S6-E07: Building math fluency through games

Join Math Teacher Lounge as we continue our season-long discussion on math fluency with a special live recording at NCTM 2023. In this episode, our guest, Jennifer Bay-Williams Ph.D., and Dan dive into math fluency games to discuss how we bring joy into the classroom while building math fluency.

For more from Jennifer, check out the following resources:

• Discover more math fluency games with Jennifer’s book, Math Fact Fluency: 60+ Games and Assessment Tools to Support Learning and Retention.
• Move students beyond basic math facts and memorization with Jennifer’s book, Figuring Out Fluency in Mathematics Teaching and Learning, Grades K-8.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The games are fun, but that's a byproduct, right?
That's not the reason we'redoing the games.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey folks, welcome back to Matthew Lounge. I am
one of your co-hosts, DanMeyer.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
And I'm Bethany Lockhart Johnson . Hi, Dan.
Welcome back to anotherepisode.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, and you, I've been missing you. We , uh, had
a live show at NCTM , theNational Council of Teachers of
Mathematics annual conference ,uh, where I was and you were
not. And I was , uh, definitelyfeeling your absence. So tell
me you're well at least

Speaker 3 (00:30):
. Well, no, what I wanna tell you is that
when we started planning forthis season, and we were
talking about different folksthat like would be on our dream
list to interview, right ?
Today's guest , the person thatDan got to talk to was on that
list, right ? Like, she's likethe second person that I
mentioned. So it was kind offunny because then, you know,
we're all geared up for NCTMand then for a variety of

(00:54):
reasons, I had to say,actually, I cannot attend. I
was very disappointed. And sowhat I thought was gonna happen
is that all gears like groundto a halt, and it was going to
be like, okay, well then Iguess this can't happen. We're
gonna have to reschedule,schedule her for when Bethany
,

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I thought that they were gonna cancel ncms annual
conference and reschedule. Ithought so too . The entire
thing for when I thought so too, one , Bethany Lockhart
Johnson could attend, but , uh,the show, the show went on and
I , oh ,

Speaker 3 (01:24):
It went on

Speaker 2 (01:25):
. I had the privilege of chatting with one
of Bethany's absolute matheducation idols. And , uh, I
tried to, I tried to treat herwith the deference and
enthusiasm that, that youwould. But , uh, yeah, it was a
thank you for connecting me ,uh, connecting us to , uh, one
of your just best friends. Thatwas , uh, fantastic. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:43):
You guys made fast friends. You guys sounded real
chummy there. Um , yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah. Did you get invited to , uh, her birthday
party , uh, next year ,because I did. I don't know if
you got that, but , uh,

Speaker 3 (01:53):
You're my heart, Dan, my heart.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Um, anyway, so we're gonna get to it here. It was a
sprawling episode, a live showwith lots of moving parts and
interests and audienceparticipation. And

Speaker 3 (02:04):
We are bringing that to you, dear listener. And so
Dan, I do appreciate thatyou're gonna help kind of set
the scene for me because I knowlike audio will be a little
different 'cause it's live, butthat's what makes it exciting.
Yep . So who, who we got on theshow today? Dan, why don't you
introduce her since you werethere?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yes. We will give Dr . Jenny Bay Williams, her due
in the actual live show you'llhear. But she , uh, just so you
folks know, Dr. Jenny BayWilliams is an expert on many
things related to early mathed. She's got her name on one
of the, the absolute seminalbiggest math methods textbooks
for elementary educators. Um,and she also is an expert in
fluency, including fluencybuilding games, which is the

(02:46):
main reason I was excited tochat with her. And she, so she
offered a book with , uh, GinaKling entitled Math Fact
Fluency 60 Games and AssessmentTools to Support Learning and
Retention. So, should we jumpin?

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Okay, that sounds good, but I'm gonna stop you
when I have something to, I'mgonna hold myself back, but I
may jump in a few times. Howdoes that sound? Fair,

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Fair, fair. And there's gonna be some moments
ahead where I gotta jump inreal fast to explain what was
going on in the room. That'show outta control things got
back in the day .

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Alright , let's give it a listen,

Speaker 4 (03:21):
Ladies and gentlemen, please put your
hands together for your host.
It's me, it's just me.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
. Hey , love that , love , see you folks .

Speaker 4 (03:36):
Um , my name is Dan Meyer . I'm not sure how we
know each other perhaps throughthree Act Math, Desmos. I'm a ,
you know, father, son, brother,man about town. It's just great
to see you folks. Have you hada good NCTM ? Woo . Love that .
Love that. Great to hear ittallied up. I'm curious, how
many sessions have youattended? This is a , uh, like

(03:57):
this is a real question here,like, tallied up. I'm just
curious, has anyone been tolike four or above counting
this one? Count this one. Fiveor above six or above seven or
above eight or above nine orabove. Have we even had nine
sessions? 10 or above ? That'sincredible. Uh, big ups to you
folks. Big round of applausefor you learners. I got , I

(04:20):
gotta be real. Like I'm, I'm abit of , uh, an introvert. You
who would've guessed that ?
Like a math teacher nerd typeas an introvert. So I gotta
like, occasionally have myfortress of solitude. You know,
I , but you doing 10 sessions,like that's nine sessions.
Thank you. Correcting me ninesessions. That , that is , um,
that's real learning. Iappreciate you. Um, so I'm not

(04:42):
sure how we know each other,perhaps. Are you familiar with
Math Teacher Lounge, mypodcast? Any subscribers? A few
of you. Uh , some of you justsaw free junk on the , uh, on
the brochure. I'm like, Ooh ,more free stuff. I'm into that.
Um , if you folks are asubscriber, I'm so happy that
some of you are not. Iencourage you to subscribe. Uh

(05:02):
, team here puts a lot of timeand effort into it. Uh , but if
you do subscribe, I gotta askone question very seriously. At
what speed do you listen to it?
, is it a , is it a,like, is it a one x ? You're a
two Xer? No . One , 1.2. Okay.
Anybody slower than 1.2? Iwanna know who the real heads
are out here. I listen to it atone one X . You're invited to

(05:27):
my birthday party. The rest ofyou enjoy not being at my
birthday party. Um, I don'tlisten to a single podcast any,
any slower than 1.5 x . So onex really means a lot. I try , I
try to talk super fast, sofolks slow it down for me. You
know? Um, so if you, if you doknow me from the pod , um, you
know that I have a co-host,Bethany Lockhart Johnson, who

(05:49):
is , um, every bit my betterhalf. She's , uh, so wise, she
knows the little kids where I ,I know the older kids much
better. She could not be here.
And so this is a little bitcorny, I realize , but can I ,
can I just like, get you folksto give kind of a, like a
brownie face, like a sad face,maybe a tear like that. Just
like a send a picture back toBethany, just pantomime like,

