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 5.3: Summertime Iced Tea and Anticipations
Summer has arrived, and with it comes refreshing iced tea, eaglet adventures, and exciting plans for the months ahead! We kick off with a spirited discussion about National Iced Tea Day, sharing our personal brewing preferences and debating the merits of sweet versus unsweet varieties. Remember those old commercials where people would fall backward into pools after a refreshing sip? We certainly do!
Our eagle-watching journey continues with an exciting update: Sunny has officially fledged! After weeks of practice flaps and hovering attempts, this brave eaglet took flight on June 2nd while Gizmo continues preparing for the big moment. We draw parallels between these fledgling birds and the human experience of leaving home, noting how Sunny still returns to the nest occasionally—not unlike college students coming home for weekends.
The heart of this episode features our Professional Learning Team sharing what they're most excited about for the upcoming academic year. From Bree's multilingual learner book study to Ernesto's enthusiasm for new Spanish translations of Inspiring Connections materials, the passion is palpable. Kathy Williams highlights the contemporary updates in Core Connections third edition, while others discuss summer learning events including the Building Thinking Classrooms Conference and the Academy of Best Practices for New Teachers.
Between national park adventures, camping trips, favorite band concerts, and our company-wide Terrific Team Building event in September, there's plenty to look forward to personally and professionally. What are you excited about this summer? Share your plans and join us on June 24th for our next episode celebrating International Fairy Day!
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Speaker 2:Boom. Okay, it's June 10th. I can't believe it's June already. It may seem really long because there was a week after Memorial Day, but then boom, now it's June.
Speaker 1:It always seems like the January comes, like it's the new year, yes, and then all of a sudden it's June, like somehow I always miss.
Speaker 2:February, march. You miss, like the first six months of the first five months of the year Interesting.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it's June 10th.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And, as always, we're going to talk about what the National Day is. So what day is it today?
Speaker 1:Today is National Iced Tea Day.
Speaker 2:Iced tea. I like how you have to enunciate it Iced tea. Well, I mean, people say all the time iced tea. It's not iced tea, it's iced tea, iced tea, all right, so it's iced tea, iced tea, all right, so it's national iced tea day it is whoo, hmm, are you iced tea fan? I do like a good iced tea do you like them sweet, like sweet tea, which is different than iced tea, right not?
Speaker 1:sweet. I remember traveling in the I guess, the southeast of the country.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There was a question like well, it was kind of assumed sweet, but you had to say non-sweet please.
Speaker 2:Non-sweet iced tea.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's even more tongue twister-y. Yeah, I'm not sure I've actually had real quote unquote sweet tea that you know would exist in the south, because if you just get iced tea and you put a crap ton of sugar in it I guess it's not the same, which I make sense, because it's cold now, it would not absorb as much sugar as you.
Speaker 2:If you make it when it's hot science, cool it. Yeah, it's his science. Yeah, so you like a regular iced tea. Do you put? Do you put anything in it? Do you put sugar or salt or lemon in it?
Speaker 1:well, well, I do like an Arnold Palmer, so it's, with the lemonade, half and half. I like the taste of that. I do brew iced tea in the sun like a sunbrew.
Speaker 2:You do sun tea.
Speaker 1:And then I like lemon in that as well, like just some sliced lemon in the jar.
Speaker 2:So your sun tea is like a caffeinated, regular little black tea or whatever.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, lipton, it is a Lipton yeah.
Speaker 2:Wasn't there some commercial, probably when we were kids that, like people, would like drink the Lipton and then they would fall backwards into the pool? Do you?
Speaker 1:remember that Refreshing, I remember, yeah, like it was just some sort then they would fall backwards into the pool.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that, refreshing? I remember, yeah, like it was some sort of. Oh, it was so refreshing they would just like literally like plank fall into the pool.
Speaker 1:I didn't remember when we were kids.
Speaker 2:we used to try it. We used to try to do that. It's hard to keep your legs straight.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:Well and far enough from the fall. So you don't like, well, yeah, yeah, you have to like fall into the pool, but anyway, that's not relevant. I mean it's kind of relevant but it's related but not relevant. Um, yeah, I, I, I, I like certain iced teas. I'm really more of an herbal probably iced tea person. Like if you just get iced tea, like a lot of times when we go to conferences and things like that, that's what they give us at lunchtime. It's iced tea or water, right, and that iced tea just I don't know, it's a little bitter, I don't know. It's just not very exciting to me.
