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 5.10: A conversation with our own Elizabeth Coyner!
What if the future of math education blends joy, rigor, and teacher voice—with professional learning that meets educators where they are? We open with a lighthearted celebration of International Podcast Day and a look back at how radio paved the way for the on‑demand world. Then we sit down with former CPM executive director Elizabeth Coyner to trace her path from a small farm town classroom to leading a national organization through rapid growth, year‑round curriculum writing, and a seismic pivot to hybrid professional learning that stuck long after the pandemic.
Elizabeth shares what it took to build an equitable, accessible classroom solution—embedding universal design for learning, multilingual supports, and teacher-tested strategies—while navigating HR, compliance, and culture. She offers a candid and optimistic view of what’s next: time with family and grandchildren, tutoring math, and a mission to connect classroom teachers with state adoption cycles and review panels so their expertise shapes policy and materials. Her message is simple and powerful: the people closest to students should help design the system.
If you care about meaningful math learning, hybrid PD that respects teacher time, and a culture where students feel seen and capable, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review telling us one change you’ll try to spark more joy in your math classroom.
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
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You are listening to the More Math for More People podcast, an outreach of CPM educational program. Boom.
SPEAKER_05:September the 30th. It's the last day of September. Because you know, there's the little poem to help you remember. Thirty days half September.
SPEAKER_03:Mmm. That's the first one in that poem.
SPEAKER_05:It is. Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And it's it's kind I don't know. I I I would like to clarify th last day of September 2025, because there will be other September.
SPEAKER_05:I understand. I was like, there's still only 30 days of September in 2026. But I understand what you're saying. Yes. Last day of September for this September, this occurrence of September. Correct. Glad we've clarified that so that people aren't worried. Oh no, there's no more September's forever. Yeah.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_05:We would be causing all kinds of panic. So what is the day for this 30th of September?
SPEAKER_03:And probably the next 30th of September also, but you are listening right now on this day. You are already celebrating because it's International Podcast Day.
SPEAKER_05:Wow. Look at us.
SPEAKER_03:Or celebrating the.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, we would be celebrating if we were recording this on September 30th. We'll pretend that we are. Though that would be magical. I think people are pretty much over the over the illusion that podcasts are recorded on the day and time that they're actually launched. Do you think? If they aren't, sorry. I've burst your bubble on the street.
SPEAKER_03:Spoiler, you should at least do an announcement, announcement, announcement alert.
SPEAKER_05:Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, by the way, podcasts not live most of the time.
SPEAKER_06:Hmm.
SPEAKER_05:Anyway, so it's International Podcast Day, where you know, some people might be recording a podcast on this particular day.
SPEAKER_03:True.
SPEAKER_05:Some might be listening to a podcast that was recorded on different days on this day. Either way.
SPEAKER_03:Those are two of the three ways you could celebrate today is to find a podcast to listen to or create your own.
SPEAKER_05:Uh huh.
SPEAKER_03:So those are two.
SPEAKER_06:There you go of the three.
SPEAKER_03:There's three? Yeah, the third one is to donate to your favorite producer. I don't know why it says that. Nor nor am I soliciting donations. But that's the third. That's the third suggestion.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I I wondering who sponsors International Podcast Day now. I think that is I think that is evident.
SPEAKER_03:Clearly. Clearly. That's funny. No, I think about it actually just looking at the calendar, looking at the day. And we are living in a time where technology has changed. Like I'm thinking radio, I'm thinking theater, I'm thinking all these things. And to me, I it's probably not deemed podcast, but Prairie Home Companion, not a Minnesota, was always a radio show. But that feels kind of like an entertainment podcast idea that podcast was probably built off of.
SPEAKER_05:Are those kind of podcast was definitely built off the idea of like there were radio shows, there were news programs, there were radio programs of various kinds. They became like talk radio programs. And at some point people were like, I don't have to look, I don't want to listen to that in the moment. Sure. And I and like, you know, they didn't have a like Revo for TiVo or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_03:Revo. Yes.
SPEAKER_05:So that was what podcasting became. Yes. We're in we're in Revo. Interesting. Yeah. I think did you would you remember when you first became aware of podcasts? Um don't say yesterday.
SPEAKER_03:No, it wasn't yesterday. But at this like uh I'm trying to think, like it didn't feel out of the realm of the radio thing I already did or the TV thing I already did. Like it kind of just blended in, so it doesn't stand out to me as a momentous awareness moment.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I I mean I remember like like the first podcasts I became like I that I ever started listening to. I was gonna say listening to or watching, but that didn't make any sense. I mean you can watch them now. Yes. Some, not ours. The I I I remember like like radio, I think was one of the first ones that I kind of became aware of and liked, but it was also a repeat of what I was listening to on the radio. Like a lot of the NPR ones that I started listening to, where you could listen to them live or and then they were also the podcast, right? So it was like it was it'd be I think it really does feel like for me, it started as a replay of live radio. Oh, the other one that I always listened to, oh, what was it called? Was uh vinyl cafe. That one I listened to a lot. It's just I don't think that's on anymore. But it was a storytelling show, like this guy told stories and they had artists and various things, but it was it was a recording of a live production that then was the podcast. So I feel like I feel like that's where I started and that's where they they all maybe started.
