Season finale: Key takeaways and looking ahead

Listen to the final episode of Math Teacher Lounge! We’ll walk through the past 10 episodes on math fluency and pull out the key takeaways from our amazing hosts–such as tips on defining and assessing fluency, fluency development in a bilingual setting, and the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on so-called fake fluency. 

We’ll also talk about the future of the podcast and what’s next for us. Spanning six seasons, we’ve had the privilege of reaching thousands of educators while exploring a wide range of topics including the Joy of Math, Math Anxiety, and Math Fluency, featuring  Amplify’s Jason Zimba, Sesame Workshop’s Rosemarie Truglio, Reach Capital’s Jennifer Carolan, and Baltimore County Public Schools’ Dr. John W. Staley.

We can’t wait to continue working on a host of other exciting projects this year, including webinars, conference appearances, and the 2024 Math Symposium. Listen to the finale of the Math Teacher Lounge podcast today, and keep an eye out for more!

For more amazing math content, check out the following resources:

• Hear more from Dan during our 2024 Math Symposium.
• Check out all of our past episodes on the main Math Teacher Lounge page.
• Find more tips and strategies for math teachers through our upcoming webinars.

Episode Transcript

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:00):
If I look at a sheet where students
have filled in a page ofanswers, I may be able to put
that neat score on the top andenter it into my grade book.
But then what do I actuallyknow about what that student
knows and how they're thinkingabout numbers?

Dan Meyer (00:14):
Welcome back to Math Teacher Lounge. I'm your host,
Dan Meyer,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:17):
And I'm your other host, Bethany
Lockhart Johnson. Hello andwelcome.

Dan Meyer (00:22):
Hey, Bethany. It's wild where we've been right
now. I think we have beenexploring fluency over, let me
pull up my , um, my hands andfingers and toes to count them
up. , uh, 10, 10 wholeepisodes. That's , uh, been a
lot of learning

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:35):
10 episodes. And I gotta tell you,
I know you were hesitant aboutdiving this deep into fluency,
but like, as I reflect on ourtime together, I feel like
we've just scratched thesurface. We could do another 50
episodes on fluency and itwouldn't be enough. Don't you
agree, Dan?

Dan Meyer (00:53):
I I think that's right. I every guest has like
answered a question that I'vehad, that you've had, that
we've had perhaps , um, aboutfluency and then also opened up
entirely new areas of , ofinvestigation for us, whether
that's thinking about communitymore deeply through fluency or
assessment or classroompractices, how to develop it.
Like, I wanna know more abouthow we create games with Dr.

(01:16):
Jane Bay Williams, just allthese different folks who , uh,
just offered us a glimpse intotheir expertise and then
pointed at paths towards morelearning. It was a , a really
great time. I don't regret itat all. .

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:27):
And for folks listening, you know,
this is the same as last seasonwhen we talked about math
anxiety as our focus for theseason. You know, we did not go
into this with the goal toanswer all the questions. Like
Dan saying, this season broughtup more questions, which I
think is a good thing. The ,the folks we're in conversation

(01:48):
with gave us differentperspectives, and I loved that
we were able to talk about somany different aspects of
fluency. And like you said,we're we're leaving with more
questions. Hopefully ourlisteners have some things that
they are curious about and theywant to take into their
classrooms or into their staffmeetings. And hopefully this

(02:10):
helps to further theconversation and our definition
and our understanding offluency is bigger and better
for having spent this timetogether.

Dan Meyer (02:17):
That's right. Yeah.
And the service we'd love tooffer you folks, and for
ourselves at this moment is tolook back at those episodes and
pull out some of the themesthat felt most meaningful or
impactful or interesting to us.
Uh, producer Martin Kesslerwill be pulling out some audio
clips to help us, to anchor usin those conversations. We'll
also talk about the future ofthe podcast and what's next for

(02:39):
us. But first, I think we'llhave a really good time here
revisiting some of the biggestideas of the season for

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:45):
Sure.
And that is a perfect time togive a little shout out to our
producer, Martin Kessler. Y'alldon't know, but behind the
scenes, it takes a lot of workto make us sound this good. So

Dan Meyer (02:57):
I'm getting emotional.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:58):
Big kudos, Martin . You know what
else? We won't be diving intoeach episode individually, but
I also wanna give a shout outthat not only did we have
another live episode from NCTM, um, like we did last season,
but we also had a special bonusepisode with Dr. Nicole Joseph,
author of Making Black GirlsCount. And it was really

(03:20):
special to like, have such ajourney this season. So, so
let's dive in.

