
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 5.1: Tulips and a Conversation about Reimagining HS Math
Welcome to Season 5 of the More Math for More People podcast!!!
What if high school mathematics could be truly transformed into something students find engaging, meaningful, and applicable to their lives? In this thought-provoking conversation with mathematics education experts Kris Cunningham and Kristi Martin, we dive deep into the possibilities presented in the NCTM publication "High School Mathematics Reimagined, Revitalized, and Relevant."
The discussion opens doors to a reimagined approach to high school mathematics that moves beyond the traditional curriculum model. Both guests highlight the importance of mathematical modeling as a pathway to authentic learning experiences where students tackle complex, multi-variable problems without predetermined solutions. This creates space for creative thinking and problem-solving skills that transcend the classroom.
However, transformation doesn't come without challenges. Kristi candidly shares her classroom experiences of struggling to surface the mathematical concepts within engaging modeling activities and the difficulty of finding relevant problems that align with required standards. Kris emphasizes the need for systemic support, including administrative understanding and professional development opportunities that give teachers space to experiment and grow.
Perhaps most powerfully, both educators stress the importance of persistence through inevitable frustrations. "If you believe in it and know it's great for students, just keep trying," Kristi encourages, reminding listeners that transformation is a journey rather than a destination. The conversation serves as both inspiration and practical roadmap for anyone interested in creating mathematics education that truly prepares students for their futures rather than simply repeating practices of the past.
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Speaker 2:Boom. Okay, so here we are. It's already the 13th of May. We're here. Wow, seems like May is just zooming by already, since it's already the middle of the month and it's our first podcast of May.
Speaker 1:Isn't it bad luck on the 13th, or it's like a?
Speaker 2:well, that was a friday, oh friday it's tuesday tuesday, it's tuesday and yeah, big deal yeah this is our first episode of season five that is big deal, five seasons five seasons. That's more than some netflix shows joel, I mean intentionally or not intentionally, but like well you get to season five on a, on a streaming or any like any yeah, thing that's a big deal and I would argue that a season is not always 25 episodes and we average around 25 episodes for sure, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:We, uh, we could have gone with the eight season or eight episode season, and that would have been much, much. Well, I don't know if it would have been easier or not. Yeah, anyway, here we are.
Speaker 1:We'd have to make it an hour long instead of a half hour long, just with all our thoughts that build up, that build up to a cliffhanger that makes people come back the next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a cliffhanger that makes people come back the next time. Yeah yeah, I think that's one of the interesting things a total side note, but just interesting things about shows that are not on network television, they're just streaming. They're random lengths Like. Sometimes they're like 33 minutes, 47 minutes, 54 minutes. Yeah, because they don't have to make it match the hour. Half hour slot with commercials.
Speaker 1:Yes, so they can. Just here's how long we're going to tell the story this time. The other thing I wonder, too, is Julius H has given us this great music, but like when I think of, let's say, when I watch Game of Thrones when I hear that theme music I kind of get like pumped up. I wonder if when people hear the Julius H music they kind of get pumped up.
Speaker 2:They get pumped up for more and more people. They might, they might. I hope so, I hope so. That's what I imagine yeah Well, that's good, that's good, it's healthy, yeah. So here we are, season five, it's May 13th, sure is. And it's our National Day of segment, because we're still doing that. Yep, I don't think we've missed an episode.
Speaker 1:No, all right, it's important to celebrate.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what are we celebrating today?
Speaker 1:National Tulip Day.
Speaker 2:Tulip Day. Tulip Day, wow. This must be for people who are at very northern latitudes. My tulips are long gone.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? Mean, oh, they've already come and gone oh yeah, they're long gone.
Speaker 2:They.
Speaker 1:They bloomed, peaked like three, four weeks ago oh my gosh, we're in peak bloom right now. Really yes yeah, well, that's what I'm saying more northern or south or continental time zones, colder latitude, colder spaces yeah more I'm trying to think tilted towards the sun, tilted away from the sun.
Speaker 2:If you're at a higher latitude, then you would be I mean you're it's a sphere.
Speaker 1:You can't go up and down. What?
Speaker 2:The earth is a sphere. You go up and down, you go around it, but anyway, if you're in a colder space, for the reasons that it might be colder, your tulips might be only blooming now.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:I think they've pretty much bloomed in the Netherlands too, though, but it doesn't matter, it's tulip day today.
Speaker 1:It is. And do you know? Actually you brought up the Netherlands.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did.
Speaker 1:That's not where they started, that's not where they were first cultivated.