SPEAKER_03:So like the Prairie Home Companion or the uh shoot, I'm trying to think of one. I think Mo Raka might have been involved, but they were. They were on stage, you bought a ticket, yeah, and then they would record and replay them.
SPEAKER_05:Even like um a lot of the I I can just keep saying NPR ones, but like wait, wait, don't tell me the the who are those car guys, the the car guy car talk, was that their name? The two guys click and clack. I didn't oh yeah, I didn't like listening to them. They were they were irritating to me. But that but I think that like I think they started as that. Like you were like, Oh, I need to tune in at like five o'clock on Sunday, and then they were just replays. And now then there was like they went into the whole like you know, true crimes and sports talk. I mean, there's like there's so many kinds of podcasts now. It's so I mean there's clearly CPM.
SPEAKER_03:A lot of opinion, uh opinion-oriented, right? Too we have our ours is not opinion.
SPEAKER_05:No, no, we don't have opinions at all. Ours is completely neutral, completely neutral.
SPEAKER_03:Like I'm thinking of like I used to stay awake on Sundays to listen to Dr. Demento on the radio. I keep going back to radio, it's not international radio show day, but it's that's what that's the origin of podcasts, though, right?
SPEAKER_05:It was the origin of podcasts, I think, for my understanding of it, somebody else who's a better historian than me. Uh huh. Right. Like it it is, it's it's it's the radio part, right? Because it's right. I mean, only until recently you you listened to podcasts. You didn't watch podcasts. Now there's this this I don't I still it's still strange to me to watch a podcast. I don't I don't actually look at them, I just listen to them while they're talking.
SPEAKER_03:But I wonder if we should try one on on camera just to see what people think.
SPEAKER_05:I don't know. I mean, I don't even know. Like this is gonna show my ignorance, but can you watch a podcast in the same way, like your same podcast? Like if I have my like you know my iTunes podcast or whatever, I can just watch it in the same app as I'm listening to it. I would think so. I don't know. I've only ever done I've only ever l watched podcasts on a browser, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:But well, if you're interested in watching us, you can write to cpm podcast at cpm.org.
SPEAKER_05:I know if we get if we get we get six replies, we will do one where we'll record ourselves in just six.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's a lot more than we get.
SPEAKER_05:I'm gonna say that's a lot more replies than we usually get. So there we go. So we're setting the bar low but high at the same time.
SPEAKER_03:Too funny.
SPEAKER_05:All right, what are you gonna do for an international podcast day there, Joel?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I might try and find a podcast.
SPEAKER_05:Like a new you mean any podcast? You could find ours, or just a new podcast.
SPEAKER_03:A new one, yeah. A new one. A new one. Like just investigate, maybe find something, and then invest the time to listen.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_03:How about you?
SPEAKER_05:And I'm gonna get this podcast ready and launch it. And then uh yeah. No, I like I like that idea. I'm I used to listen to podcasts a lot before the pandemic, and then I just kind of stopped because I wasn't traveling, because that was a place I listened to them, and I I think I I think I should find some new ones.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So there you go. Makes sense to me. Uh listen to this rest of this podcast and then go find a new one.
SPEAKER_03:Love it.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Well, we're very excited today because we have Elizabeth Coiner on the podcast with us. And Elizabeth's in this, I'm gonna say, describe this as this liminal space right now, where she she was Joel and I as executive director, executive director of CPM for a number of years. We're gonna learn some more about that. And now she's in this place where she's consulting and helping us uh before she moves off into you know, spending a bunch of time with grandbabies, I think is her plan. But we'll find out what her plan is. So welcome to the podcast, Elizabeth. Welcome. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Awesome. So why don't you can you start by just sort of telling us a little bit about your CPM story? All the way back? How as far back as you feel comfortable? However, far, how far far you're you're in control here.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I am a fellow of the Northern California Math Project at UC Davis. And I happened to be a at the end of my third year of teaching, which is the youngest uh time where you could apply and be accepted into the program, and you had to have a recommendation from another fellow. And I taught at a little farm school where I was the entire math and some years the entire science department. And um, my eighth graders were talking about bumblebees in class. And it was only one group of eighth graders because there were three feeder schools in a small farm town, South Sutter County, had three school districts for K-8. And so I called their eighth grade teacher and I said, Your kids are talking about bumblebees, and I don't understand what those are. So she said, Well, how about I come up and talk to you? And um, she explained that bumblebees were her um black and yellow counters for teaching integer operations in middle school. And the kids would color them black and yellow, and they thought it looked like bumblebees when they were circling their zero pairs, they'd have their little wings. So though the students couldn't tell me what the bumblebees were, she could. And she had learned that my math class was pretty much strictly lecture. Uh, I do, you do, we do. Oh, wait, that's not the right order. I do, we do. You try to do. And so um she told me about this opportunity and she said she'd like to sponsor my application. So I put it in and you had to submit your best lesson that you'd ever written. So I did a math lesson, and then I sent a chemistry physics lesson too, because you have to be way more creative in a small school science lab. Yeah. And I got accepted and we had a great time. And I learned what algebra tiles were. Mary Laycock came and talked to us, and the director of the project that year was Ken Johnson because Judy Kish was across the hall working with the team that was uh going through their field test of math one, the original series. And Karen Wootton was over there as a master's student who was helping them edit. And Susan Hoffmeier was in the math project with me. So I met some longtime CPM names you know that summer.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And the eighth grade teacher Ann Sims, who's now in Utah, and Susan were at separate K-8s, and they got permission to be a partner. And because I didn't have a math teaching colleague at my school, they agreed to adopt me. So I got to participate.