Dan Meyer (03:25):
Let's do it. So yeah, every guest we ask the
same question, which I thoughtwas really helpful. This was a
Bethany's suggestion to askthem, what's a way that you're
developing fluency in yourday-to-Day life? And why it's
so helpful for me is thatfluency in math class, I think
has a lot of ideologicalbaggage attached to it.
There's, there's ideas about ,um, a authority, for instance,
that are attached to math classthat aren't attached to other

(03:47):
areas of life where math classhas this really, I think,
outsized importance in theworld. We, we define who gets
to go to college and who hasexperiences prosperity through
math achievement, which makesall of us a little bit nutty
when it comes to ideas offluency and ordering forces in
math classroom. The same is nottrue of other areas of life. So

(04:08):
it was really helpful to askpeople, so where are you
developing fluency in yourday-to-Day life? And draw
lessons out of that thatweren't quite as inflected by
all the, the social forces thatare present in math class. I
thought. So let's run through aa few of those answers right
now. We have a question we loveto get to know our guests by
asking

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:26):
One of the things that we're asking
all of our guests is , and

Dan Meyer (04:29):
We're curious, we're

Bethany Lockhart John (04:30):
Curious, is

Dan Meyer (04:31):
There an area of your life

Bethany Lockhart Johns (04:33):
Outside of math

Dan Meyer (04:34):
As personal as you wanna make it here,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:35):
Where you've developed, or like you
are currently developingfluency?

Fawn Nguyen (04:41):
It's baking, bake a baguette.

Jennifer Bay Williams (04:43):
Okay. So my favorite thing that I'm
developing fluency in is , um,horseback riding. Well,

Speaker 5 (04:47):
Over the summer I started learning how to sew. I
don't think I realized how muchmath goes into sewing. If
you're one inch off, thatthrows off your whole outfit.
And so , wait,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:58):
You started with clothing ?

Speaker 5 (05:02):
Yes, they–

Bethany Lockhart Johnso (05:02):
That's impressive.

Dan Meyer (05:04):
Straight for the final box . Yes.

Jason Zimba (05:05):
I roasted about 30, 40 chickens in the exact
same way to the point where nowI prep the chicken without
opening the book. And, youknow, I know the temperatures
and the times, but of course,every chicken's a little
different. So you can't justapply an algorithm for having a
nice roast chicken. At

Art Baroody (05:24):
This point in my life, I'm trying to be a better
husband, father, andgrandfather .

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (05:32):
Oh ,

Art Baroody (05:33):
It's, it's always a work in progress, but it's
especially important to keep mywife happy. ,

Myuriel von Aspen (05:39):
For the past six months I have been learning
Italian. So as I'm, I'm goingthrough this process, I'm
noticing that what has helpedme learn is that I practice it
on a regular basis. I also likedoing it in little chunks.

John W. Staley (05:52):
So let's go personal with my quiet time
with God. There are days when Ithink I'm doing well with it.
It, there's days when I'm light. And the consistency across
the days is something that Icontinue to myself step back
and look at. I've got multiplestrategies that I can bring
into it. So as I think aboutquote unquote building that
fluency, I'm thinking aboutwhich strategies do I need?

(06:13):
Which ones do I want to usethat day?

Jody Guarino (06:15):
I started doing Pilates a few years ago, and at
the time I was like learningvocabulary. And I would listen
to the instructor cues andinterpret them and attempt to
do them. Often my attemptswould be followed up with some
immediate feedback from theinstructor. And now having
practiced a few years, Iwouldn't say I'm fluent, but my
form has certainly improved.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:36):
Dan , I think we could be done. That
sums it up. That's fluency.