Speaker 2:Where were they first cultivated? I'm curious.
Speaker 1:Turkey Around the year 1000.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:They didn't actually arrive in Holland until the 16th century, so like 600 years.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. I don't know how they arrived. 16th century is a lot of that colonialism, time and whatnot.
Speaker 1:It is yes.
Speaker 2:The Dutch were doing lots of moving things around commercially.
Speaker 1:Well, and it was a biologist that took the tulips to there.
Speaker 2:They grow really well in that climate.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And earth that reclaimed flood dirt.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I didn't know about that part. Yeah, they grow really well, they grow really well. Here in Utah we have a tulip festival.
Speaker 2:And the other.
Speaker 1:Thing that grows well. Here is lavender. We have lavender days. Oh yeah, it's not National Lavender.
Speaker 2:Day. But no, it's not. Lavender grows pretty well around here too. I used to live in Mount Vernon and Skagit County is a major tulip bulb producer, I think, like next to Holland, michigan and the Netherlands. So we would have a big tulip festival every year and people would come out and see the fields and fields and fields of tulips Interesting, of tulips Interesting, and then to make the tulips grow more bulbs. When the tulips are in bloom they go out and they pull all the petals off.
Speaker 2:So then people would come and you'd just see all the petals in the middle of the rows and green Interesting.
Speaker 1:Here's kind of a, I think, an interesting fact and maybe even a little bit of a math fact. But this says tulips are even so. Tulip flower buds are almost perfectly symmetrical to each other.
Speaker 2:Tulip flower bulbs are almost perfectly symmetrical.
Speaker 1:Flower buds.
Speaker 2:Buds are, oh Hmm.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:They're even like and they have an even number of petals.
Speaker 1:Well, they're symmetrical.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Is that? Another term for even you think maybe. I mean I feel like there's.
Speaker 2:I feel like plants. They're either like they have even numbers of petals and leaves or they have odd numbers of petals and leaves. There's monocots and dicots kind of a thing or something. Monocots can have odd, I think, and dicots always have an even, but I'm not I'm not a hundred percent on that.
Speaker 1:So Okay, you fact checkers out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let us know how many varieties.
Speaker 2:Bring in the random science fact that I can't remember.
Speaker 1:How many varieties do you think there are?
Speaker 2:Varieties like, like different named colors, like I can buy a bulb of that variety.
Speaker 1:I know that there are many varieties of tulips and I know that number. Yeah, how many do you think there are?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think it depends on how you term this variety, right? I think that, like tulips are one species, there's only one thing that's a tulip.
Speaker 1:But we're not talking about species. If you name the genus and species, there's only one thing, that's a tulip. But we're not talking about species If you name, the genus and species.
Speaker 2:There's only one thing right. But then if you have oh, like, what are the different varieties Like, when I plant this one, it's going to come up and it's going to look different than all the other ones right. I bet there are easily thousands.
Speaker 1:How many of thousands?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with the over under on five thousand. Oh my gosh over three thousand for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now that I think it's, I think you're right in there for sure yeah, yeah, no it's.
Speaker 2:There's a lot because I think about, like that brex catalog or the spring hill catalogs I might get and the just the number of different pages and pages of really cool looking tulips. So you know the ones like you've seen those tulips that are like they have super frilly blooms, like the blooms that are like straight and have all these curly edges on them and they might have like variegated colors to them yeah, yeah. That's caused by viruses.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mutations Like no viruses, oh viruses, not a mutation Like some of them are. Some of them are mutations in how, like in the, or slight differences in what genes are expressed.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Right, but this is the viruses actually causes differences in the actual cell expression itself.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, super cool, did you know you can eat tulips. And not die. Mm-hmm, you can eat tulips and not die.
Speaker 1:I can eat a lot of things. That's true too once that's true. That's true. This says that you can use tulip petals instead of onions in some recipes oh, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't do that no, because you don't like onions I don't like onions anyway so I don't want to replace them with something else, I just don't want to have them. But that's interesting. I did not know they could be used as a food, garnish or additive. Yeah, so that's interesting, cool, all right. Well, so what are you going to do to celebrate Tulip Day?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to go outside and look at my tulips.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice, I don't have that option. My tulips are long gone. Yeah, nice, I don't have that option. My tulips are long gone. I have some really, really lovely pictures. I took a lot of pictures when I was in the Netherlands three years ago, four years ago, three years ago, and we went to a tulip farm factory, whatever, and took a lot of pictures, so I might look at those. Some of them sure are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll send you a picture of mine.