(06:10):
you're sad. I know you'repumped and happy. Work hard and
try to bring it , bring themood down a little bit . Stop
smiling. , stoplaughing. Alright , here we go.
Alright . This is , uh, this isnot bad. You still seem pretty
pumped, but I'll see, still belike, oh, that was a crowd of
people , uh, without me. Nice.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Okay. My first interjection, Dan, I have to
say that was very kind of you,I felt for a moment. The , the
emotion in the room at myabsence. Okay. Okay, let's keep
going. Let's keep going.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Um, let's get this going here. We have , uh, you
know, a few things for you.
Wants to be a nice time. So wehave a few things, you know, my
charm, whatever this is, bag ofstuff, warm up the crowd, but
the real meat of it is this. Onthe podcast this season , it's
been all about fluency and noone in here tell me, you've got

(06:59):
fluency figured out like we didthis season now five, six
episodes. Martin, what is it?
Six episodes. Who even knowswho can count that high? But
I've, I've not been doing thisas like a, let me share my
expertise about fluency. I feelvery conflicted and
destabilized about fluency. Soinviting guests on Bethany's
been helping out, obviously,and we've been learning so much

(07:21):
about what fluency is, how toassess it, how to develop it. I
gotta say, here's my unease.
Here's my unease. Check me onthis here. Okay? If you were to
ask someone who would say toyou, I really don't like math.
I mean, who would say thatreally? But if you're like at a
party and you say, Hey, I domath, you might get someone who
feels a bit uneasy about math.
And if you ask them why, I findthat there are a couple very

(07:43):
common reasons. One of them isabout fluency and how it was
attempted to be developed inthem as a kid. Oftentimes in
experiences that felt very highstress, very high stakes, maybe
they were timed. Maybe thereare flashcards involved. I'm
not saying those always lead toanxiety, but that's a common
reason why people freak outabout math. But another common

(08:07):
reason why people freak outabout math is I just didn't get
it past a certain age. And doyou know what helps you get it
Fluency? Like fluency is thesort of thing that makes so
much possible. So I just admitmy, my stock and trade well , I
get excited about talking aboutis not fluency. Like, I love

(08:27):
thinking about like learningnew things and why we're doing
this and what's the applicationand how can technology help us
fluency. I'm like, well, we'lljust leave that to the, to the
experts. And so it's been agrowing season for me of trying
to find my enthusiasm forfluency is , is really timely.
'cause I got kids in kinder andfirst right now. So I'm
watching what happens withthem, with their teachers. I'm

(08:48):
so grateful for the thoughtthat goes into that fluency
exercises. And today we haveone of the guests I'm just so
excited about, very excitedabout hanging out with us
today. Someone who is an expertin fluency. Someone whose name
is on the book that teaches somany people how to learn, how
to teach elementary and middleschool mathematics and expert

(09:09):
in pedagogy. And someone who'san expert in fluency, but not
just that is an expert ingame-based fluency, which I
dunno if that has an appeal toyou. I think fluency, I'm not
thinking games necessarily, butthis is someone who knows how
to turn fluency. I think peoplesometimes dislike into a thing.
People like a game. So I would,we're gonna be up here. I'll

(09:32):
have some questions for her.
You might have some questions.
We're gonna play a game, me andher. And we're gonna compete in
that game against you folks.
Uh, you have the materials toplay this game yourself. I hope
we all learn tons. I know wewill. I'm so excited to welcome
up Dr. Jenny Bay Williams.

(09:52):
Please put your hands togetherfor Jenny . Welcome. Welcome.
Please join us, have a seat.
We're gonna segue gracefully tothe other mics here. Nothing
weird about this. Okay. So ,um, welcome to our show to Math
Teacher Lounge.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Thank you. How

Speaker 4 (10:10):
Has , how has your NCTM been?

Speaker 1 (10:12):
It's been great. I was , um, lucky to be able to
go to a lot of sessions andI've been targeting sessions of
, um, teachers that might befirst time presenters. So I've
really gained , um, some greatinsights from some people that
I didn't otherwise know. It's

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Tricky, right? How you pick your sessions. It's
like, there's names you kind ofknow, but who knows what's out
there off the names, you know,do you go for ones that are
like, you know, maybe a bet fora , a solid double or like,
maybe you just like go swinghard and go for a find a home,
run in some , uh, some roomdown on the third floor or
something. You found some goodstuff. I found

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Some good stuff and you know, we , we all presented
at one point by ourselves forthe first time and, and all of
that. And so , uh, I , I was insome great sessions that had,
you know, maybe 12 others thatgot to benefit from the session
and it was really, really good.
So yeah , I , I felt lucky tobe there.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
Yeah. Awesome. And you're in a position to amplify
their voices , uh, even morenow as , uh, your work on that
editorial board of our journal.
Mathematics Teacher T lt . Yes. TLT . Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Always looking for good writers.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Love that. Uh, always be plugging, always be
plugging. Anyone know how towrite out there? Great talk to
Jenny . Awesome. So I'm , canyou give us like a , a brief,
you know, like a tour of likehow you got to be, you know,
where you are, the work thatexcites you. Um , assume you're
a classroom teacher at somepoint. Just start us from there
and give us like a , you know ,a couple of highlights.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right , I'm gonna go, I'm , I'm gonna , I
don't know if this is where youwant me to start, but I wanna
start with , uh, birth,

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Go for birth. I don't care. Let's just like,
let's do this. You know ,

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Uh , I remember sitting in high school , uh,
thinking I would never be ateacher because they just
worked too darn hard. Like Ijust couldn't be that person at
eight o'clock in the morning.
So then in college , um, I wasbored. I actually didn't know
what a syllabus was, so Icouldn't figure out why
everybody was so busy because Ihad all this free time. I
didn't realize there washomework on the syllabus. Um,

(11:59):
so anyways, I saw thisvolunteer open opportunity at
an elementary school. And whenI got to that school, true
story, a child needed help withtheir basic facts. And , um, I
came back to the school a weeklater and the like specialist,
the vice principal or somebodymet me at the door and she
said, this is a pseudonym. Whatdid you do with Adam? Well, of

(12:21):
course I'm having a panicattack 'cause I didn't get any
instructions. I just workedwith him. And , um, she said he
got a perfect score on hisbasic facts test. And I felt
better than I'd felt aboutanything else I was exploring.
Wow . And you know , whenyou're a freshman in college
and you don't know what youwanna do, the pressure's on. So
I took my first education classand then , um, ever since I've
been teaching, I love teachingin , um, courses , uh, in , I

(12:43):
like taking the sections when Iwas a middle school teacher, so
I would take the , um, I hatethis phrase, but lower level
classes and just noticing the ,um, impact over time of whether
students are fluent or not. And, um, and also their
confidence, you know , goinghand in hand , right? So that's
really how I got started. Andthen I got to come and do a
workshop at NCTM actually agesago. And I just got such a

(13:06):
thrill after I got over theterror of it that I really ,
um, found a passion for workingwith teachers.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
You people are scary when you look at us. You're
very scary . The way you listenis really

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Unnerving. I'm sweating up here,

Speaker 4 (13:17):
. So yeah.
Very intimidating. Yeah. Andjust a , that's a fantastic
story and very relatable. I , Iwould love to know, on the
subject of fluency, I wouldlove to know something that in
your personal life, as personalas you want to go here, that
you are developing fluency in ,