SPEAKER_03:Very cool.
SPEAKER_04:And so that's how it got started. And then as we were spreading from the Sacramento area south, I got to serve as a teacher leader and to pitch the program places and do sessions at CMC North. And um, then we were writing an update and an edit, and I just got involved. And you can fast forward to, you know, three generations later later, where we're doing, you know, connections. We started the middle school program when I shifted to middle school. Then I came back to high school and I wanted all middle school teachers on the middle school writing program. So I didn't participate. And then I learned a lot of high school teachers did. So that was hard. But I sent my daughter Hannah, and she served as an assistant uh from the high school kids to draw pictures and put things in Word and check solutions. And our longtime uh employees, Eli Mirabel and Carmen De La Cruz, were part of that crew. So we've literally watched them mature in their careers, which has been fun and fascinating. And I taught 10 years in high school, 10 years in middle school, and then went back to high school teaching. But I went to Christian Brothers High School where Brian Howie and my husband, Scott Queiner, were teaching. And um, it was great. But Brian announced he was retiring and he said, Can you come over for dinner? And I said, Sure. And the whole family went and we showed up and they said, Oh, this was just for you, not the family.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, that's been a good thing.
SPEAKER_04:So we had a nice dinner anyway, and Scott and the girls played with Kathy Hoey, and he said, I've got a proposition for you. And so Brian and I started working together um after school in the evenings, et cetera, and it transitioned into me being the executive director.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So what year was that? What year did you become the executive director? I officially became the executive director at the February board meeting in 2014.
SPEAKER_07:Okay.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So it 11 a little more over eleven years.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That's cool.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and we were a little tough. That's been quite a journey for you. Yeah. We were we were small then.
SPEAKER_03:Still.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I I remember joining CPM in 2015, and uh you were um I I don't know what the right word is, onboarding the new teacher leaders or whatever at when we were in Denver for our SO. I I don't even know what that acronym stands for. Summer Institute. Thank you. But the uh I just remember you sharing that story of, yeah, this is my for in my first year of being the executive director and all that sort of thing. So I have that memory of you.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I remember meeting you there, and we had no HR department and onboarding teacher leaders as our program had grown the popularity of the Core Connections 2 series. Teacher leaders were seasonal employees, and we would offboard them on April 30th and re-onboard them on May 1st. That's the PL season as opposed to the school year season, which is July to the end of June. And um, you know, most teacher leaders worked between four days in the summer to 16 days that they got involved with two series. And so it took a lot of teacher leaders to pull that off. And some years we were onboarding 400 teacher leaders.
SPEAKER_07:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:That's a lot of personnel folders, a lot of welcome letters, a lot of thank you letters. It was crazy. And um Debbie Jacobs is a an amazing director of business administration and to pull all of that off. And, you know, independent contractors, you guys are you guys, the teacher leaders were not independent contractors. And so we had to change a lot of the things for employment law compliance.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I think that was one of the hardest things is change takes time and change is hard, right? And everybody wants this organization to keep moving forward until all of a sudden one of those changes disrupts their routines and there's a hiccup. And you gotta take a pause and take a breath and not be afraid to go back and say, okay, why are we doing this? It's so that we can maintain our status and keep things going. And now we have an amazing HR department that's taking on that reign.
SPEAKER_06:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04:And I'll tell you, it's a real blessing of working with the business professionals and our dev team that have been so committed. It's the dev and the ed tech teams that are so committed to the program, and they're just genuinely good people. And then teachers, there's no issues that regular employers have to worry about. You know, my sister-in-law is a director of Medicaid, Medicare, and you know, she had the whole organization underneath her, but she had a lot of administrative support. But the bottom line is when you're at the top, you are responsible for all of the unhappy people and um I'll say problematic people, and we don't have problems, you know. CPMers care about kids and quality education.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I guess I would say in general, we're happy people. I think we're happy to be here, right? Like that feels good that be in a place like that.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:That's a tribute to you and your leadership.