Speaker 2:Excellent, sounds good. Yeah, all right Well enjoy Tulip Day.
Speaker 1:Everyone Excited to be here for the first episode of Season 5 for the More Math for More People podcast, and we were lucky enough to interview Chris Cunningham and Christy Martin, who were part of the writing team for the book High School Mathematics Reimagined, revitalized and Relevant. It's an NCTM publication. I was lucky enough to be part of the book study in the leadership thread and learned a lot and had a lot of great discussions, and we thought this would be great if we could have a chat with Chris and Christy. Chris Cunningham is a mathematics content specialist and leader in the Phoenix Arizona area and has also served as a board member for NCSM.
Speaker 1:Christy Martin is a mathematics high school teacher from the Tumwater area in Washington State and is also a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. And so please enjoy this interview with Chris and Christy as we dive into how high school mathematics can be reimagined, revitalized and relevant. So I feel like I'm taking this part from Misty a little bit, but today we're here with Chris Cunningham and Christy Martin and we're going to have a discussion about reimagining and revitalizing and making high school mathematics relevant enough to be in a book study around a publication that NCTM put out and Chris and Christy are a part of that. And first of all, welcome, welcome, and please introduce yourselves and tell us who you are.
Speaker 3:Christine, you go first, okay.
Speaker 4:I'm Chris Cunningham. I am a math specialist for a high school district in Phoenix Arizona.
Speaker 3:And I'm Christ, math specialist for a high school district in Phoenix, arizona. And I'm Christy Martin. I am a high school mathematics educator in Washington State.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's right, well welcome. So, just to get started, could you tell us what maybe some of the main ideas of this book were and how did you feel? Why was it written, written, or what was the inspiration for making it?
Speaker 3:Well, I will share that. The book is written in. When I think of it there's three major parts to it, which is in the title of the book, realistically speaking, and so I'm unpacking. What does it mean to reimagine mathematics education? For so long mathematics education has kind of stayed stagnant. We've made great progress, but we want to continue moving that needle in a positive direction for students. And then also, what does it mean to revitalize the educational experience for our mathematics students? And then also, how do we make mathematics more relevant in an ever-changing world? And unpacking some ways that we can do that at the high school level. So that's kind of where the book kind of lives in those three spaces.
Speaker 1:Right on, Chris. Anything to add?
Speaker 4:Right on, chris, anything to add seen in the past. So we definitely want to recognize that it's an extension or a continuation of some books like Catalyzing Change and like bringing some ideas, like to continue moving forward.
Speaker 1:So how does it kind of align with other math initiatives that are out there? Like you're saying, you want to continue this work, so how is it the same or how is it different from other math initiatives that have been out there?
Speaker 4:I think. I mean you see in the book connections explicitly made to catalyzing change. There's the you know charts in the back where it links some of those cross-cutting concepts to ideas from catalyzing change. I think and Christy can also elaborate more like I think the cross-cutting concepts are something that we haven't seen addressed specifically in high school. There's a lot in the K-8 space for topics that really have to be covered, but I feel like this is the first place where someone has tried to narrow that down for high school and provide that focus.
Speaker 3:Going along with that there's also a new piece of it is really allowing getting permissions to de-emphasize some of the mathematics. So we've been talking a lot for decades now on how the standards are so broad. We have so many of them and really now really thinking about what do we want to de-emphasize so that we have so many of them and really now really thinking about what do we want to de-emphasize so that we can emphasize what really matters. So taking those next steps and taking liberties to really connect with our colleagues and others in our mathematical spheres of where do we want to really emphasize the mathematics? What's the mathematics that all students are need in order to be successful, whatever their plans are post high school, and what are the? What's the mathematics? That's kind of specialized for people going into different spaces after high school, so that that's something that's new but also definitely is adding on to the conversation that's been going on forever.
Speaker 3:Some other things is we've talked about the processes. We have the mathematical and the statistical processes. So with this publication we really tried to bring in some more statistics. So we're not just talking about mathematics. We all know that statistics is becoming increasingly more important for our students, just to be data literate, and so we made sure to have NCTM and NCSM and ASSM all made sure to have some statistics specialists on the writing team so that we also had that perspective as well.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 2:So what would be some of the challenges that you see when educators read this book and they're excited about these ideas. What are going to be some of the challenges that they're going to face to implement those ideas?
Speaker 3:I can start on that one, since I am in the classroom yes totally.
