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 5.6: Pi Approximation Day plus Latrenda Knighten, part 2
Latrenda Knighten, current president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), joins us for the second part of our illuminating conversation on professional collaboration and growth in mathematics education.
We begin with a playful discussion of Pi Approximation Day (July 22nd or 22/7). What will you do to celebrate?
Then part two of our conversation – a profound exploration of professional identity and community in teaching. Knighten draws from her personal journey to illustrate how early exposure to professional networks transformed her teaching practice and accelerated her growth as an educator.
"Teaching can be a career where a lot of times you work in isolation," Knighten observes, highlighting how this isolation creates barriers to professional development. She makes a compelling case for fostering environments where teachers feel comfortable asking questions, sharing challenges, and collaborating across grade levels. These "vertical discussions" prove particularly valuable, allowing educators to understand mathematical progressions more deeply than single-grade expertise permits.
For teachers struggling to find supportive communities, Knighten offers practical strategies—from leveraging virtual platforms to building informal networks outside school hours. "There is no excuse for not having someone to collaborate with," she emphasizes, pointing to technological tools that make connection possible regardless of geographic limitations.
The conversation culminates with Knighten's passionate reminder that effective mathematics teaching practices—student engagement, encouraging questioning, problem-solving, critical thinking—have been validated by decades of research. "Let's stick with what we know is good and effective and let's just build on that," she urges, connecting these approaches to the skills most valued in today's workforce.
Whether you're new to teaching mathematics or a veteran educator, this episode offers invaluable insights into creating professional communities that sustain and enhance your practice. Listen now to discover how breaking free from classroom isolation can transform both your teaching experience and your students' learning outcomes!
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Speaker 2:Educational Program Boom Special day, july 22nd. What do you know? Two podcasts in a row. Two podcasts two weeks in a row. I always kind of go in a row, even if it's every other week.
Speaker 1:They are in some sort of order, some sort of linear connection. Extra special 22nd of July it's National Day today. Today is Pi Approximation Day. Oh, that makes sense. The number pi not like the food, it's not a food.
Speaker 2:Pi approximation. Well, I made this pie and it only has one crust.
Speaker 1:So it's approximately a pie. It's actually a crumble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, ah, gotcha, it's a strudel or a whatever, All right, so pie the number pie approximation day, which makes sense Because it's.
Speaker 1:It goes back to the Babylonians who had estimated and they had a base 60 system. So this approximation of theirs equated to about 22 sevenths. And so thus July the 22nd. So if it's, the 22nd of July right If you were in a different country and you wrote- you might do 22 sevenths, you would write 22 slash seven.
Speaker 2:Even right, that's right. So there you go. So interesting do 22-7. The year first you would write 22-7 even right, that's right. So there you go. So interesting 22-7.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Base 60. I'm just trying to think of, like, how would you write it in decimals, but that would be really hard. Yeah, yeah, in base 60. I don't know how you write numbers in base 60 into base 10.
Speaker 3:Okay, stop.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to go down that road. I think that's a road fraught with difficulty and confusion.
Speaker 1:For this podcast for sure, but I started using my finger to do symbols and nobody listening at this moment can see what my finger is doing. No, that's true, that's true, Well and even like hexadecimal.
Speaker 2:you have to use other letters and things like that If you're trying to write it in a base 10 format.
Speaker 1:And if you've seen the movie the Martian, it's a good idea to learn hexadecimal, because that's how you'd get home if you got stuck because they used the hexadecimal.
Speaker 2:I have to know hexadecimal to get home.
Speaker 1:If you're stuck on Mars. Yeah, I have to know hexadecimal to get home If you're stuck on Mars, yeah. So I used to talk about this day with my students Because here in Utah we celebrate Pioneer Day and Pioneer Day is on July 24th, and so on Pi Day, which is when school was happening, which is March 14th, we'd talk about the number pi, maybe do a couple activities. My school actually served pi to the students, things like that. So it's kind of a big celebration and I would explain to them about. There's also a pi approximation and that here in Utah we celebrate it every year on July the 24th and we have a parade, there's fireworks, it's actually bigger than the 4th of July and the students will say no, mr Miller, that's not right, that's Pioneer Day and I go. I know it's Pi, oh, it's Near Day. So that's the approximation. I'm sure there'll be a laugh track that we're inserting at this point.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a lot of laughing right here, for sure.
Speaker 1:It hit big in the classroom. The kids loved it Well.
Speaker 2:I mean it's also approximately.
Speaker 1:Pi approximation day. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's just close, it's close enough, it's close enough, oh goodness gracious. Yeah it was good times. Yeah, I'm sure it was good times. Yeah, I'm sure your students loved you.
Speaker 1:Well, they pretended to. And your jokes? They did have some jokes.
Speaker 2:Drowned and moaned. I hope they did. So what are you doing to celebrate actually today not?