Speaker 1:I'll drink it, but it's whatever, I still like the that tea for whatever. Yeah, yeah that's fine.
Speaker 2:Um, I do try to make sun tea and I think I often brew it too long or I need to like fine-tune. My, I like the idea of it. I'm always like, oh, it's something refreshing to drink, that's just in the fridge. And then I need to find the right flavor because I think sometimes I'm like this does not taste very good. Actually I'm not excited about drinking it. But yeah, I need to fine-tune my tea game. I do drink tea Now. I switched from coffee to tea in the morning.
Speaker 4:Okay, hot.
Speaker 2:So I feel like I could should be able to extrapolate that into some a good iced game. Yeah, but probably herbal Cause I'm. I've been on the caffeine all day Well.
Speaker 1:I can understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So what does it suggest that we do to celebrate national iced tea?
Speaker 1:I was just looking at that. It says you could drink it like the Southerners do, like the.
Speaker 2:Southerners.
Speaker 1:Take an hour out of your day to steep some sweet tea.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, it takes an hour. Do I have to watch it for the entire hour or do I like make it? I mean, it probably didn't give you the recipe, well, no recipe, I have to monitor it for an hour. Then I'm like what the heck is going on with this tea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the steeping, I think it's just the steeping part, yeah, yeah. And then it says you could sit on the front porch on your rocking chair.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Sip your ICT while you read While it's steeping. Well after the steep, oh, after, after. And then you could read cat on a hot tin roof.
Speaker 2:What? That's very specific, yeah, but if you don't have a porch, or a rocking chair.
Speaker 1:You can do it inside, in the living room or another space is what it says so very specific and you also, you have alternates that's right, I do have a front porch, but I have a porch swing.
Speaker 2:I don't have a rocking chair on my front porch.
Speaker 1:That's it. I do have a rocking chair on my porch wow, nice.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. Is that what you're going to do today? You're going to sit on your rocking chair and read cat on a Hot Tin Roof and sip your iced tea.
Speaker 1:I might, instead of reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, because I don't drink sweet tea, so I want to have a different tea. You're already making alterations. The inventor of tea?
Speaker 2:I don't know the inventor of tea.
Speaker 1:I don't know, tea is invented, which is the mythical figure Shen Nong. Yes, who Shen Nong? Okay, back in 2737 BC 2737?
Speaker 2:That's a very precise, very specific for a mythical creature. Well, the Chinese had a lot of record keeping, so I think about that story.
Speaker 1:I'm just interested in the inventing tea part. How do you invent tea?
Speaker 2:I thought it was already like well, I mean, you probably invented the making of the plant itself, but like realized oh, we can dry this thing and then put hot water on it or water on it and make it into something that that still fascinates me, how people figured out stuff like that that we take for granted I think tea is less fascinating to me than how people figured out yogurt or you know, cheese.
Speaker 6:Let's let this stuff rot and then or only rot a little bit and then eat it yeah it's just, it doesn't sauerkraut really come on everything about that.
Speaker 2:Let's see, it was way easier, like oh, we already eat plants, maybe if we do some other things.
Speaker 1:But very true. How are you going to celebrate in any way?
Speaker 2:I will probably still have some tea. I might try, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fine-tune my son tea recipe. I need to figure out, like, how many tea bags you're supposed to put in, how long to let it sit, so that I actually because I would like to have some this summer like a really actually good source of nice sun tea.
Speaker 1:So that's what pretty big, substantial iced tea bag and you put it in the coffee maker and just let hot water run through, so that your coffee pot then holds hot tea and then I pour it into the carafe with the ice and that's a quick iced tea for anybody who's interested.
Speaker 2:There you go. Now you've got a method, all right. Well, enjoy your National Iced Tea Day.
Speaker 1:Indeed.
Speaker 2:All right. So today so today we have a following this we have a segment where we asked the some of the members of the professional learning team and the curriculum and assessment team to give us year academic year what they're looking forward to. So we thought we would start by talking about what we're looking forward to and, as part of this, we need to give an update on the Eagles, because we talked about the Eagles a lot last time.
Speaker 1:Well, and we're looking forward to some things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are looking forward to some things with that. So first update.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Sunny and Gizmo, the two eaglets in the big bear valley if you didn't listen to the last podcast, we talked about the eagles quite a bit. So sunny fledged on june 2nd and it was pretty cool because I think you messaged me right in the middle of, like our big company wide it was so exciting, it was exciting, it was exciting, yeah so sunny just, it's like they've been sitting there like we talked about, they've been flapping and, yes, then sunny did like a hover one time like kind of like jumped up and hovered and then came back to the nest and then yeah yeah, just sort of like set up there and flapped a little bit and then all of a sudden just leapt off and flew to another tree and it was pretty exciting.