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Um, something I'm developing fluency in. Um,
there's so many things that Ishould be working on. Um, one
thing, okay. So my favoritething that I'm developing
fluency in is , um, horsebackriding.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Okay. Yeah . Just, let's just imagine you , I I am
not a , uh, uh, what do youcall it ? A question. I'm not a
horseback rider myself. So I amin this moment, like, I'm not
sure I could pick a horse outof a lineup, honestly. Like,
you know, horse cow lion. I'mlike, Hmm , okay. Uh , but like
I am , so I'm wondering now,you know, like how would one
develop fluency with intent?
You know, I imagine it involvessome riding, but try to imagine

(14:10):
if you would, you know, likewhat goes into becoming fluent
in horseback riding? So yeah,tell us. Right.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
So , um, I actually, when I was a teenager , um, I
rode western, I lived inMissouri. I rode Western. I
actually won some stuff at thecounty fair on my horseback
riding. So I had some skill.
Okay. You know , so I had oneway of riding. So that's a
connection to fluency as Ithink about it. Um , and then
COVID hits and my husbandsuggested maybe I need to get

(14:38):
out of the house . Sohe suggested I go ride , uh, at
a place down the road inKentucky where we have, you
know, what I would call Englishriding. I didn't know there's a
whole host of kinds of ways toride in an with a saddle that
didn't have a horn on it. So,and you have to like, imagine
you have to po you have to postwhen you're riding . I'd never
done that. Uhhuh . Um, and then the teacher is

(15:00):
using language I had neverheard before, and I'm like, I
don't know what that means. AndI'm holding two reigns in two
hands instead of, you know, onereign in one hand. So I'm just
learning this whole differentway to go about it. And I guess
one day I'll know what thedifference is between, I don't
know , hunt seat English , uh,this or that, or whatever, all
the different kinds of ridingand how you're supposed to sit

(15:21):
in the saddle and all thethings. But it's a pretty fun
challenge.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Okay. There's a teacher, like , that's a
teacher that's interesting tome. You know, I kind of just
assumed you, like, if youstayed on, you're good
. And if you don't, you learnfrom that. But , uh, as
actually someone who's helpingyou develop your fluency. Yeah.
Fantastic. Um, I would love toask every one of you what
you're developing fluency in.
Um, it's an interestingquestion, I think, especially
outside of mathematics. Sohere's the thing about UF find

(15:46):
fascinating is that you, youknow, you've done some very, I
would call it serious work. Youknow, like very capital s you
know, the kind that gets , uh,you know, has citations and
goes into the fancy books andyou have some, a lot of that
serious work and then you'vepivoted a bit or like have
developed this whole anglearound games , uh, game-based
fluency to the degree that Ithink if we , um, that's right

(16:10):
here. Yeah. Here's some , uh,some books that our guest Dr.
Jenny Bay Williams has authoredon fluency, including this one
that we're here to talk abouttoday . Uh , you know, 60 games
and tools to support learningand retention. So what's,
what's the appeal of games toyou? What is , what have games
offered you? Could we have an ,like an equestrian, a horseback

(16:32):
riding game for your fluency?
answer, whichever partof that scattered question you
want to .

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Uh, so I, I am a serious person and um, I
sometimes say I am from theshow me state. So like you have
to like, show me something'sreally gonna work before I'm
willing to try it. I was thatteacher that really wanted to
feel solid, something was gonnawork before I would try it. So
I've always carried that withme. And I appreciate teachers
that don't just on a whim trysomething without evidence. So
I've been an evidence-drivenperson. I got my doctorate, I

(17:03):
read so much research, I reallydon't wanna do anything that
there isn't some solidbackground on. So I am a
serious person. Um, but then inall of my work, I continue to
focus on how , um, manystudents don't feel. And let's
just say people, many peopledon't feel good at math. Yep .
They don't like math. And whenyou boil down to it, they're

(17:27):
not good at basic facts. Andyou know, I've taught hundreds
of pre-service teachers, mostlyelementary. I've done the whole
gamut, but this is a negativememory for most people. And so
that's not fun in games. And sothen I'm in grade like one and
two classrooms watching with,you know, dismay at how

(17:47):
children are learning theirfacts, which you just see the
joy coming right out ofwhatever they brought to school
with 'em . So that's when Istarted thinking, how can you
bring more joy to the learningof math , um, in a serious way.
Like the games are fun. Um, butthat's a byproduct, right?
Like, that's not the reasonwe're doing the games, right?
You know, like I tried to do atthe end of a workshop, like,
wait, let's go back. Why are wedoing these games? And the

(18:11):
teachers are like, they're fun.
And I'm like, but remember,that's the byproduct. Like,
really why are we doing thegame? So that's like the
serious side of it.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah. Uh , excellent combination of serious and fun.
And I'm excited today to learna game with you, especially one
that's , uh, about subtractingtwo digit numbers, which has
always been on my bucket listof things to learn how to do
. So if I may, I'm gonnalearn this game. We have a just
a , a deck of cards and uh,apparently this right here,

(18:38):
which as it happens, you folkswill be getting , um, this can
help kids learn how to subtracttwo digit numbers and probably
other things as well in aserious and fun way. I do feel
like I need to take out thejokers. I assume a joker gone.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
All the guys go the jacks, no offense. Oh , but the
jacks go. The kings go thejokers go. All the guys go. You
do have one of these. Uh , doyou want them to take their
their cards out or you wantthem ? Well,

Speaker 4 (19:05):
We'll just wait a second on taking it out on
yours.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah , just watch Dan with this nice little deck
so you can,

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah . Give us a second here. Team . So the
queen stay

Speaker 1 (19:12):
The queen stay . The ladies are the zeroes. The
queens are the zeroes, Queens

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Are the zeroes.
Okay. Right .

Speaker 1 (19:18):
And then for this particular, so this is how I
usually have my decks, like inmy classroom and in my book
bag. And when I travel, that'sthe deck, right? But for this
game, you don't want your tens,you just want single digits. So
we also gotta go

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Finds those tens again. ohss . Yeah. I suppose
if you pulled one of the, oneof your math class decks out
for an evening of playingTexas, no limit. It gets a
little bit, it gets a littlebit weird for people .

Speaker 1 (19:38):
You just wait to see how long it is till somebody
notices, someone notices thatNo , no . Face cards are shown

Speaker 4 (19:42):
Showing no one's getting no one's. Cards are all
that great.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
That happens at my house. Actually,

Speaker 4 (19:47):
I I actually am not surprised at all. Okay?
Uh , I have never shuffled adeck of cards. This small
, I had ampleopportunity to do this before
you both got here. Bethany, youcan't imagine just how much fun
this part was for the audience.
.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
I am actually, I'm pretty sure the only thing more
fun than watching you try toshuffle a deck of cards,
miniature cards is listening toyou try to shuffle a deck of
nature miniature card . So wewill reenact this next time I
see you. Just to

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Be clear, I'll learn that one from a child, .
Good enough, good enough. Okay.
So yeah. So we've got this. AndI don't think that a civilian,
which is what I call someonewho's not like us, would see
these and say, oh, there's amath game about to happen here,
right? Like this is this , thislooks like just kind of normal

(20:40):
playing cards. My goodness.
These are not wax coded . Okay?
, this is not my usualdeck. , do these have
seven sides? ? How am Istill rotating some of these
stop down, down.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Can I make a suggestion that we just like
turn them face down and notworry about it?

