. The start of medjool dates are just dates, I guess as far back as 7 000 bc 7 000, oh they've been around for a long time, but that's.
Speaker 2:That's a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and oddly enough, I I don't know why I'm saying odd because it makes sense that they didn't come here to the united states until the early 20th century because things like transportation were invented like transportation.
Speaker 2:They didn't have transportation until the 20th century that's right what they did. People still transported things and themselves to other places, but some particular kind of transportation, I guess, for the dates.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite questions that I read is do dates make you fat? Mm-hmm, and it just says consuming a large number of dates can lead to some weight gain. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess, if you're just going to eat, a lot of of dates can lead to some weight gain.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, I guess if you're just going to eat a lot of calories, you might have some weight.
Speaker 1:If you eat lots of calories, it could lead to weight gain.
Speaker 2:So I used to have I don't remember where we got it from, but some organization, business, company, whatever that sold date fristles which were basically like dehydrated dates, like they were like cut up into like small little bits so they would be like crumbles kind of when they were, when they were crumble sides, when they were dehydrated.
Speaker 2:And then you, they had all these recipes and things because you would use them in place of sugar, basically to make muffins or cakes or right, and they also look really good to just eat because they're just little dehydrated dates rehydrate your mouth yeah, like so. Yeah, I used to have those all the time, but I lost access and we ordered them in a giant tub. Side Side towels.
Speaker 1:There were some things that I don't need.
Speaker 2:There are nearly that many anymore.
Speaker 1:Costco maybe.
Speaker 2:It was a specific company that made them from out of California. But yeah, they're cool. They were probably Medjool dates.
Speaker 1:I mean. Well, they are known as the king of dates.
Speaker 2:So how are you going to celebrate Medjool date?
Speaker 1:day. Well, the suggestions are that you could buy some Medjool dates. You could share their benefits. So, like I said before, that they're good for your health and you could share that with other people.
Speaker 2:You could proselytize them.
Speaker 1:You could cook a dish with some yummy dates. I do like them. Make some yummy date dishes. Bacon-wrapped date is very delicious. Oh, I don't know if I've had that before.
Speaker 2:They'll put like cream cheese in the middle or something, and then you wrap the bacon around them. They're pretty good.
Speaker 1:Like an hors d'oeuvre. That sounds good. Yeah, one suggestion here is to put it in pudding. I think that would be good too Interesting. I like pudding more than I like dates, so anything that you put in pudding, I'm probably going to like Pro pudding. But for me personally, I think I'll, maybe I'll buy some dates. See what happens. How about you?
Speaker 2:yeah, you can, I might eat a date. I don't know, they're a little sweet for me, so okay, all right, yeah, but I I could eat.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go, there you go, we'll just be eating our dates Eating dates, so it feels like very, very decadent somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, enjoy your Medjool date day, mm-hmm. All right, cpm Podcast listeners, today we have a special treat for you. We have an update from one of our Join them on their Journey teachers from last season. Graham Sorensen, a teacher in Salt Lake City, is going to give us an update on how he's doing this year and what's been going on so far. We haven't heard from him since the end of last year and so that we're really looking forward to that. We unfortunately don't have an update. Well, we don't have a recorded update from Maggie Chenin, because she moved out of the classroom this year and she is now working as an administrator at her school and we're really excited for her, for her new adventure, but she doesn't really have an update about what she's doing for teaching because she's not teaching. So, unfortunately, no update from Maggie, but we do have this lovely update from Graham, enjoy.