Speaker 2:It was pretty exciting.
Speaker 1:Very exciting yeah.
Speaker 2:And and then now, like today, sonny's back on the nest, which is interesting that just came back yesterday ate some food with Gizmo, and now it's like hanging out on the nest again, so which I guess is pretty common right. They just kind of fly around to other trees and the parents still are watching them and making sure they're okay for a few weeks, which is it's probably like for humans, when the kids go away somewhere, they tend to come back, at least with my daughter.
Speaker 1:They would come back a lot in those first few months and now I don't. Samantha has fledged.
Speaker 2:Samantha's fledged, fully fledged, yeah yeah, that I thought is interesting too. I feel like they've been feeding them less. So, it's like, oh well, we're not going to give you so much food. You keep coming back here.
Speaker 1:You need to go get some food, or maybe the parents go out to eat now and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, oh, we're going to eat our own fish over here. We need to bring it to you yeah we'll bring you the leftover bits, but yeah, so Gizmo is getting closer, doing a lot of wingers and stuff, but Gizmo is not fledged. So that's one thing we're looking forward to is.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Sunny fully fledging going away being on her own and Gizmo fledging.
Speaker 1:So, definitely, what else are you, you looking forward to, joel, I guess personally I'm looking forward to? I'm going to be doing some national parking this summer and it's one of your things, it's one of my things get my junior ranger badges. We're going. I can't even think of all the places, but in the lower oregon, northern california area, so you're going to go to crater lake, which is which is the only national park in Oregon. Well, there's some monuments and stuff like that along the sites.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the only national park, that's right, yes, yeah, and so taking that, I'm really looking forward to that trip.
Speaker 2:Are you coming up to Portland? Are you going to be that close?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, oh well, I'm not aware I'll be there. So apparently you were just going to drive through and not tell me Well. I mean Now, everyone knows. I don't want to call you out here, but we've talked about this like twice. Oh, it's not on my calendar. It's not on my calendar.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't exist on my calendar. I don't have access to your calendar, but Well, I can see your calendar, but I don't create your things.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we're putting that on the calendar after we get off this. Okay, sounds good. What else are you looking forward to? Any work stuff you're looking forward to? Yeah?
Speaker 1:For work stuff I'm really looking forward to. So we just I'm working with a few districts that I've just implemented, so that's always fun for me to get people onboarded with CPMs and things like that, but then also I'm doing some building on things. So I'll be working with districts and teachers that I've been working with for a while, and at the end of the year I don't hear too much from folks and then as the summer hits and the new year begins, that's when all the exciting stuff happens, so I'm looking forward to that for sure.
Speaker 1:How about you? What are you looking forward to?
Speaker 2:Well, this summer I'm looking forward to forward to. There's a couple things that I'm looking forward to. This summer. I had a couple trips planned. I'm gonna go, we're gonna go up to seattle and see my favorite band play my favorite album like in its entirety so it's like the 20th anniversary of death cap for cuties plans so we're gonna go up and see that. I'm really looking forward to that and then then we got like a couple of camping trips planned and stuff that I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 2:It's always good to get out and and be out in the out in the wilderness. I agree, cool, um, so that's. So. That's really fun. And then work wise. I think I'm looking forward to a T-squared I don't remember what that's. Terrific team building.
Speaker 1:Terrific team building.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you. So every year a couple of years, I don't remember the frequency now we have our company-wide event that we all get together in person, which is always really exciting because we all work remotely, so a lot of times we don't see each other very often. I mean the PL team. Fortunately we have the conference't. We don't see each other very often. I mean the pl team fortunately we have the conference, so we get to see each other there at least every year. And then so this, our terrific team building, our company-wide event, is at the end of september and I'm looking for, I'm looking forward to that. It's kind of nice because it's we all get together and I'm not in charge of everything so that is also like extra, extra fun extra nice for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Extra bonus. So I'm looking forward to that and then I'm hoping. I'm hoping it's. I unlike a lot of the PLTM, I don't always have as much as many as events and support visits and things to do, and so I'm hoping this year there's a couple, and this year I won't be going to Wyoming, which I've been doing for the last few years. That's ended. They're taking care of themselves now, which is great.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's the whole point, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I'm hoping that there's a couple of coaching contracts. I'm hoping at least one of them will get picked up and they'll have some school connections coming up for next year.