SPEAKER_05:Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Creating a creating a space where, you know, that really attracts people who are passionate about what we're doing and and and you know, fostering that mission, right? There's a lot of business pieces to the mission which are hard and challenging and not always fun. And balancing that and keeping that mission going so that we can all keep seeing that mission as we're moving forward is is a challenging job that you've done well for a number of years. Well, thank you. Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04:You know, we went to a full-time writing team who could work year-round because the comprehensive nature of our curriculum is so impressive. I should say our classroom solution is robust and complete. But it was writers who wrote in six weeks in the summer, and everybody who picked it up, and managing editors who, you know, put in all the feedback. And then the PL team working with their expertise, as they said in my classroom, this is what's happening. And I built this extra support. Like, here's little cards I made to keep the study team and teaching strategies right at my hand. All of those resources became incorporated in the program. You can't do it in six weeks and take into account all of the very important standards, you know, universal design for learning and embedded language supports. And multilingual learners, it's so exciting that we're not the only ones talking about it. Math was hard for everybody. So we always made it inviting, approachable, equitable, and accessible in the real sense because math nerds can do it. Ha ha. But the you know, everybody needs a window to see where they want to go and to see themselves in the space. And once you build that relationship, they can get in there on the low floor and take it to the heights. And the hard part was struggling with teachers who wanted to be involved in the professional learning. And when we had our eight-day series and districts give them two PL days during the year, so we some areas shifted, you know, four summer days to five and then took one more and one more. But they were missing out on a day of full learning and people adapting. So I was really happy when we looked at the statistics and said more teachers are missing days at PL and they're missing that opportunity. So we need to change how we deliver it to meet the teachers' needs. And we designed the style that there would be that hybrid approach to professional learning. You guys were there along that journey.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And then the pandemic hit, and wow. The the high-speed gear shift that the professional learning department did to support the teachers, and you have to commend the teachers that were on the front lines teaching for the first time through these windows of Zoom or whatever their platforms were.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Unbelievable. And the pandemic ended or shifted phases, and and all of us wanted to go back to in person. In person is better, but we've run an entire virtual company, our whole existence, way pre-pandemic. And then schools still aren't giving teachers the opportunity. So the power of recognizing we still need hybrid opportunities, um, virtual in person and the virtual on demand. Absolutely. It's very important. So thanks for your work to make it accessible to the teachers.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. It's a pleasure.
SPEAKER_05:So so as you now are wrapping up your term and as executive director, and I mean that's a long, that's a long haul. Eleven years is a long time to uh be in that position. We're wondering what's next for you? Where are you going? What's I mean, I know you have some new grandchildren that you're very excited about.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I come from a big family. And um um there were eight of us, and my I have four step brothers and sisters too, so you know, cheaper by the dozen. Um but the kids in my family are spread out over 21 years. And um Scott retired from teaching to do the bucket list with his dad, and then his dad had a cancer that became terminal. And um at that time we took turns with his brother and his sister keeping mom and dad in their house, and his mom had dementia and um so over the course of saying goodbye to them, and then I had two brothers-in-law pass away as well. You realize you don't know how many tomorrow you have. And my my siblings are approaching the octogenarian status. Oh my goodness. And so um our parents have been gone since 1978 and 2005 and um Scott's brothers, sisters, my brothers and sisters, we are you know, the the senior generation in our family. And even though I've got people 21 years older than I am, we are ready to make sure that we have all the time we need for our family.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it's important to be there for them. One of the outcomes of uh outgrowths of the pandemic for us is because CPM had those virtual uh gatherings in the evening. I called my siblings and I said, we have to get together. And it can't be somebody else's funeral, and there's no time for the host at a family wedding. So we started a Sunday Zoom call at 1:30 Pacific or 4:30 Eastern, and we cover all the time zones, and we still get together every single Sunday. That's awesome. Sometimes, like my brother's in Japan this week, so he's not coming, or you know, I've got to go to the Air Force Academy because it's my grandson's family weekend. People miss, but the family call is there, and it's really neat. And then our family does an annual family vacation, the O'Neill family gathering. And with CPM, um all the other little gatherings always happen to coincide with a weekend meeting or a week-long meeting, and I don't want to miss any more of those. So and I have a six-year-old grandson and a three-year-old grandson in Napa, and I have a two-month-old grandson in Oceanside. For those of you who don't know, California, that's about a 417-mile journey between the two. So I can't have breakfast with one and lunch with the other back and forth daily. Um, Scott's been the Manny for the big boys, and he's they're in school. So Mary's like, it's my turn to have grandparents. So we've established a residence at both ends. Thankfully, seniors are able to rent pretty much because they know I'm not gonna tear up their condo. Or they think we're not. And so I'm gonna spend time with family.
SPEAKER_03:I love it.
SPEAKER_04:Once we get the little ones to school, then I want to go to Ireland and Scotland.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_03:It's a little travel.