Speaker 4 (21:03):
I am gonna beat these cards. There. There,
okay. See, I love therelationship. I looked at them,
they knew I was struggling andI looked at them and they saw
in my face both pride and thedesire to be acknowledged for
having done this. And they gavethe acknowledgement. This is ,
this is why we vibed so well.

(21:24):
Okay, so what's next? You'llwatch us do a round and then
give it a try yourself andwe'll see who wins. The two of
us or anyone out there,

Speaker 1 (21:30):
We're playing a version of a game called For
keeps. For keeps. So we get tokeep two of our answers, okay ?
We're gonna play four times,okay ? That's big picture.
We're gonna do this thing fourtimes, okay ? We only can keep
two answers. So , um, Dan, youcan start, you're gonna draw
four cards.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
I'm gonna draw four cards just like we're at the
top or okay ,

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Two , we're we're , we're gonna be teammates here.
I'm not gonna play against Danin front of a live audience.
Okay?

Speaker 4 (21:54):
.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Okay, so we're gonna turn and face up. I'm

Speaker 4 (21:57):
Gonna waste me here.
Okay, so we got me

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Again, Bethany, here's where I drew a three, a
nine, an eight, and thenanother eight.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
We have a very well shuffled deck here, as you can
tell , uh, .

Speaker 1 (22:13):
And so nows this .
Yes .

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Okay .

Speaker 1 (22:17):
There is an advantage to not having a
shuffle deck as you're gonnasee here. Yeah , I like this. I
like this. So we're trying toget the smallest difference.
The smallest difference, okay ?
So we're gonna arrange these.
However you want to have twodigits minus two digits with
the smallest difference. Okay?
For example, this would not bemy answer, but

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Thing , I think it might be helpful here to talk a
little bit more about what thisgame look like. Is that okay?
Please?

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
So four cards come off the deck. You know, we've
got jacks and kings are gone.
So we're talking number cardsand queens for zeroes. All
right , so can you picture

Speaker 3 (22:51):
The well shuffled deck is face down ? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Super well shuffled deck and

Speaker 3 (22:55):
You're flipping , you're flipping over
four cards

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Or just draw four off the top anyway , so , okay
, got now , now there's fourface up and they're just like
in no particular order. And ourjob is to make two , two digit
numbers out of those cards. Soyou can imagine the different
kinds of numbers that mighthave popped up and how you
might decide to start arrangingthem. And there's like no wrong

(23:18):
answer here, which is kind offun. Like, put them into any
two, two digit numbers andyou're fine. Find their
difference. So you can imaginenow perhaps their difference
and that's what we're doing.
That's

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Super helpful, Dan.
I can totally picture it and ,uh, yeah , let's keep going.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
Not like the worst difference would be something
with the nineties and thethirties, I would imagine,
right? That'd

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Be a real rough . So if we were going for the
biggest difference, biggestdifference, this might, that
might be a possibility. Sowe're going for the smallest
difference. Um, Dan, how do youwanna arrange your cards?

Speaker 4 (23:49):
Like , I just wanna like catch the vibe though.
, there's like a momentof activation for a game versus
a worksheet where it's likepeople are kind of murmuring
and shattering and likementally strategizing to such a
degree that it comes out oftheir mouth a little bit and
they kind of murmur themselves.
And I wanna , I wanna dig onthat a little bit. Like what
makes this a game versus why islike a worksheet less of a

(24:12):
game, let's say. So right hereand ,

Speaker 1 (24:14):
And as he's talking, I'm like itching to come over
here and start like moving thecards around to try help things
, but okay , you ,

Speaker 4 (24:21):
I mean I , I noticed that there's a potential for
some 80 eighties going on here.
So I do want to just like, kindof think about what it would be
like to do 89, 83 is onethought I have. Those ones are
pretty close.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Okay, so that gives us an answer of ,

Speaker 4 (24:37):
Uh, that right there is answer of six. Six. I think
we've got like maybe betterthough. Is there a better one
if we , um, if we switch . Ifelt good about that, by the
way. Real good. But like I'mcurious though, low nineties,
high eighties here,

Speaker 2 (24:53):
I reorganized the cards

Speaker 4 (24:54):
To give us

Speaker 2 (24:55):
A 93 and 88.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Now he's got the vertical. Um , see that there
Orientation . So the horizontalchanging , oh, I know my
standard algorithm, .

Speaker 4 (25:04):
Oh,

Speaker 1 (25:04):
I know it because this one involves regrouping
right here. .

Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah. Yeah . So that'd be a five. I , right
did not get theacknowledgement I'd hoped for
there and instantly secondguess

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Myself. 'cause Dan's still, Dan's still working on
his fluency. , I'mworking on my fluency.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah. Um , no , it's great to do fluency when you're
developing it in front of ahuge crowd. It like helps you
like desire to avoidembarrassment, helps you, you
know, do better. So ,

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Okay, so Dan is settled . So our first score is
for keeps . Here's our littlescoreboard score. You're gonna
be doing the same thing. Youget this , this is also in your
bag five. So five. Now we haveto decide if we're gonna keep
this one or we're not gonnakeep it. So we only get to keep
two and we can't change ourminds. Oh,

Speaker 4 (25:46):
So we don't do all four and then just like wrap

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Two . That would be, yeah , we , so

Speaker 4 (25:52):
Again , you catch this here. Like there's
something about this that isgame-like, you know what I'm
saying? There's something thatI don't quite know what it is,
but it feels game like theaudience wants to participate
on the question. What makes itgame-like, but you have
misjudged the situation friend.
This is not, this is not anaudience participation moment,
though . There will be time foryou.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
This feels like there will be time

Speaker 4 (26:11):
For you. It's , do you have a big mic? Do you have
a big mic? You don't have a bigmic, do you? Okay, well

Speaker 1 (26:15):


Speaker 4 (26:16):
Well I'm sorry about that. I would involve you here,
but not right now.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Okay. Dan Meyer, I, I have to interject to just
say, you know, your communitybuilding in that room. I , I
feel it Dan. I feel it . No surthere. Okay.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
Alright . I think that not having you there
really revealed to theaudience, the people there, to
me, especially one of the mainthings you bring to our
partnership, which is beingnice. You know, you just gotta
name it, just gotta name itthat like, I , I got a vibe. I
got like have a , anantagonistic vibe with the
crowd that I think you would'vebrought a lot of of levity to

(26:53):
that, I think. So. Missed you ,uh,

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Missed you too. But it reminds me of the start of a
game show , um, where , uh, theaudience is saying low . Go
again. Go, go .

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Oh , right , yeah .
Uhhuh , you've been sick at10:00 AM and watched that on TV
when you were a kid orsomething. I know you have. Can
I just say I am definitelykeeping five? Like I just like
you cannot talk me out ofgetting rid of five. I just
like, five has gotta be like areal good number here again,
I'm like looking at the crowdto like see, do they agree with
me? I think they do. All right. Is that cool with you?

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Uh , yeah, no, I'd like to see the crowd. Any
thumbs down? Thumbs up. Youwould keep it thumbs up?