Speaker 3:Hi Misty and Joel Graham here. It's good to be back. Thanks for having me. I'm currently in my 10th year teaching math. I'm at Highland High again and I'm teaching Integrated 1 and Integrated 2, which are the same courses I taught last year. This is my second year teaching CPM and it's nice to have the same courses because I know what's needed for each lesson and I have a better idea of questions students might have and questions I can ask to drive their thinking further. And I also feel like I have a better idea of the pacing and how to make sure we have adequate time for closure and wrapping things up and making sure students understand the big ideas of the lesson. As I think back on last year, with it being my first year with CPM, I really tried to focus on teaching the curriculum with fidelity and diving into the lessons, embracing the CPM model and making sure I read the suggested lesson activity so that I understood the vision of each lesson. I think survival is a goal whenever you're trying something for the first time and also reflecting on how the teaching went and ways I could improve.
Speaker 3:I'm still having students work in teams, which I see as the best way to get students to develop and understand the abstract concepts that we teach in our math classes understand the abstract concepts that we teach in our math classes. Students need to have dialogue, they need to discuss their ideas. They need to use language in all four domains reading, writing, speaking and listening. And working in teams allows students to do that. Last year I saw significant gains with my MLL students. Students were reading in English, they would speak to other students in their native language. They would write in English, no-transcript. That being said, there are challenges that come with having students learn in teams and learn through problem-based learning, where they are not necessarily told how to solve a problem before asked to approach and think about ways that they might solve the problem. I've seen significant gains with students in their abilities, in their confidence. Students are willing to work together and I hope it's more acceptable for them to struggle and not know what to do right away. But I have had students say that they do not always feel successful with that style of learning, and so it's a reminder to me to continually celebrate and acknowledge when students do make those gains and do persevere when a problem is challenging.
Speaker 3:I've tried to emphasize the importance of communicating your ideas through writing and discussing, and some students have the idea or expectation that learning math should be passive and they should be told what to do, and so I have students who get frustrated if they're not told what to do. But I feel like they have learned that I will not give them the answer right away, that I will help them, that I will try to guide their thinking, I will check in and make sure that they get where they need to go and understand the concept, but I'm not going to tell them the answer right away. This year also, I've joined the Teacher Research Corps. With CPM and my research group. We've been focusing on different ways to consolidate our learning, and I have found this to be really helpful with communicating to students that I do want them to have takeaways, and it has also given me a chance to communicate things I think are important at the end of a lesson or even in the middle of a lesson, when it's time to consolidate our learning, I often include asking students to share their problem solving, people that helped them or that they helped during the lesson, as well as questions that were asked, questions their team had or questions they still have about a particular topic. So I've found that to be a great focus for wrapping up lessons and ensuring students are thinking about their own learning and getting the important takeaways of the lessons. Another thing I've started this year, after a summer professional development with CPM, has been reading the book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond, and the book has really emphasized the importance of relationships with students and building an alliance with our students as partners in their learning. I know this is something I can improve on and it's helped me to appreciate I am teaching students rather than thinking about teaching the math to the students. We're all learning together here.
Speaker 3:I've also been looking into incorporating more games and more play within my units.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of games that involve probability, lot of games that involve probability, and so I'm starting there and getting my students to play the games and then analyze the outcomes of the game with probability models. I'm excited to see where this goes and what other games we can incorporate into our lessons games we can incorporate into our lessons. Finally, I'm interested in finding ways to make our mathematics more relevant to our students. I think CPM does a great job of making the mathematics accessible to students, but I think I crave with my students applications that are meaningful to them and relevant to their lives and, in reading, culturally responsive teaching in the brain. It's helped me to see that this really can only happen when I know my students and I know what their interests are and what they care about. So I'm looking forward to continuing this year and learning more about teaching, learning more about my students, learning more mathematics, learning more about connecting the mathematics with my students and within our community. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 2:Have a good one 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 February 18th, thumb Appreciation Day, and I know I appreciate my thumbs. There's so much you can do with a thumb, right Like you can zip up a zipper. You can share emotions with your thumb. So often I think about talking about other animals and things like that even, and say, well, they don't have thumbs so it's hard for them to do things. So the thumb is a very important body part and I can't wait to appreciate the thumb. Hear what Misty has to say. But we'll see you on February 18th for Thumb Appreciation, thank you.