SPEAKER_04:Have you been have you been to those areas before? No, I haven't. Oh, and my kids have gone. They are half O'Neal, whether they like to admit it or not. And uh, they all go and take pictures of themselves under all the pars and pars, yeah, pubs and bars that have our name on them.
SPEAKER_03:So of course.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Nice, nice.
SPEAKER_05:Well, that sounds amazing. Yeah, that sounds good. That was lovely. What a what a what a like great next piece to look forward to. You know, I look forward to when I retire. How about you, Joel?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I I haven't really thought about retirement yet. That doesn't seem quite in my scope.
SPEAKER_04:It's still too far away. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:When I left Christian Brothers for this job, yeah, I would uh go back to the faculty parties where significant others were there and they go, Oh, yeah, you're retired. And I said, Oh yeah, I'm retired. Well, you're just doing that math thing that you used to do in the summer. Yep, that's part-time thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04:It'll be fun to be able to actually say, I'm retired. Yeah. But, you know, I want to volunteer at a school and tutor math, you know, right there. Show them how to use manipulative sin. And the beauty of where we live at both ends of the state is that, you know, CPM is a well-respected presence.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_04:I cannot take my More Math for More People bag into the grocery store without somebody commenting.
SPEAKER_03:I I have a t-shirt, actually, More Math for More People, and people comment all the time. They love that phrase. You know? Well, it sounds like you have uh built a lot of uh great memories, a lot of great friendships. So moving forward in this, you just said maybe you'd go into the schools and tutor or something like that. How how do you kind of see yourself working with math? I mean, is that is it ever gonna go away?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, math won't go away. Yeah you know, when you've got little kids in the house and the three-year-old is in the why, why, why? Yesterday's question, why am I getting wet? It's raining.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. But I didn't answer it.
SPEAKER_04:I said, you tell me. Well, because it's raining.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Um it's a questioning strategy with three-year-olds.
SPEAKER_04:And math is not going away. I mean, we do a morning math problem with the little boys, whoever's with them every morning, and the geometry whip around is a staple. You know, I have who has. And um Calvin is doing two digit by three digit multiplication in a rectangular array.
SPEAKER_07:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04:And um I think that if there isn't an easy way to get into um supporting math programs, working with kids, or finding ways to help adults who have that math. Poor relationship who want to get a better relationship with math for themselves and those they love because they see the importance. I think it's important to um really continue to support literacy because you have to be able to read and you have to understand data in order to contribute to society. But being involved with the California adoption and they put out a call for teachers, and teachers are passionate about high-quality instructional materials. But I don't think that there's enough of a connection between the people who care about writing the curriculum and individual teachers who don't see those notices because they go to the district office and then they get filtered around and the average teacher doesn't think that's for me. And I think that we need to so this is one of the areas I want to help with. Yeah. We need to have a way to take those informational calls for review panels, for um give your input on changes to standards or frameworks or pedagogy pedagogy guidelines or what's in the frameworks so that classroom teachers who know what kids need and know how kids respond positively know that their expertise has a role in the in the process. So I want to stay on top of the state adoption cycle, and I know that through my career I learned about some of the big districts, but the teachers who would never say, I want to be on that committee, or I would like to share what I know so that more students can benefit, I want to see how I can help to facilitate that communication. And I think that it may mean speaking up at affiliate organizations and continuing to be present in the math circles. I think a lot of university professors are passionate about the field of mathematics, but they don't really know how what the opportunities are in the TK through 12 sphere. So helping bridge that gap and let them know that their interaction with the um grassroots teachers are very important.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Well, that'll be great.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and it I it sounds like you're really well positioned and passionate about that, so I can see that really working for you. Well that's about all the time we have for today. We really appreciate you coming on and telling us your story and talking about your passion and your time at CPM and and and you know getting getting to know you a little bit better. I've known you forever. And I and I have really appreciated working with you, so thank you. Well, thank you. For all you've done. It's really been a honor. Yeah. We hope to see you at the teacher conference, right? You'll you'll be a legacy member now. You can come back to the teacher conference anytime, so we hope to see you there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Anna every year.
SPEAKER_04:It's it's a very impressive thing for teachers to come connect with other teachers who know the value of the program. And if there's a teacher who remembers that or is listening to this podcast because math came up and they're not a CPM teacher, they should come check it out.