Speaker 4:It'll be exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that and hoping it arrives.
Speaker 1:Awesome. It's so funny when you talk about like we're virtual, so seeing people in person. I remember one of the very first in-person things when I saw people. There was a few people that I was like wow, you're a lot taller than I thought no-transcript. We hope you're looking forward to stuff as well.
Speaker 8:All right here you go. Hi, my name is Bree. I'm a professional learning specialist at CPM, located in Woodland, california, and one of the things that I'm excited to do this summer is to just do some reading. I'm really excited to dig into a book called Welcome to Teaching Multilingual Learners, and I'm particularly excited for this because I'm doing it as a book study with about five of their colleagues, and this is one of my favorite ways to read a book. I love hearing everyone's ideas. I love talking through things together, coming up with solutions with one another, and this is just a topic that I'm passionate about. I love learning about new strategies to support multilingual learners and being more active and just knowledgeable members of our math classes. So that's what I'll be doing this summer and I'm really excited.
Speaker 6:Hey, it's Jocelyn, the Regional Professional Learning Coordinator for the Northeast, coming to you from the great state of Connecticut. And something I'm looking forward to in next year is the Site-Based Leadership Program. So the SBL program provides support and resources for leaders at their site in all stages of their implementation. So new leaders, experienced CPM users and leaders in all stages of their leadership, so teachers who are just taking on an instructional leadership role versus really seasoned district level leaders. It's an exciting group of individuals with a lot of great questions and experience, and it's just a ton of fun to get the group together and see what everybody's up to.
Speaker 6:I am super excited because in the fall we're going to be launching a book study on CPM's Instructional Coaching Toolkit, so you get to engage with some of the authors and have discussions with colleagues from all over the country about coaching and improving classroom practice and really making positive experiences for students. The program also offers some timely tips and tricks that will be coming to your inbox and your feeds. So we're excited for some new ways to engage and sustain our leadership and keep the momentum going at our schools. We also have a well-stocked resource library, so things that you can just take to your classroom that you can bring to your site resources about classroom implementation, building effective teacher teams and also building your own leadership capacity. So in the SBL program we really have something for everyone, with all your problems of practice and awesome ways to connect and grow both your team and yourself. So we hope that you will join us for some part of SBL, because this is what I am really excited about for next year.
Speaker 7:My name is Nicole Gorgas and I am in Victoria, minnesota, and I'm on the professional learning team for CPM. I'm looking forward to the Academy of Best Practices for New Teachers hosted in San Diego this year for teachers in their first five years of teaching. Teacher burnout is real, so it will be so great to help these teachers recharge and prioritize some key actions for their upcoming school year, while having lots of fun.
Speaker 10:My name is Ernesto Bautista. I'm one of the writers at CPM. One of the things I'm really looking forward to is the release of the Spanish translations for Inspiring Connections materials. That includes Mathetician's Notebooks, obviously, the lessons themselves, the resource pages, the door questions, even some of the questions teachers can ask to help students move forward in their thinking. Teachers can ask to help students move forward in their thinking. What excites me the most is knowing that more students will have access to these materials.
Speaker 10:These materials inspire reflection and critical thinking and connection and they really make me wonder as I've been reviewing them. They make me think about my sixth grade self and my seventh grade self and as someone that would have needed translated materials, how would I have responded to some of these reflection questions Then? Who would I be and where would I be in my math journey had I had these types of high quality instructional materials back in that day? And it just it's very exciting to think about. Another thing that makes me really excited is to think about the teachers and how the teachers are going to be able to make those connections with students.
Speaker 10:Sometimes the language barriers tend to negatively impact the way that you can connect with students, but having even just quick answers with preferences, like in some of the questions that can invite a certain level of connection with students, and that's super exciting to think about how teachers will use this and those thinking questions. Sometimes students are stuck in their thinking and they don't know how to move forward and just a simple question about well, what about this? Or just saying something, will help them move those along. And again, that language barrier tends to get in the way. So I'm hoping this will empower teachers to help those students move on, because we all want students to succeed, but sometimes the hard part is how do I do that? So it's super exciting and I am looking forward to seeing how that goes.