Speaker 4 (27:28):
Okay. Okay,

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Go for it. Alright , you got some love out there?
Let's

Speaker 4 (27:31):
Just do one more and then pass it to them to do a
couple on their own. Okay, somefolks are already doing it. Can
we just peel off a couple, acouple more here .

Speaker 1 (27:37):
So yeah, so you don't have to shuffle again.
Nobody wants to watch that

Speaker 4 (27:40):
One wants to watch that. That was , that was
literally miserable foreverybody, most of all me.
Okay, so I just deal off fourmore,

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Four more cards . A nine.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
Great. So tired of seeing nines. I'm gonna gonna
cut the deck at least. Okay.
Alright . A new number. Okay.
Nine five. Five. Okay. And afive

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Here. I'm taking these two away. I'm gonna make
you draw again. .

Speaker 4 (28:09):
This is how , this is how I do it and I'm in Vegas
at the tables. I'm like, Idon't want that one. Uh ,
different one. Okay. Alright .
Okay. Okay . Alright . So quick

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Cutting here. This is when Jenny mercifully
replaced two of those fiveswith a four and a seven, giving
us a 9, 5, 4 and a seven. Thinkabout how you might have paired
those up to create two, twodigit numbers.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
I'd love to hear how you think through this yourself
or if you can channel a kid or,I , I did a lot of talking last
time, so I'm curious where youwould , where you'd go here at
this one and then we'll pass toyou folks to try around ,

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Right? So , um, I'm having a , okay, so I'm , whoa
,

Speaker 4 (28:47):
The audience has a question expressed via via
card. They wrote it down in thecard because I brutally shut my
friend down here fromparticipating . So
they're like, oh, that was yourquestion. Yes . They're like,
we're communicatingnon-verbally. And the question
was a good one and I, I feel Iregret , uh, you know, not
calling on you. The questionwas, can it be negative? And

(29:11):
what does that do for us ruleswise ?

Speaker 1 (29:14):
I , so why

Speaker 4 (29:15):
Am I asking you isn't the best part of a game
that like , like we candecide, right? Is that cool to
decide

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Your thought? No , I get , I always get asked, what
about this? What's the rule onthis? And I'm like, you know,
you are the teacher, right? Youget to make the rules. That's
one of the joys of teaching.
You get to make the rules. Soif I'm teaching middle school,
I can't wait for our studentsto ask that question. I might
not put it out there to tellthem about that. But then when

(29:42):
they're working for thatoverall smallest amount and
they recognize that if theyhave something like positive 15
now if they could counter witha negative 15, then when they
put those two results together,right? But I do like to start
simple. I don't like to make ittoo hard at the start. So we're
gonna stay with , Dan's gonnastay within the positive world.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
I'm staying in positive world, which suits my
personality. , butalso, yeah, I

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Don't know . Or zero. You can

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Do a zero. I just love that . Like , and be
asking like a kid, what wouldmake it most fun or ask a
teacher what would be mostmentally productive? Um ,
anyway, that's just fun, thecreativity there. So , uh, talk
to us, how , how are youplaying this from here ?

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Alright , so what's your move? Yeah, so what I'm
looking for is numbers that areclose together to put them in
my tens place. That's where mybrain goes. So my first
thinking is that I want thesein my tens place.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
So Jenny put the five and the four in the tens
places. Okay,

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Get that five and four. And

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Remember that left two cards, a seven and the
nine. And then Jenny decided tomake a 57. A 49. How's that
sound?

Speaker 4 (30:40):
You did that fast. I get , can you like tell us what
your thought is there about whyyou did it ? So how that was
quick for you. What are youthinking about

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Right here? Well, because if you have it this way

Speaker 2 (30:53):
A 59 and a 47,

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Then you have more than 10 if you're counting up.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
And so if you do it this way now nine, now it's
under 10.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
Yeah . Okay .

Speaker 1 (31:04):
To count up. Follow

Speaker 4 (31:05):
That, follow that.
Okay. Thumbs up on that one? Idon't know . Sound good? So
that that'd be uh , an eight.
An

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Eight.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
You could ask me my middle name and I would second
guess myself with like thewhole crowd watching. I was
like, that's a an eight, right?
We got

Speaker 1 (31:17):
An eight.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
Um , what ? Oh sorry . Are we , are we so , uh,
sorry. Uh , thumbs up to keepeight or thumbs down to get rid
of eight. The crowd says thumbsdown, eight's gone. Okay. Um ,
yeah, the two of us are gonnawrap up our second hand , two
hands while you folks try outwith someone else. And we'll
just be curious who's got thelow , what is it? Lowest total

(31:38):
sum of your two. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Ultimately Dan will have a total, see if you can
get under a dance total.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
Yeah, right on.
Alright . And everyone in herehas to sh bowl . I had to do it
. You've gotta do it .
You see how easy it is? Okay.
Why is he shuffling so weird.
How come he is bad atshuffling? You try it.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
So Bethany here is where we let the audience play
for themselves, which willspeed through, but I've gotta ,
I got a name that everyone whowas trying it felt a lot of
empathy for me when they triedto shuffle these impossibly
small cards. I , I felt veryvindicated with how hard that
was.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, what you didn't say in the audio, you
know, I know because I I'veseen the cards, but you didn't
say that they're mini cardsminiature, so that makes it
even better. Like, got it. But,but wait for real slow . Dan, I
want to flag what you said . Ilove how you called out the
energy in the room, like yousaid, whoa, hold on. There's

(32:44):
this like activation thathappens when, you know, you're
about to like launch intogameplay, right? Can you talk a
little about the vibe in thatroom? Like the shift that you
felt?

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, I think it was like the way Jenny set up the
game created conditions wherepeople wanted to get into it.
Like people were done with ustalking about it, done watching
us play and wanted to do, do itthemselves. And I , I think a
big part of that is like, I'vehad games introduced to me
where I we're basically readingthe whole rule book where like

(33:17):
all the pieces are trotted outand the , the , the launch of
it is like more muted than itwas in the room. 'cause I think
Jenny did not get into all theins and outs. This , the
strategy. Like all thetechnique that she knew would
emerge from the game, butinstead was like, Hey, here's
the pieces, here's what you'regonna do with them, here's the
goal. And people got that andwanted to get going and the

(33:39):
game itself had really lendsitself to that kind of energy,
I think.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
So hopefully as folks are listening to this,
they're , they're thinkingabout how games could play a
more central role in theireveryday fluency practice. So
let's get back to the room

Speaker 4 (33:55):
A second here .
Let's uh , head on back and ,uh, having seen what's out
there in the crowd, I amembarrassed . I'm like,
I'm honestly like I'm blushingto report a nine . Is
anyone worse than nine? Cool. . Yeah, we got

(34:15):
some folks who are gettingouted. I see ya . I see ya .
Got a little special doubledigit club for you . ,
which I am not in . Ugh. I could never be in the
double digit club, just in thehigh single digits. Uh , so
who's got something lower thannine? Show us. Most everybody

(34:35):
lower than eight, lower thanseven, lower than six, lower
than five, lower than four,lower than three, lower than
two. Lower than one, one orlower. So who's two back there?
We got twos. Twos amazing . Afew twos. That's amazing. Give
a round of applause for ourtwos. That's strong. That's
awesome. Yeah. Alright . Uh ,look, I'm into this. The good

(34:58):
news, I mean the bad news isthat I crashed and burned in
the game. The good news is thatI now know how to subtract two
digit numbers. , Ifeel, I feel in a word, fluent.
So I have a few questions here.
Okay. Like, what is, here's myquestion and it's an annoying
one to start with here todebrief this. But like, what is

(35:20):
a game? You know, like it kindof begs the question for me.
Like if I, if you give me theflashcards of the , the four
flashcards of the same fourproblems that I solved and said
do this one, do this one, dothis one, do this one. It would
not have felt as game-like thesame four problems in that, in

(35:40):
that context. So my goal hereis that the listeners, you
folks here live, we could goback and think about what we're
trying to help students developfluency in, in a gamey kind of
way. But I'm like curious whatmade that a game for you?