Speaker 4:That's why I was waiting. I'm like yeah, because I will tell you.
Speaker 3:So there's really great ideas. Especially, I love the idea of bringing more modeling into our classrooms. I think that that really does support kind of this relevancy and I don't mean just some word problem that can like kind of fit our situation. It's more of having I like the idea of students having to consider multiple variables for different situations and having different outcomes that are all valid depending on what the situation is and what lens you're looking through. I think that that's really great problem solving that students are going to need and it's a great skill for wherever you're going in life when we get a little bogged down. There's a couple of things that are challenging for educators. One is how do you find these really relevant modeling problems that still fit in within your topic that you're teaching your concept that's still aligned with our state standards but then is also meeting requirements from what our colleges are telling us we need to have students prepared for. So that that's one thing that I find challenging is I can find some of these modeling problems. That's another thing like I find challenging is I can find some of these modeling problems that's another thing Like they're limited. I use CoMap a lot because you know they have really great stuff. So finding these resources, making sure that they're aligned with what your outcomes are, your student outcomes, and what they are required to know. There's a lot of restrictions there. You know there's a lot of restrictions there. But then also the pedagogical shift into teaching modeling problems. It's not, and we have been shifting into student centered, but I feel like this is like a whole new beast of student centered, where recognizing that all students are going to have different ways of getting to different answers is something that I think the support on how to teach those skill sets and also, even if you find a modeling problem that you think is going to be fantastic.
Speaker 3:This happened to me. I thought I spend this left out Like. This is going to be great. It's aligned, students had a lot of fun with it. I had a challenge on surfacing and elevating the mathematics afterwards, like okay, so let's strip away all of that modeling and let's focus on what was the core mathematics. I had a challenge in doing that because I don't know how to do it. It was great, students were engaged, they did fantastic. But when it came down to, okay, how do systems work, or whatever it was, it was like I don't know that mathematics had a showcase in what we were doing as a classroom. So those are some challenges that I have encountered. So those are some challenges that I have encountered.
Speaker 4:Thank you, and I would agree I'm not in the classroom but I support classroom teachers and it is difficult when you are in a system with expectations of curriculum and standards and what they want you to do every single day. So I do think that teachers classroom teachers can see that as a barrier. But I definitely also see that this is a great place to start a conversation right To bring the book and the ideas to the people that you work with. You know start you got to start somewhere. So it might not be something that you can directly change by yourself, but you can definitely start having conversations about the things in the book with the people who can help make that change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I I will say and I think you might be getting to this question later, so you'll have to kind of recognize. So what I've started to do is partner with some of our local colleges to see what mathematics courses they offer. And one of our local community colleges offers credit to high school students if they take what they call math and society, which is like the math that any student getting an associate's degree would would have, and in that math course it's kind of like you kind of get to choose what's in it. And so for me I was like that's fantastic, because then I can really kind of choose the modeling.
Speaker 3:I'm not in this box and I know that that's not an option for everyone. That's not an option for everyone. However, if there are people that work in school districts that offer college in the high school credit or whatever that may be, whatever that's called in their district, they might be able to reach out to the colleges that just say like hey, is this something that we can partner with you, because then you can start getting that modeling and have a modeling class potentially. And so that's kind of what I'm working on in my district, so that students do have an opportunity to engage in that type of problem solving Nice.
Speaker 1:I know, and we kind of broke up during the book study into our breakout rooms to talk about this, but you had the two lenses of there's the mathematical modeling and the statistical modeling and I think that is that kind of what you're talking about bringing the math out of it. Or are they really just two separate ideas?
Speaker 3:Oh, I think that when I say bringing the math or it could be statistics, it's it's. We do all this engagement and the problem solving and sometimes students may not recognize that they're doing mathematics Right. And mathematical thinking is really like what's what's the problem? What's the variables that? What's the problem we're trying to solve? What's the variables solve? What's the variables? It's all this mathematics and essentially there's some mathematical concept kind of hidden inside of the problem that they're trying to solve. And how do you support students in kind of teasing that piece out and then thinking about okay, that mathematics, what other types of problems could we use that same mathematical thinking to to solve, and things like that. And so, even though the whole process might be mathematical or statistical, what's what's that like grain of mathematics that we're we're really trying to learn within this problem, or what and and how do you surface that out without making it non-engaging?
Speaker 2:And that's a much harder thing to do right than to teach the concept and now do an application Right, Because the application can include so many different other pieces and that thread is in there. But to go back to the thread and to decide which thread you want to go back to or how you want to go back to, it. That is a much more challenging task, for sure.