Speaker 5:Hi, this is Kathy Williams. I'm a member of the Professional Learning Team and I'm from Louisville, kentucky. I'm really excited about our new Core Connections third edition curriculum that is coming out this summer. You'll notice that it's got a new look and there's some new features in it, with contemporary updates, and these are all based on the latest research about how students learn using a student-centered, problem-based curriculum. So some of these new features include the lesson focus. This includes the language objective, the standards for mathematical practice and the major conceptual ideas.
Speaker 5:The lesson at a glance shares the learning intent for the lesson, materials and materials preparation needed, an overview, the lesson sequence and pacing, and this includes a door question. These door questions are a great way to get to know your students and to build community in your classroom. It has embedded supports and identifies the math standard for the lesson. These lessons do follow the traditional sequence of Launch, explore and Closure. However, we've introduced some new launch formats, which include Math Chats, data Talks, dot Talks which One is Unique, notice and Wonders different ways to engage students at the beginning of class. The Explore format has opportunities for virtual interactive activities to help students to build conceptual understanding, and I do want to note that many integral parts of Core Connections 2nd Edition still remain. You'll find the learning logs, toolkits, the mixed-based practice in the review and preview problems, the puzzle investigator problems, the parent guide and those lesson math casts. So I'm excited to showcase our new curriculum during our summer learning events. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Hi, my name is Victoria Holt. I am a classroom teacher specialist with CPM and I'm from Columbus, ohio. One thing that I am looking forward to this summer is being able to attend the Building Thinking Classrooms Conference. This year it is being held at the end of June in Renton, washington, and I am very excited to be presenting on implementing thinking tasks with your students, as well as team assessments, where students have choice and they can choose from mild, medium or spicy problems. I'm also looking forward to just being a learner in the space and being able to glean information from other presenters that I can implement with teachers and students alike. Yeah, so I'm very excited for those things.
Speaker 9:Hello, my name is Marcus Blakeney and I'm a professional learning specialist with CPM in our professional learning department, and I currently live in Louisville, kentucky. Something that I'm looking forward to this summer are our three day learning events, our foundations for implementation. Learning events are unique because this is an opportunity to engage with teachers who are either getting ready to join their CPM journey or may have been a few years and are looking to rejoin their CPM journey. Oftentimes, I find teachers who come in on day one they're apprehensive they don't know you, you don't know them. Of course, I'm going to be me and I'm going to be greeting them and giving them energy because I know what's about to happen Over the next three days watching our teachers shift from where they start on day one to where they are day three by exploring their beliefs, watching lessons being modeled, pick apart teacher practices, engage in their specific content. Teacher practices Engage in their specific content. Get to collaborate with teachers in their specific content area whether it be a math one teacher, a geometry teacher or whatever the case may be for their situation and then walking away with this sense of community Like we got this. We can do it.
Speaker 9:Oftentimes, I tell our teachers. Sometimes it's us against them, however you may want to interpret that. But stay united, stay connected with one another and continue to do what's best for kids, and so that's always a fun experience during our summer. And then our Building On series are unique, because think about the one I have coming up this summer building on discourse, going into a familiar region that I've been to before, just reuniting with some familiar faces and taking their invitation up a notch and focusing solely on OK, discourse. How do we make it happen in the CPM classroom? And so definitely looking forward to that and looking teachers to dive into their work and, last but not least, looking forward to the conferences getting out there, traveling, seeing people who have never engaged with CPM, or looking at our friends who have engaged with CPM and be like, hey, I teach CPM in my classroom and say, oh, tell me more. And maybe it's just a friendly face to say hi, welcome back, or it's someone who's new out there just trying to find their path with teaching and learning.
Speaker 4:So definitely looking forward to our learning events, looking forward to our conferences this coming year through the 7th. Some of my favorite parts about this three-day event is we collectively share our current effective planning practices. We really think about how we can support students in seeing themselves as math learners and along the way we refine our questioning, maybe our use of instructional strategies, but of course we experience some math learning together as well. So if you're around the West Fargo area August 5th through the 7th, come along for the experience. Just reach out to any of your CPM community contacts and we'll get you the information you need. Thanks everyone.
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 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? It'll be.
Speaker 1:June 24th, International Fairy Day, We'll take a look at the history of this mythical creature, the fairy, and its role it's played in literature and folklore. I'm interested to hear more about fairies. I don't know very much, so to do some research. Hear Misty's thoughts. So we hope everybody will enjoy International Fairy Day on June 24th. Thanks for listening. We'll see you then. Thank you.