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, it's a great question. 'cause as we're like
working on the book and things,sometimes we're like putting
instructions down. It's like,is this a game? What makes it a
game? So I think it's a greatquestion and there's probably
no right answer to this, butone thing is this, the surprise
that happens when you draw acard or roll a dice. Like you
could play this game with diceinstead of the cards, you know?
So , um, since you don't knowwhat's gonna be your options,

(36:16):
your cards, then there's somegaming to it because you get
what? You get and youdon't get upset. You
arrange your cards and thenyou're doing some, you know ,
some math. So you're creatingproblems from that. And then, I
mean it's true that in gamesthere is , um, oftentimes that
motivation to beat it could bebeat your partner or beat a

(36:37):
score. Like to get, like I lovethe , um, what Dan uh , just
said about two digits. Like,can you get your score under
two digits? That's a beautifullike target, which should be
easy. ,

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Roasted roasted.
Wow, that was brutal. I thoughtonly I did that to , to the
audience. But that's cool .

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Um , it's , I like this . It's , it's rubbing off.
'cause I'm not usually that wayreally . No, actually I
did grow up loving card games.
Okay . I did love card games.
So I think there is thatchance. And then, so I think
that's the game thing isthere's this element of chance.
Okay, so like if you did win oryou didn't win, it's more the
luck of the draw literally thanlike what you know or don't
know . I mean, you can make badchoices with your cards of

(37:19):
course 'cause you're working onyour fluency, but in general
it's the luck of the draw.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
So the only thing worse than doing like
arithmetic in front of a crowdfor me is like doing
handwriting in front of acrowd. So, but like, just to
name this, so there's a balanceof chance and skill here where
the cards give you the Chanceystuff, but there still is skill
involved. I'm just likesummarizing for myself and
maybe the crowd here as well.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
So you have a goal like target to get a lower
score, a high score. You'retrying to , you have a goal
you're working towards and the

Speaker 4 (37:43):
Target can change.
Like, it could be like thegreatest, the greatest
difference, the smallestdifference. Get your difference
to single digits. For somepeople might be a really big
thing for them. You know, , it might be a really
special day where when you dothat, you go home and you brag
about it a little bit and youtreat yourself to some TV and
ice cream, right? Singledigits. Okay, so the target and

(38:05):
like what , what do we , whatare we missing here? What else?

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Um, I like to think a game, they don't all have to
be with another person, but Ithink they're , uh, games tend
to be interactive.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
Okay. So cooperative mode, competitive mode. Um, you
know, if you're me growing upsolo mode, , you know ,

Speaker 1 (38:25):
It's cool.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah. My favorite person. So , okay. Okay. So we,
we could have been competitive.
We were cooperative in ourversion here. Can

Speaker 1 (38:35):
I just say also like, when I first , uh,
started playing this game, itwas , um, one person against
one person, but it was so muchmore fun. And IL learned these
from watching teachers inclassrooms when there was
partners because they did havean idea. And then they're like,
wait a minute, wait a minute.
Here's a smaller difference. Wecould get to the discourse
between the partners playinglike the two across the table

(38:56):
turned out to be a richerdiscourse around the
mathematics. So yeah,

Speaker 4 (39:00):
I love the vibe that we get in this room. And for
me, when we hear discourse,rich discourse , people
are like, Hmm , that discourse,it's rich . I was gonna
, I I think sometimes aboutpeople I know in my life,
if they saw the way wetalk or , oh , but I , that's

(39:21):
why I love being here. Uh , oneof many reasons. Okay. Uh , um,
okay, here's my question.
Here's a question. Okay. So Ilove that we have some like
basics, some ideas about whatis a game. And I see how like
flashcards fail a couple ofthese, right? Like you could do
flashcards by chance. You ,it's hard to do flashcards with
a target that's variable orinteresting to me 'cause it's

(39:42):
like the answer, right? There'snot a lot of chance , uh, hard
to be cooperative. So I'mseeing some differences there.
But I love the idea ofdifferent materials, cards,
dice. We gave all of you asingle number cube in your bag.
, you're welcome, . Here's what I'm

(40:03):
curious about though, is whatkinds of materials could we
turn into a mathy game? Sowe're gonna do a little bit of
improv for Dr. Jenny BayWilliams. We haven't scripted
this at all, at all. I don'tknow what you're gonna say
here, but what I want are , um,either some household, a
household object, some that youwould imagine everyone in the

(40:24):
room might have either anobject in the home or an object
in a classroom. And we're gonnaask , uh, Dr. Jenny Williams
here to uh, turn that into amath game for us. Taking like
the, taking the first fourhere. Talk to us a pen or
multiple pens. We'll give,we'll give multiple pens. Okay?
This is your moment, sir.
'cause like I shut you downearlier and now you're in.

(40:46):
Bring it what you got. Make itcount. Shoes, shoes, shoes .
Including laces. No loafersnecessarily can use the laces.
Okay. Uh , please. Toothbrush.
Toothbrush. Okay. Plural. Workscan be multiple. Okay, let's go
two more back. I feel like youmight benefit from a lot of
options here. Actually, two more back here. Hit it.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Forks.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
Forks, which we will allow you to broaden to all
silverware. And one more overthere.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Coffee

Speaker 4 (41:14):
Cups. Coffee cups.
And then one last one righthere. Coins. Coins. Any coin
imaginable? I do feel like youmight've just really offered a
, a real , a life preserver tome anyway. I'm not sure. Like
coin Coin you might've had itfor , for all of these here.
Um, and someone give us a mathtopic solving quadratic

(41:35):
equations. Psych . Justkidding, just kidding.
choking . Choke . Choke . Okay.
Uh , uh, I mean you can , youcan do what you want here.
Fractions is a fun one. Anothermath topic. You , you might
think about times, tables,multiplication. We're gonna
just like , like take oneminute where you can think
about these and think aboutmultiplication. You can think

(42:00):
about fractions. What do you ,what is this ? Do you think? I
cannot hear you. What is this?
Is this important or is thisyour table? Come tell me
something. Combining terms .
Combining like terms. Ooh .
Okay. Take one minute. Oneminute only. Uh , and then
we'll come on back to you. Youthink about what you might do
here. Okay?

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Okay. Wow.

Speaker 4 (42:18):
Okay .