Speaker 1:two days from now. Well, I've been thinking about some unique ways, like perhaps I could actually get a pie, put a bite, like, say, let's on a fork and almost eat it Like I. Like it could just be like right there. Maybe that would be a celebration. Maybe that would be a celebration.
Speaker 2:I don't know that that's how you would term that as a celebration.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Almost not quite, but sort of wanting to eat pie but not doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe if you ate almost all the pie.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:You'd leave one bite of pie you could leave some pie, so you approximately had the pie Approximately eating the pie. Yeah, how about you? How would you celebrate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure I put on the spot here. I mean I did a lot of pie stuff when I was in classroom, but I haven't done much since I've been out of the classroom quite frankly, you know, I'm not sure I'm going to have to. Just, I mean, I need to consult your list, okay, Come up with some ideas.
Speaker 2:All right, I don't have one off the top of my head, all right, but we're curious how our listeners might be celebrating Approximately Pi Day. Pi Approximation Day, yeah, and if you do, you can send them to our fan mail, yes, please. So last podcast we had Latrenda Knighton with us. She's the current president of NCTM and also a person who has been very active in all sorts of professional organizations as well as professional learning, a strong advocate for teachers. If you missed part one of our conversation, please go back to episode 5.5. It launched last week and listen to that, and then you can listen here to part two. Enjoy, I want to shift just a little bit. So in a few weeks here you're going to be coming down to San Diego to speak with our teachers at the Academy of Best Practices. Joel will be there and I think the topic that you've been given I'm not sure how much guidance you've been given around.
Speaker 2:this is professionalism, so we're curious what thoughts you have around that topic for new teachers, existing teachers, retired teachers. When you think about that, what comes up for you?
Speaker 3:You know that is one of my favorite topics and it's always one of my pet things as a teacher leader, because you know it makes me think about, and actually I wrote one of my president's messages on that, which is a little funny.
Speaker 3:But I think about when I was an early career teacher, just early career, just leaving college. I was an early career teacher, just early career, just leaving college, and so you know a lot of times when someone says, ok, what's your level of professionalism. You know for me, if you were to ask me when I first graduated college and I was going to my first real job, which was teaching people's little children or whatever, and it was like oh, my God, you know, you trust me to be responsible.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like I'm still my mom's still making my meals and ironing my clothes for me too, but you know, but you know we could all be so lucky, but you know, I think about you know my parents okay, well, you know professionalism. Okay, am I dressing correctly or the way?
Speaker 1:they wanted me to dress. Am I?
Speaker 3:speaking kindly to folks and things like that. But what I think about when we talk about of course I'm want to talk about math, but I think this is for any content area is fostering that culture of professionalism, and it's so important that we do that. And so one of the things that I appreciated by being introduced to affiliate groups early in my teaching career is that is exactly what my math supervisor did, you know, within our school district. She used that to create that network of learners, and so very early on I um, I do realize that I am so lucky that there was someone who thought that way, you know, when I started teaching, because that's I have found out that that's not the norm everywhere.
Speaker 3:You know teaching can be a career where a lot of times you work in isolation. You know you go into your classroom and you're working with your students or your groups of students. Sometimes you may have a weekly meeting with grade level peers or your peers who teach the same course. Sometimes you don't, and so it just doesn't work that way. It doesn't work well that way. You know, when we were talking about students and the types of habits of mind, and so you brought up a good point is, you want to foster that environment where students feel it's okay to ask questions.
Speaker 3:That's the same thing we want for adults, because no one knows everything, regardless of where you are in your teaching career, you know, early career, mid-career or towards the end of your teaching career. And so when I think about professionalism and fostering that culture of professionalism, one of the most important things that you can do for that is to foster that sense of collaboration through that sense of collaboration. And so I think about my own teaching career, how important that was to me as a learner and how I grew really exponentially by having those opportunities. I was very fortunate because I mentioned, you know, my supervisor and the things that they provided. But I was fortunate that we had actual a professional learning program where it was for teachers. It was funded with Title I funds and so first it was just a select group of schools. So we came together on a regular basis for professional learning, just in mathematics, you know. And so there were those of us on our campus who were part of the project. Then we worked with people on other school campuses to meet people just in my region. Then I branched out to the state level. So it really helped grow my level of contact with other math educators. So it allowed me not just to learn about just teaching strategies and things like that, just to learn from others and to have people to ask questions of who could provide guidance for me but at the same time, to be a resource for others.
Speaker 3:And if you know, there's one thing that is really important that we do is to make sure that we remove that sense of teachers working in silos.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm in my classroom, I just work with my students and provide those regular opportunities for collaboration, regular opportunities for teachers on a campus to work with each other, teachers across campuses to work with each other, and one of the pieces that we don't get enough time to do is having that cross-grade level collaboration, you know, having those times for those vertical discussions, and that's when you find out oh, that's the free requisite for this.