SPEAKER_07:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:I agree.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. It's gonna be great. Well, enjoy this next enjoy this next chapter. Oh, thank you very much. I will.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_05:One from our teacher researcher, Andy Peterson Longmore, and one from Chivo, one of our ABP participants. Enjoy.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, so I'm Andy Peterson Longmore. I am a teacher in the Nina Joint School District, and I'm a part of TRC 12.0. So, in case you didn't catch the first segment of the podcast, I am in my third year as a member of the TRC. Uh, this year I am doing a study on joy in the math classroom, specifically for high school students. Since what we find is mostly students who are at a high school level are kind of put into classes where they don't get to experience joy or have fun. We're just looking for ways that we can make this so much better for them and make maybe in increase learning. So now that I'm actually into my school year, my classes this year, I have actually had a change. So last year I was in geometry and algebra two. I had two algebra twos and three geometries. We had some retirements and movement in our department. So I took on algebra one this year for the first time in probably three or four years, along with algebra two. So I have two classes of algebra one, 23 and 24 kids respectively. And then my algebra two classes, I've got three of those, 27, 31, and 24 kids. Um, our population here in Nina is pretty suburban white bred, I like to say. We have a mostly uh white middle class population. Um, we do have some changes to that population. We're seeing a lot more students of color move in, which has been a really nice change for us, and a lot of students with a lower income. Um, so we're just kind of navigating some of those changes. Now, with my study, we're looking at joy. And what our team decided on was our first innovation is going to be the culture of joy in a classroom. So, how do we build that culture of joy? And one of the things that I started doing during my study is a little bit of like random sampling from my classes. So I choose three students out of each class and I choose them either at at random using as many different random ways that I could come up with. So one time I did a random number generator by last name. One time I put cards on the table, and then the first kid at that table to pick up the card was the one I chose. Sometimes I go in order by height and I ask them to stand up and decide how tall they are to organize each other by height, and then I pick three random kids out of that. Um, and I use those kids to just answer my quick survey questions on different things. So one of the questions I asked them about was how are they seeing, how are they getting joy in their other classes? So if it's not in this room specifically, but maybe a previous math class or a different class that you have or had in the past, what makes those classes fun and exciting and joyful for you? And what kind of came out in our school was most of our students really love their social studies classes. So I started to dig into that a little bit and see if I could come up with what is it that is really making them love those classes and how can we harness that in a math classroom? So is it like the things that they're doing? Is it the things they're talking about? Whatever we could come up with to see what's what's bringing this joy for them. And one of the things that started to come out as I started to dig into this a little bit more and ask more questions about it and speak to the teachers even students really loved the performance task aspect of social studies classes or the simulation part of those social studies classes. Our social studies department here really leverages a lot of different ways of making students get involved in the in the history. So they do a simulation of a particular battle, I believe, where they have the students in the classroom and they use like dice to represent what's happening and stuff like that. So it almost becomes like a giant DD battle, which is kind of fun. They have things where they'll have the students uh represent different classes of people throughout history and talk about like, well, now that you're in this class, these are the things that are happening to you, these people are in this class, this is what's happening to them, and then have the students have a discussion as though it was their own life. And students really, really seem to enjoy being forced into that like immersive situation. So I was trying to come up with ways to bring that into our classroom. But the other thing that students talked a lot about was just that culture that exists in those social studies classes. So there's a lot of discussion, there's a lot of movement, there's a lot of play on words and like intelligent jokes that are happening in those classes that they really seem to love. So when I was thinking about the culture of joy as our first innovation in the math classroom, I was trying to build on those same ideas. So, how can we bring in that discussion type atmosphere that happens in a social studies classroom? How can we harness the movement idea that happens in a social studies classroom? Those jokes and things like that. So, for discussion, some of the things that the students really liked was this idea of more free discussion that happens in social studies than it does in math. So, what they meant by that as I started to dig into it a little bit more is that the teacher isn't necessarily calling on students in the class. A lot of times they present the discussion and then let the students talk and interject periodically. So there isn't really any hand raising. So I thought I would give that a try in my classes and just see how that went this time and see how students perceived it. So far it's going really well. Students really seem to like that model because they don't feel quite as scared to raise their hand or to be to like int interject in the conversation. But I have had a few survey responses from my students when I'm asking them about it. It seems to be hit or miss. So what I'm noticing in my research is that the girls in my class tend to not like it as much as the boys do, which I thought was a really interesting kind of trend. So that's going to be something I'm digging into over the next couple of weeks and figuring out what is it about this particular model that works really well for the male students in my class and doesn't work as well for the female students of my class. And is there a way for us to mitigate that? They really like the movement. And as we all know, building thinking classrooms is a huge idea in the math world right now, particularly within CPM as well. So obviously we have the vertical non-permanent white spaces that we're using and stuff like that, but we're trying to go even further with this movement idea since that's what they're doing in these social studies classes that these students really seem to love. So I'm working on building in movement in different ways that's purposeful. So not just getting up and stretching because we're getting up and stretching, but is there a way for us to move while we're doing math that allows for, that allows for better learning? And I haven't come up with anything that's worked really, really well yet. We've just been trying out some different things like word association. So if we're talking about slope, students are always doing the same motion with their hand to represent slope. When we're talking about parabolas, they're always showing that motion with their hand to kind of represent a parabola. And that seems to be working okay, but I still want to do a little bit more with this. And then the jokes, that's been something that I mean, we all love our math dad jokes and stuff like that. So