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Let's give Jenny some time to think about that.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
We

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Have shoes. We really have as many of these as
we as we want, right? And wecould use like the toothbrush
as our fraction bar, right?
That could be the equation.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
And here is what Jenny came up with after not
even a minute that we gave herto think.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
I have , I have an idea.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Everyone quiet. Oh wait, everyone be quiet right
now. It's Jenny's got an idea.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Wait, it's only , it's only half baked .
She's ,

Speaker 4 (42:48):
She thought she was gonna run this by me and we
were gonna bake it together,but nope, we're doing it live
. We're doing it live.
Alright . It's just , it's justrough draft thinking. You're
among friends here. Can youfeel the friendship? We're all
friends here. So just that ,all

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Right . So it , it is also like everybody jump in
and like, you know , polish thegame. 'cause it's just my first
thought. Okay. So one of myfavorite strateg , I'm , I'm
going with the fraction idea.
So one of my favoritestrategies for fractions, the
inspiration for this game isthe idea of being able to make
a whole . So I'm gonna workbackwards from what I'm , what
I'm heading for with this game.
So, big picture is if you'readding like two and

(43:22):
three-fourths plus two andthree-fourths, there's no need
to stack 'em and like get afraction greater than one and
do all that. No , you can justmove one of the fourths over to
make a hole . Right? Okay. Somy, my shoes are going to be
the , um, holders of the parts.

(43:44):
All right ? So the coin isgonna get flipped or you're
gonna drop some coins or flipthe coin to pick your
denominator. I'm telling youit's half baked . No,

Speaker 4 (43:54):
I'm, I'm , I'm feeling as though , okay .
Yeah. All

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Right . So that you're gonna get your
denominator. So let's sayyou're , let's see, how's that
gonna work?

Speaker 4 (44:02):
The coins all have a number on them, right? So we
could kind of like shake 'em alittle bit and that's like your
denominator. Sure. How does theflipping, I gives you like one
or two. She's in love with thisidea, by the way. I know her
well enough. She

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Love this idea . I'm gonna , no , I'm stubborn. I'm
gonna figure out a really greatgame and I'm gonna publish it.
And math's teaching andlearning

Speaker 4 (44:20):
And we were there for that. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Okay. So, well , what I'm thinking is, if we
were gonna drop the coinsreally high into the coffee cup
and whatever bounces out,that's our denominator. So if
you get like 6 cents, then yourdenominator is six, right?

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Got your chance. Got your

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Chance. I mean , right. Could it work? I'm not
really sure. I'm alreadythinking that my own children
have walked away by now.
, ,

Speaker 4 (44:53):
Bored. I just love the thought process though. I
love the thought process. Andif I could just like say one
more thing I want to add tothis our list of like gaminess
things and we can pick thisback up and keep brainstorming.
I , I get this sense thatyou're not happy with where
this has ended up. It needs towork . I , but I really
love that you involve us inyour process here. And I just
wanna name a difference betweenus. When I was thinking about

(45:15):
this is I was like, I had anidea that had like chance and I
had not thought through atarget, but I especially had
not thought through amathematical goal. And Jenny
was like, yeah, but like, whatare we doing here? Like, what
is, like what ideas are wetrying to develop? And you all
heard it happen there. Thisidea of like making holes was

(45:37):
like one of the first fewthings that Jenny started with
and worked backwards fromthere. Rather than me thinking
like, wouldn't it be cool if wethrew, you know, knives at a
wall or something, you

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Know? Yeah . I mean if somebody would've suggested,
you know, like beans from theircabinet or something, I gotta
have something I can count. Sothis was a rough list. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (45:57):
. Love it.
Last question from me , um, isjust this, I want to know like
the idea that you have likelittle playing cards , you have
dice, we have, you know ,beans, there's so much that can
be turned into a fluency game,right? What I'd love to know is
if you had say $5 per child fora fluency packet, like stuff

(46:21):
you could buy for five bucks orless, dollar store, dollar
General, that kind of thing.
And you made one of those, youknow, for your class app . So
you have five bucks a kid andthat's gonna carry you as far
as you can make it last. Whatare the essential elements of
your pack here? Well, for

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Sure cards. I think after washing Dan , Dan , I
would splurge on the biggerones . , thank

Speaker 4 (46:42):
You. It's a little bit late, but thank you.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Uh , and then , uh, definitely uh , dice, if I
really can fit it in my budget,I want the 10 sided die because
zero is on the 10 sided die andI got all the single digits .
So I prefer the 10 sided, but Ido love the six, six-sided as a
start. 'cause then you, like ifwe were doing , um, for keeps
with a six-sided dye , the onethat you have, if you just find

(47:05):
a few friends, then you'rejust, you have smaller
possibilities, right? They'reall within 60. I wanna say

Speaker 4 (47:11):
We're up to like three bucks now. Okay . Maybe a
little Amy A. Little high , buttwo more , two more dollars.
What do you got for

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Us? So then, so then , uh, counters. But if that's
too expensive, buy some largelima beans. I've done this on
my back porch before, which my, uh, family didn't appreciate.
'cause then we spray painted,you know, one half , uh, in a
school color and then we turned'em over and painted the other
half in the school color. Wow.
And then the , and then the um,concrete forevermore on the
back deck wasn't really, wasn'treally white anymore, but , uh,

(47:39):
anyways. Um , but I woulddefinitely have counter. So
those are the three essentials.
I mean, to be honest, everytime I travel, those are the
three things that have to go onmy suitcase. Hey ,

Speaker 4 (47:47):
You know , , TSA sees you coming like, oh,
good to see you Dr. J . Yeah.
Okay comes love that. Okay.
Yeah , I'm , I think you stilllike Lima beans. What do they
call lima beans? Like a adollar per, I don't know what
lima bean costs. Uh , no. You ,you have still some room here.
Is there any like one lastthing you'd sock in there?

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Well , I ,

Speaker 4 (48:06):
I'm in bulk. That was a

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Cheap , right? Yeah.
Um, well, I mean, I feel like Iwould want either big pieces of
card stock or little notecards. Mm . Just for , um,
coming up with like visuals tosupport like their fluency
work. Maybe not for the games,but there always could be a way
to use note cards, right?

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Sure. I personally would choose a pocket
calculator to help them developfluency. , perhaps I
standalone here. That is mybravery. Um, look folks , uh,
Jenny , it's been fantastic tohear how you are helping people
work through an area of maththat for many people was one of
the hardest for them. Had sometraumatizing memories from
that. And you're doing it in away that is game-like and fun.