Speaker 3:That's how this is introduced, because you only know what you know and if you're lucky enough to teach like the great level that you really like, and only that great level, you may never find out what are some of those things you do to actually get a student started on their journey for this particular skill, this particular content area, and so providing those regular opportunities for that goes a long way towards fostering that sense of collaboration.
Speaker 3:And then that helps to think about that professionalism, because, as a mathematics educator, I should be engaged in ongoing learning opportunities. So that's talking and networking with others, you know, being a part of those professional organizations, taking advantage of those resources, so that I'm constantly looking at research that supports effective teaching and learning of mathematics, and so I'm aware of those things and I'm constantly looking and reflecting and reviewing my practices and incorporating those things, you know, into what I do and what I'm doing. And just having those opportunities to ask questions and having that comfortable environment that someone actually supports you and being able to do that and work with and support others. It's just invaluable for educators to be able to do that, and we're not going to be able to be at our best if we don't have that type of environment, because we learn well with each other and from each other, and so it's really important to have that as part of that sense of professionalism, I believe.
Speaker 1:I've been fortunate to work in schools that are very supportive of that vision and also schools that are not supportive of that vision. And if you, if you were to give advice to a teacher who maybe is struggling and would like to talk to people, would like to be connected, what kind of avenues would you suggest? Is it it joining NCTM? Is it just reaching out in a community? What do you think would be a good strategy?
Speaker 3:You know, and that is such a good question because it's. You know, in the past I remember I had to be physically in the room with other folks to collaborate with them. You know, I'm fortunate that I learned before the pandemic that I didn't have to do that. Some people didn't realize that until the pandemic. So there were some good things, you know, and I would tell the teachers that I would support, I would say there is no excuse for not having someone to collaborate with, because there's some type of mechanism that we can all use, you know, to have a video meeting with someone, to have a virtual meeting with someone.
Speaker 3:So I would say reach out to first to platforms such as MyNCTM, because you don't have to be a member to be a part, you just have to join, and so you can use that network as a platform to reach out. Hey, I'm having some ideas about such and such. You want to have any ideas, things like that. And so I watch people who continually share and ask questions on that platform, who continually share and ask questions on that platform, and so I'm sure later they find a way, you know, to network with each other outside of there. And so I usually like in my school district, which in Louisiana is the second largest school district, but I realize when you look at much larger states is not really that big. But for us, you know, 43,000 plus students is kind of large to us.
Speaker 3:But, you know, I would tell them. If there's a time when we have, like, maybe at the beginning of the year, like a lot of folks do, that face-to-face time where everyone comes together, listen for people who sound, you know, as if they're like-minded, things like that Get email addresses, you know, get something. And then from there, now you have to build your own community. You can build your own community If you don't have it on your campus, you can build it virtually, you know, because, like my district was a teams district, so you can schedule a teams meeting, find out when this person has a planning period, find a common period, even if it's just 15 minutes, that you can get on a call and say, you know I'm playing in the lesson next week, and these are things I'm thinking about. Say you know I'm playing in the lesson next week, and these are things I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3:I know that I need to incorporate more opportunities for my students to engage in discourse. What are some things you're doing? Or this is something we both want to work on what have you found? An article, or have you found something you can read or a webinar? That was, and it basically because, like you, I've been on campuses where you know that was that constant thing. And then I've been on some where it was just like let me go in my door and shut the door.
Speaker 1:And God forbid, someone comes and knocks on and asks me a question.
Speaker 3:But you know there's a way easier than it was when I started teaching, when we didn't have these things available to us without an extra cost or anything. And I encourage teachers, do that for yourself. Take advantage of so many opportunities that are there. Start with your professional organizations, because you can come in contact with folks and you might say, say, is there anyone who would like to get on a zoom to talk about this or that? And people say that. I see people do that all the time. I saw someone and I actually knew them. It's like we want to try out our presentation for a conference. So tell me if you'd be interested in coming to a zoom so we can try out our presentation. You guys give us feedback and so from there you can build that network. Now I know the old school way of doing it. Even though I had that wonderful professional learning project I was part of, and early on at the school where I was, I really didn't have people on my campus who really believed that way and wanted to talk about those things or even wanted to, you know, read the NCTM articles and things like with when we had our monthly meetings, and so we made our own little group and so we would meet like once a month on Saturdays. You know, we'd go have a nice dinner along with it and we'd bring all our little teachery stuff and so we would talk about all the things that we were trying to implement in our classrooms. We all taught at the same grade level and so we'd share ideas, share activities. If one person tries something out in their room, the next person would come back and say, okay, I tried this. This is what happened when I did it with my students and things like that.