that's been kind of a fun part to try and bring into this. Uh, we have one interventionist in our department that really loves the dad joke. So I've been asking him to kind of offer up some suggestions if he can. So he leaves them on the board and stuff for me. And the students seem to really enjoy that. I'm a little worried about that in the long term just because I don't want it to become a boring thing or something that students don't really enjoy over the long term. So we're trying to figure out what the sweet spot is in terms of how many of those should we be having a week, a month, or how many times we should kind of put it off to the side. Thinking about what's coming next for our project, we're gonna be talking a lot about performance tasks and projects. So, like I said, those performance tasks that exist in the social studies world are things that the students really, really love and that they learn a lot about and that they talk a lot about. I happen to coach debate. So I have communication with all of my students who graduated over the last several years, and I asked them, you know, what are the things that you remember most about your high school experience? Not just like being in the high school, but specific classes that you remember and you really enjoyed. And almost every single one of them referenced at least one social studies class period that they enjoyed. So then we talked about what are those things and how did those lessons happen and how can we do that? So then I also started to think back. I happened to be one of those lucky people who is a math teacher who also had CPM as a student when I was in high school at Ashwabanan high school. So I was thinking back to my own experience. And when I was at Ashwabanan, we used to do certain big problems as kind of a performance task. So what we know is the screamer now in Algebra II used to be called the circle of terror a bajillion years ago when I was in high school. And I remember doing a performance task around that. So I was thinking about trying to go back into what existed at that time and maybe even reaching out to my previous teacher who still teaches at Ashwavanan and see if I could find out if they know what that performance task looked like and how did they adjust the problem so that it was still the things that we are doing, but make it more of a performance task situation than just a singular problem in class. Same thing could be true for Zoe the Goat in Geometry, the Blood Lab in Algebra Two, or the Bicycle Race in Algebra One. So I'm kind of looking at how can I take those problems that already exist in our book that are just really wonderful problems that kids really enjoy and turn it into a performance task. That's something kids talk about later on because they really remember how exciting and how interesting that was for them. So that's kind of the route that I'm planning to go with a lot of our next portion of our research. And then the last piece of our research that I haven't really started to dig into yet is this idea of like aesthetic appreciation. So when you look at math and people enjoying math, a lot of what they really love to look at is the patterns and the pretty side of math. So we want to find a way to really bring that into our classroom and allow students to experience that as man and understand that those things that they really enjoy exist or are really essentially just maths. And that's just kind of where we want to go with this. So that isn't really a fleshed out idea yet, but that's somewhere where we're planning to go. Um, something else that I spend a lot of my time on, especially with my research, is doing a lot of reading. So I've been reading math-ish, as well as The Joy of X. And let's see, what's the other ones? Infinite powers is on my list for next. And then Deer Data, we've been, we used it last year, and I've just been kind of re-looking through all the pictures again, trying to come up with some ideas of different aesthetic ideas that might be interesting for us to use with our students as we move forward. I'm thinking that that might end up being a project that we work on or a performance task where students are given a few of the dear data pages and that we we talk about how you could use that in your real life or what that could look like. And then there was also this kind of tangent idea that I had about uh bullet journal, which used to be a really huge popular thing, I don't know, two, three years ago. So that students could see like how does that play into this idea of aesthetic appreciation. So those are kind of the big pieces that we're looking at right now. When teachers hear that I do this research, a lot of times the question comes like, how do you have time for that? And how do you really, you know, how do you make time for this? Because if you didn't know, I have a four-month-old son at home who is, you know, taking up a lot of my time. I've got a husband and a family and things that I'm doing. But one of the things that I just keep bringing it back to is I truly believe that if you are not learning as a teacher, that you probably need to retire, that you're you're no longer getting better. So for me, this is just me becoming or me being a teacher. In order to be a good teacher, I need to continue learning. And my district does a wonderful job of doing PLDs as much as they can and giving us as many opportunities to learn things as we can. But with a district as large as ours, it's very hard to get specific targeted professional development, especially for just one department at a high school when we have 600 teachers in our district. So they give us professional development that tends to be a lot more generic and based around everybody as opposed to just one department. So, this is my way of getting that learning that I crave and that I seek, but on a more targeted, specific level of something that I'm really interested in. Mike is one of the people that I work with as part of our research team. And we were talking last time that I met with the uh leadership about what I can do to be better about making sure I'm like actually doing this and doing it well. And one of the things we talked about was just recording down your own thoughts, almost like um in your phone or something like that. So just on your drive home, just recording everything that you're thinking about for your research so that when you get home, you can just AI your notes out of that and then add it into our reflection document that we use each week to record our data. And that's been something I've been trying to leverage a little bit more as a way of using my time effectively. So I've only got about a 15-minute drive from school to home. And if I use that twice a week to just record my thoughts, it's a really nice way to get a really clear picture of what's going on in my classroom. What are the things I could be getting data on, all of those kinds of things. And I've tested out a couple different ways to transcribe those notes, and not all of them have been great. So I'm working on coming up with something that works a little bit better for me. I don't know if it's because I talk too fast or what. Um, but getting those notes to record hasn't been awesome. And but saying the things out loud and then being able to listen back to it as I transcribe myself has been super, super helpful. It offers kind of like a third wave reflection on the whole week that I really enjoy. I cannot stress enough how much I think it has improved my teaching practice over the last three years as a way to really become better at what I'm doing, more thoughtful about what I'm doing, and more research focused about what I'm doing. So looking ahead, um, I think I'm gonna spend a lot of the next probably month or so just thinking about those projects and performance tasks, and hopefully I'll be able to update you in October on what those performance tasks are looking like.