(48:46):
And I, I , I put fun as aco-equal goal for myself. Uh ,
fun and math. Like, what's thepoint of doing math? It's not ,
not a little bit fun sometimes.
And so I just love your workand learning from you. Can we
all give , uh, Jenny BaileyWilliams , uh, a big round of
applause . Thank you for

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Efforts ,

Speaker 4 (49:00):
. Thank you.
Thank

Speaker 1 (49:01):
You , thank you, thank you.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
Thank you for being part of this, part of our time
here. Yeah, , that'slike a , that's a diplomatic
summit. Handshake inwas , we're in Washington
and thank you folks forbeing here , uh, that we are
nothing as a podcast withoutour audience. And please like,
rate and subscribe. Uh , let'ssee here. Hop on and join me

(49:24):
and Bethany on the podcast aswe round out our season on
fluency. Make sure you listento that one x or even 0.75 x .
So it was really those reallybrilliant nuggets don't pass
you by too fast. And thank youfolks for being here meets this
huge part of this live show.
This was us all together, notjust the two of us. It was a
blast hanging out with you.
Thank you so much and have agreat day, team. Thanks. So

Speaker 2 (49:49):
That was the conversation with Dr. Jennifer
Bay Williams at NCTM, Bethany ,uh, what'd you think, aside
from being just super jealousthat I was there hanging out
with, with your Maine , withyour bestie , um, what'd you
think about all that?

Speaker 3 (50:02):
By the way, she does not know me at all. Not like,
not even a little bit .
It's my own appreciation fromafar of your work, Dr. Jennifer
Big Williams, but for real. SoDan, first of all, I thought
that was super fun and like Ilove that folks got to
participate and dive in, and Ifelt like they experienced that

(50:24):
enjoyment and the excitementabout the game, and I feel like
they now can like, try torecreate that for their own
students. And you also help tokind of reframe what fluency
practice could look like. Sojust say again for me and our
listeners, what were a coupleof the elements that you think
are gonna be crucial if you'retrying to create that level of
excitement and enthusiasm forour students in the classroom?

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Oh, my. Such a huge question. Um, I think like by
the book, I don't know by JennyBailey , Williams' book I
think, but like Okay,

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Fair enough, fair enough. No ,

Speaker 2 (50:54):
But if I had like, you know, free associate, my
own learning from what I heardhere, we're talking about
things like a very concretegoal that someone, you know,
like three grade levels backcould understand. You know,
like the goal has gotta be justlike crystal and materials that
are also like tactile andtangible that involve an
element of chance to them. Sothose were some of the

(51:16):
elements. I think that thatworked really well. The goal,
small, small is like a wordthat lots of kids can
understand, right? Um, and thiselement of chance what you,
what you deal off of the deckand then like having some, some
, a little bit of strategy andto , to risk something. Like
someone got like a differencethat was small, but is that one
you wanna hold onto or shouldyou throw it back and try for a

(51:37):
different one? Those were theelements I think that really
kept the group. Like they couldhave kept on playing this game
for a lot longer. I think basedon a lot of those elements.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
I have two thoughts that I want to add. I'm, I'm
wondering, like, I'm picturingmy students playing this game
and a couple things I'mthinking about are like, how
could we give students for whomthis is really challenging, not
being able to fluently come upwith the difference. How can we
give them more access? Couldyou provide a hundred charts
for everyone? And then whetheror not they use it or not, it's

(52:08):
up to them, but then it's justkind of this norm that we have
a hundred chart in front of us,or unifix cubes or something.
Like I know that in terms oflike, if we could take that
speed out of the game or like,especially I love the idea of
partnering with someone so youcan play around with the ideas
together and come up with thedifferences. Like, I love that

(52:30):
idea of that collaborativenature that could take some of
that pressure off of it. So Ikind of wanted to flag that
because I think it could be, itcould become like really high
pace , like we talked about itquickly. Yeah. But does it need
to move that fast?

Speaker 2 (52:42):
I really appreciate you flagging these possible
modifications. I really enjoyedbeing collaborative with a
teammate and competitive withother teams and with my
partner, we could likestrategize and think and , um,
with other teams I could be,you know, sassy , uh, as, as
everyone now knows about me.
Um, but the , the hundredchart, that's really
interesting, like a tool forthinking what tools for

(53:03):
thinking might be helpful tohave around the room to keep
students focused intellectuallywhere we'd like their focus and
not burdened, where we don'twant them burdened. I think
that's a really interestingcomment.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Well, and I think, right, like part of fluency,
building fluency is repetition.
And so with this game, itsounds like by nature you're,
you're coming up with a lot ofdifferences because you're
trying out differentconfigurations. But I've always
thought of a lot of the fluencygames as like, the goal is to
get as much practice in aspossible in our short

(53:38):
timeframe, right? So you don'twant students to just do one
version of subtraction andlike, we're done. No, they're
comparing numbers, they'retrying out different
configurations, and I thinkthat's where some of the
richness and the fluency isbuilt. And I obviously this is
one game on a long list ofgames you'd be playing with
your students to build thatfluency. But I think a real key

(53:59):
as the teacher is pulling yourstudents back together at the
end of play and discussing anddebriefing, right? So talking
like to some of the students,how you were calling out, who
got a total of nine, who got adouble digit total , you know,
and talking about the strategya little bit, or maybe even
like the next day you throw upfour cards and you have all

(54:23):
your students play around withdifferent configurations. You
know what I'm saying? That,that debrief

Speaker 2 (54:28):
No, I'm, I'm really tracking that. Yeah. And like,
it was wonderful that we alldid different problems. We all,
we all dealt off differentcards to ourselves and that was
wonderful from like a sense ofagency and autonomy. But as far
as like collective learning, Ilove what you just described of
like, okay, now let's all thinkabout the same four cards. And

(54:50):
I would imagine it'd be wise tomake those intentionally dealt
out to highlight some of thelearning objectives, like
thinking about place value andyou want large numbers in the,
in the tens or the ones place.
But that, that makes a ton ofsense. I think it's , it's
easily lost. I think I gotexcited about the game and the
fun. Yeah. But also to focus onthe learning objective and how

(55:10):
to best support that. Yeah. Ireally appreciate your comments
there. And we

Speaker 3 (55:12):
Want our students like caught up in the game,
right? But then some of thatreally rich discourse as you,
as you flag comes from thestudent sharing out, I pulled
these four cards and at first,you know, just like Jenny did
or Dr. Williams did, at first,I had them arrange like this,
but then I knew that I couldget a smaller difference. And I

(55:33):
feel like that could be anatural extension of the game
that students are still just asinvested in. Yeah .

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Or to drag it back to like a sports as a another
frame. Like you play the game,but then like the real pro
sports teams , like don't justlike say, all right , see ya at
practice next week or See youthe next game. Yes . It's like,
let's watch some, let's watchsome footage, you know, let's
like take one moment from thegame and watch it from seven
angles and, and dissect it as agroup. And that feels like kind
of the moment you'redescribing.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Absolutely. Whether you won or not, we're all
learners.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Right. Well, thank you so much for listening to
this very special episode ofMath Teacher Lounge. Please
like, rate and subscribe on thepodcast platform of your
choice. It means a ton , uh,for, you know, the algorithms
getting our stuff boosted outthere and also, you know, my
ego, my, my , you know, my , mymom checks my ratings, you

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Know . Oh , right .
Okay. Moving on . Right nexttime in the lounge we're going
to be talking with Dr. JodyGarino about what it's like to
make fluency a priority acrossan entire school.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
I think there was a lot of leaning into each other.
So I think if people areinterested in working on
fluency, finding a friend, evenif that friend isn't at your
school or at your grade level,like who can sort of be that
accountability partner orthought partner that can, you
can sort of lean on each otheras you're doing this.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
That's next time on Math Teacher Lounge. Thanks so
much for listening.