Speaker 3:But the learning is more authentic.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So yes, and you are absolutely right, it is so much more challenging to go to that space and I think there is going to be a lot of professional development opportunities around how what are like best practices, around moving from the that that problem solving piece, to the medical concept so when you were talking about challenges, you talked a little bit about finding problems and the sort of trying to find a curriculum resource right that you can use.
Speaker 2:so if we assume that I have a curriculum resource that will work for me, then what am I focusing on in my classroom? What are the things I'm really going to be focusing on doing In your opinion?
Speaker 3:Chris, do you want to start off on this one or no?
Speaker 4:I can. I'm like it's Like you're in the classrooms. Your perspective is so valuable, I know. I do think like if you have, if I had, the perfect trying to do in there, which is what you see in a lot of traditional mathematics. You know, you see the, just the one math thing that you're trying to learn and there's not a lot of context.
Speaker 4:I also think that the contest, the context, has to be like relevant and important to kids. Right, it'd be no one's buying a hundred watermelons and taking them in their backpack somewhere. So I think, like deep problems that are like important to kids and the lives that they have, and they live in a world that has so much going on. Right, we have so much going on in the world and our kids are so much more connected to all of the things that are happening in the world and it's important to them. So I think if we could find ways to bring them content that solves real problems but also gets to the math, that would be the perfect answer. I don't know that that will ever realistically exist, but like those are things that I think kids would love and it would do the like like Christy was talking about. It would give them the problem solving and the math and they might not find the math at first or realize that that's what they're doing, but every problem we solve in the world has some kind of math involved in it.
Speaker 3:And I think, even if you do find those problems and it depends on where everyone is in their math education journey as far as teaching goes but really focusing on releasing control I think that if you're going to be teaching in this modeling way, you have to be very comfortable with not having control and getting that control to students and then also really focusing on thinking through.
Speaker 3:So making sure to think through those problems and do them in all of the different ways that you can think of and that will help be more prepared when some student does like the off the wall thing and you could still be like oh yeah, it allows you to be more flexible, but it also allows you to highlight and support students who may not necessarily have a positive mathematical identity.
Speaker 3:I think that this modeling allows for creativity and freedom of thinking about different things, and this is a great way to make sure that the students are the ones whose learning is kind of progressing the class and showcasing them. So I think it's a great opportunity for that. And a lot of these things are pedagogical, because if you have your curriculum now, you really have to focus on your pedagogy and then also thinking about how are you going to change your assessments, your paper pencil assessments. They're not going to work in this situation because students aren't. They're not learning in that way, and so you're assessing them in this totally foreign way that they didn't learn. And so what are you going to do with your assessments that are going to be an accurate version of where your students can demonstrate what they've learned. That may not be what you're used to, and that's also another change of ensuring that students can demonstrate what they're learning through this process through this process.
Speaker 1:So I'm hearing a lot of re-imagining in the classroom right now. But how would, how would a leadership support this or how, how would how do we help those teachers? Coach Like.
Speaker 4:We are re-imagining the classroom and that is so important and it it, it might I don't know that it's going to be easy to reimagine it from, you know, outside the classroom's lens either, because we know it's like this will take time. You have to be able to support teachers and help them think through. What does this look like? How do I do it? Classroom teachers will need support. Even though these are things we've talked about for a really long time, we're still not seeing those changes happening in the classroom or even in, you know, university, when people go to become math teachers, like we're not seeing that change happening there all the time either. So I do think teachers need support and professional development. They need time to practice. They need time to be able to do the math problems in a million different ways so they can anticipate what teachers or what students are going to do.
Speaker 4:I know most teachers get like planning time, but it's not enough and there's so many things that teachers have to do in that one hour every day or whatever it might look like. So I do think we have to think about from a system you know, like how do we also reimagine what does school look like? What does a teacher's workday. Look like I think there's. I think this could open up the door to lots of possibilities, but I do think you know like it is hard. We are bound by state standards and state assessments, so you have to be a little creative. But I think there are definitely places to start. I think teachers can start thinking through this and, with professional development and coaching and support, I think that they can try. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think it's also really helpful if you have administrators or whoever your evaluator is, that comes in and observes you for that, like one period per year. It would be really helpful if they knew about math education, like if they knew like a one sheet, sheet, sheet I. That would be really hard to do, but if they were able to actually support rather than just looking at behavior or like be in knowledgeable, so that when, as as a teacher, you go and you have your conversation, you can say, hey, I, you know, this is my challenge. Can you focus in on this for me and have confidence that that person is going to be a soundboard and maybe have some conversation about how to improve?