Speaker 3:And I think about and it was for my group it was just three of us who met all the time outside of the other meetings. Eventually I met other like-minded folks and so we met in different ways, but initially it was just three of us. What was beneficial for me is these were two teachers who were much further along in their teaching career than I was, who were much further along in their teaching career than I was. So, in addition to us having that network for math, they could help me with things like classroom management. They could help me with things about organizing all the little things you have to learn how to organize as a teacher that you just don't learn in pre-service or whatever and so they helped me in so many ways, because I was taught to teach the way we were talking about.
Speaker 3:That's how I was taught by a student teacher. My supervising teacher taught that way. There were things I could help them with, because my college experience had been doing this and so, even though I only had a few years teaching under my belt, I could be a resource to them. And so we found a way out, because all three of us were in teaching environments where we didn't really have colleagues who really supported that way of teaching. But we got together outside of our monthly meetings with everyone else and supported each other, and so, but now we can do that virtually. You know there's we don't have to physically. Now it's nice to go out and have seafood because I'm in Louisiana.
Speaker 3:So it's nice to have that you know, but you don't have to have that and I can say that I do have like a couple of friends now who are nowhere near Louisiana. But I can say I've got an idea, I want to shop around. Would you be willing to get on a call with me, let's talk about it, and so we can get on a Zoom or we might. Sometimes we might just talk, you know, and we'll share ideas and you know I can send you this, I can send you that. Give me your feedback and so make your own group. If it's not physically where you are, there's so many mechanisms where you can reach out to folks because you want to have just the benefits of working with others, learning from others, having someone to try your ideas out on and to provide feedback and really just to support you. You know to be, you know your cheering squad, you know those types of things.
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm hearing is so one thing in the classroom that I valued and tried to have my students value is collaboration, and oftentimes a student would ask when will I ever need this in real?
Speaker 3:life. I think you just nailed it.
Speaker 2:I think you said it. So we're getting close to the end of our time and I'm just wondering if there was anything else that you wanted to like that we didn't ask you about. That you're like I really wanted to make sure and say this and if there's not. That's fine, we can move on. Let me think about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no worries because there's there's so many things buzzing around in my head at this moment, or whatever.
Speaker 3:You know, I see, if you know, so many times we hear some people are still saying, oh, it's different, it's different. But I think if people go back and even if you just talk to different people who are at different parts of their teaching career on your campus, or you just go back and look at some of the Legacy Journal articles and things like that, you'll see that we know that. We know, like somebody asked before, okay, now that we know what it is we need to do, it's like we've known for a long time what are effective teaching practices. You know we talk about principles, of actions a lot, which just celebrated its 10 year, now 11-year anniversary but even then those were not practices that were new to 2014. Those are all things that we had researched that could go back years upon year, year to show that these were effective teaching practices. So one of the things that I would love to see you know in education, people say, if you just stick around, you're going to see things come back around. You know, let's stick with what we know is good and effective and let's just build on that. You know, because the things that we're talking about being relevant having students actively engaged, encouraging students to ask and answer questions.
Speaker 3:You can go back 50 years or more and you see research that talks about that. And when you talk about people who maybe we admire, you know in different science and math fields, those are people who did those types of things as kids. You know, and they were allowed to, or either because they weren't allowed to, they decided I'm going to do it now more as an adult. Know what are those effective teaching practices. We just need to stick with them and be consistent and support our students with those habits of mind but accompany that by providing those opportunities for the people who are in front of our students to actually have an opportunity to engage in that deep learning of the math content positioned with that pedagogy, so that I know how do I provide those opportunities for students, how do I best do that and really position that content in such a way that it's making sense to students, the students are actively engaged, and that's the asking and answering questions, that's the sense-making, that's the problem-solving, the critical thinking.
Speaker 3:And you know, for once the workforce is saying we need problem solvers, we need critical thinkers, we need people who are able to ask questions and answer questions and we need our students to be connoisseurs of all the information they're bombarded with, because that's how they're going to be able to make those decisions, and so that's how we're going to help them to be successful in whatever they choose to do, because they'll have to do that, no matter where they are. It doesn't matter what job they do. They're going to need to be able to do that. Just if we can foster that confidence in them and in ourselves as well, that we're able to do that, I think we'll be a long way towards really just supporting our students, just stay the course you know and provide our students with what we know is good and right for them.
Speaker 2:I believe Wow, that was lovely.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Speaker 3:We've appreciated hearing you speak. It's been amazing. It was great it was great.
Speaker 2:It was great. Thank you so much. 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 August 5th, national Couscous Day, so I actually don't have that much experience with cuckoos couscous, so I'm excited to hear what Misty has to say, see what we can learn with facts and celebrations and celebrating couscous. I know that it can be a delicious treat in a salad, in a meal, as a side, and so I look forward to learning more and more about couscous and I plan on finding a recipe that I'm going to make. So I'll share how that went and we'll go from there. So tune back in on August 5th and we'll see you then. Thank you.