SPEAKER_00:Good evening. Is Chi checking in Salmida, California? It's a pretty tough day today because I stay up late to trying to get our grades in for our powers report last night. And um and also our internet went out this morning with the Google workspace outage, I guess, across the nation. So we had to do some adjusting because this was one of the few days that we planned to use death math as a way for our students to practice, but that did not happen. So we had to kinda call Audible and scramble a little bit to figure out what to do for the 84 minutes bock that we have. We originally had a scavenger hunt plan for the second half, so we really just needed to account for maybe forty, thirty thirty to forty minutes of activity that would have been top of the math. And we ended up just practicing on a package that we got at the beginning of the week that would show up on the quiz that they were taking today or tomorrow. So, you know, this whole act of trying to beat the grades, just trying to beat the deadline, trying to get all the grades in, got me thinking about, you know, give me another chance to reflecting on what my grade book is about and what is that communicating to students. I think by and large, you know, students kinda interpret grades as their progress if they're doing well and they're not doing well. Parents also most parents also are looking at, you know, these grades as a barometer of how their kids is doing in class. So, you know, it's a very powerful tool. But at the same time, it has like great importance in terms of like, you know, the future of a tr of a student. Because, you know, like if they feel that if they got a aid somehow because they did all the homework and they turned in everything, but they don't master the standards, then we don't really set 'em up for set them up for success in the next class. And also, what are we really teaching in um math education then? Are we teaching compliance or are we teaching mastery? So, you know, those are things that kind of come up and as I look at my grade book, I feel that there might be some room for revisiting at the end of the year, uh or even just at the end of the semester. Because currently my gradebook breakdowns broken down into summative and formative assessments. Uh summative assessments are of 85% of the final grade, and formative is 15. And I was putting in a lot of homework grades, and I had students who were struggling that came up to me and asked me if I'm gonna put in those grades for the Povers Award and if that's gonna bring the grade up. And I try to explain to them that yes, it will bring a grade up, but having the piece of paper and having the 10 out of 10 on the homework, which is formative assessment, would not help that much, right? The best way to do better in the class is to perform better on quizzes that we have had so far. Section weekly quizzes, which are summative assessments for us. I had the debate with um Michael teacher about, you know, should it be summative or could it be or should it be formative? And what we stand on was that, you know, the the value for us is that yes, it gives us uh insight about what our students know and what we need to spend more time on. But also it we want to give them a little wince here and there so that, you know, if they had a good week and they can perform well on this quiz, then for them to see a tangible like raise in their grades instead of wait till the chapel tests which would make or break their grades. Um so that was the intention behind using that as a summative assessment. And also we let them use their notes, their classwork as part of the to to to use it on the quiz. So, you know, there there's there's enough there for us to feel justified about it being summative assessment. What happened a lot this past week was up until Wednesday was these conversations about, hey, you know, are you gonna put these grades in? Is that gonna bring my grade up? And the question is yes, and yes. But the thing is, how much are we bringing these grades up? Right? I try to have conversations with individual students who are maybe failing the class right now because they have done very badly on the quizzes. But the reason why they perform so badly is because during class time they're not participating or they're being distracted by the friends or whoever else, and you know, therefore perform really badly on the quizzes. And hopefully we're early on in the semester where that can be a lesson for us that you know we need to do better during class time. But I don't know. I don't know how much of that come across at 14 year old that you tell them like what you do today or what you do at the beginning of the week would be important for us on the at the end of the week kind of thing. So anyways, that's something we're trying this semester, me and my co-teacher partner, and um we'll report back about the usefulness of these quizzes. I think that's it for today. I gotta go to our ABP share out. So I'll catch you guys next week.
SPEAKER_05: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 pixabay.com. 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_03:It'll be October 14th. And we will be celebrating Ada Lovelace Day. We celebrate on this day. It's a celebration of women in science and STEM careers. And Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron Loveless and is known as the first person to recognize the potential of early computers and published what is known today as an algorithm. Before most others, Loveless had recognized that computers could do more than simple number crunching, opening the door to complex functions and ushering the modern era of computing, and bringing in that computer age. And so it reminds me too of this AI discussion we're having, calculators, of course, and we will discuss it all. October 14th for 80 Loveless Day.