Speaker 3:So I think it's really important for your administrator or whoever it is, to be, because not everyone has a coach and so having other people or even talking to administrators about hey, can my colleague come, is there anything that we can do so that my colleague can come in and observe me Because we'd like to work out some how to improve. So there's ways to get around it if you don't have a coach. But you also need a supportive admin team to do that. But you can advocate for, advocate for the worst that they're going to say is no, which is unfortunate. But I mean realistically. I think administrators want our teachers to be successful and if they can see value in that type of collaboration to improve the outcomes for students and experiences for students, then I think that that could be a possibility as well for students then I think that that could be a possibility as well.
Speaker 2:It definitely feels like a combination of it's not very easy and it's really important.
Speaker 4:Right Things that are really important aren't usually easy, right, so you got to start somewhere. So I think, like we've said everywhere, we just have to start with advocating and having conversations and finding the right people whether that's the teacher next door or the principal that evaluates you, or the coach at the district office Start dropping comments from the book in their inbox and saying let's talk about this something, just to get it on their radar.
Speaker 1:That's such a good point to just start the conversation Again with the books. Today I feel really lucky. I got to talk to some people about it and that felt like an outreach that you guys were doing. Do you plan to outreach more? Do you plan to offer more venues for conversation?
Speaker 4:Hopefully. I know I'm on the board for NCSM and I know I did bring it up this weekend at our board meeting. I said NCTM did a book study and we did it through them. Maybe let's do it through NCSM this time and offer a book study to our membership and put it out there. So hopefully that will happen soon. I know I've also seen which was a surprise, but the WestEd and the Gates Foundation are working on a project and the book is something that they've sent out to their participants. So that was exciting to see that it was getting into. And classroom teachers they're classroom teachers, so I'm looking forward to see where the conversation goes from there. So it's trickling out there. So we definitely would love to see more book studies happen. It was a fun experience. There was great ideas and lots of good conversation.
Speaker 1:And I know as a participant a lot of things I heard were we want more. Do you have ideas for how to talk together, get support for this and things like that? So that's great you're thinking about it.
Speaker 2:We're getting close to our time, so we're wondering if there's anything else that we didn't ask you that you would like to include. Make sure that you have a chance to say.
Speaker 4:I was thinking about the connection to like other work that's happening, and I know the book talks a lot also about like pathways and I think that that is work that is happening in a lot of places right now. I see a lot of states working on those high school pathways. We're seeing lots of standards revisions happening across the United States in different areas and I think and I hope, like there are some examples in here, there's some links on the webpage at NCTM to different states and some of the work that has been done there. So I hope that, as people in different states are going through that work, that this could also become a resource for them to guide them in some of the decisions that they're making.
Speaker 3:I also want to share that and this is true. This has been true forever. But I also just want to highlight that if you're trying to make a change or an adjustment, it's okay if it doesn't work out at first. That doesn't mean that it's a failure. It doesn't mean to abandon it. If you believe in it and you know that it's great for students, just keep on trying, Revise your thinking, get some people that you can have some conversations with. Hopefully you have colleagues that you can talk to and really it's okay. It's okay if it doesn't work.
Speaker 3:I think that those that are the most successful in making those changes have to be kind to ourselves and also with our students. If you start something new, our students are going to need a little bit of adjustment, as we do as adults. And so really thinking about how to make improvements as you're going along the process, and if you're starting at point zero, you're at a wonderful spot because that just means that you, you're going to make that much more progress and so really not giving up it. But it is hard, it really is hard, and when you're doing that reflection, don't get too hard on yourself, like you're doing great things. So highlight those great things and then think about what are your next steps. How are you going to make improvements and also getting student feedback like, hey, what worked, what didn't work, what do you think we can do to improve this? You're not, even if you're at a really small school, you're not alone, because you're working with students to support them and getting feedback from them could be a great spot to start thinking about making those improvements.
Speaker 2:It's well said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thanks for being with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing all your wonderful insights and ideas with us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having us, thanks for being part of our book study, of course.
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 May 27th, national Sunscreen Day, and we'll be able to talk about some great stories surrounding sunscreen and find out maybe more about what that beautiful thing is. But I know that I will have stories to share about when I didn't use sunscreen and how that affected my day. But looking forward to having a chat with Misty about sunscreen May 27th.
Speaker 2:We'll see you there. Thank you, bye.