Dan Meyer (06:39):
We did it. We did it. Folks right there in that
montage. I I , I'll ,I'll be real. I have thought
about some of those for a longtime after the interview. I
think like Jason Zibo was ourfirst interviewee and his
comments about roast chicken, Ifelt like they, they so cleanly
onto fluency that I'vecontinued to think about them
when I'm helping my own kids inmathematics or , um, helping

(06:59):
other kids. I've been doingsome Zoom tutoring recently
with a , a family friend.
Anyway, I, I love the, just toname a couple of things that we
love about what we learned fromthose people. One for me was
the idea that fluency has apurpose that that extends past
the immediate task. Where asJason has roasted so many

(07:20):
chickens , um, he now can do itmore easily. He mentioned also
in that interview, I recallthis, like, I don't need to
like, you know, bear down andclear my schedule from one
o'clock to five o'clock beforea a dinner with friends. Yes .
I can kind of , I can kind ofwhip that up as SAPI bet his
first chicken. He's like, don'ttalk to me, everyone quiet. You

(07:40):
know, gimme peace. And now Ican carry on a conversation
with somebody. Um , that's oneelement of , of a lot of these
different , uh, testimonialsabout fluency that I thought
was really powerful.

Bethany Lockhart J (07:49):
Absolutely.
I, you know, I remember some ofyour misgivings about this
topic were about like, well,fluency, you know, where's the
excitement in that? Where's thenewness in that? And what I
think you are pointing out andwhat I think we've seen from
our guests, it's like fluencycan have richness in itself as
students develop thesestrategies and really build

(08:13):
this deep foundation. And alsowe don't become fluent in our
basic math facts, and thenwe're done with math. That's
just one piece of the puzzle.
And this question to me, just,I think one, it helped us get
to know our guests better, andtwo, it was just so fun to see
the connections between whatthey're gaining fluency in and

(08:36):
the topic for the season.
However, Dan Meyer, I don'tknow if we have recently, maybe
in like our first episode aboutfluency. We talked about what
we are gaining fluency in. ButI would love to know Dan Meyer,
can I ask you the question?

Dan Meyer (08:51):
Yes. And vice versa.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:52):
What are you gaining fluency in ?
Yeah.

Dan Meyer (08:56):
Uh, I'll just say kind of a duplicative of Jason
Ziba cooking in a generalsense. This , uh, 2023 was the
year where I tried to makesomething new to me every week.
You know, I'm trying to, youknow, share the household labor
a little bit more E equequitably around here. Um, and
cooking has not been my domain.
Cleaning , uh, the dishes,that's how we kind of split it
up. Anyway, just things like,I'll just , this is gonna be
sound embarrassing to anyonewho's, you know, like ever

(09:18):
cooked anything, but like,dicing and onion is a thing
I've done, you know, maybe 25times over the last year across
25 dishes or so. And just to beable to do that, to know how to
dice it a certain way , um, hasjust been, yeah, to not think
about that, to involve my kidsin that. 'cause I don't, like,
at first I'm like, no, stay faraway, like sharp knives . I
don't know how to use thesethings. People could get hurt.

(09:38):
And I was like, yeah, let's dothis together. And you can toss
'em in and stir 'em in oil.
Just noticing this , I thinknoticing the structure of what
I'm making, how, oh, like lotsof these things have oil,
onion, garlic, and that's howwe're gonna start things off.
And that's, that's kind of afoundation, a flavor. Um, the
fluency be pretty fluentcooking me . I'm like, well,
this is , these are all justlike special snowflake dishes
basically. Um, and the , myfluency in certain kinds of

(10:01):
staples or stock ingredientcombinations has, let me learn
a little bit more about howthese flavors are playing
together. So that's a little ,uh, plus one on cooking and
baking as a metaphor for mathlearning. I'm still processing
a lot of that.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:14):
I love that. And I, I would like
to say I'll sample dishes thatyou make any time , Dan . So

Dan Meyer (10:19):
Come on by, come on by .

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:22):
So for me, I've shared this before
that I'm learning to playpiano. And I think it has been
very humbling because, youknow, my friend loves to send
me these videos of these likefive-year-olds playing like
Mozart and Bach. And I'm like,Hey, listen, learning, I'm a
lifelong learner, okay,. But I realized that

(10:44):
when I practice consistently,when I take the time to, you
know, actually pay attention tothe patterns in the music and
like the structure, I'm able tomake more sense of it. And I
think for me, the joy has beenthose few times when like, I

(11:05):
haven't overthought what thenote is, but when my fingers
just like nowhere to go, it ,it's just so joyful. And , um,
my husband plays violin. Mykiddo loves music. So I have
this vision, Dan, you'll beinvited. I have this vision go
that we're , we're standingaround the Christmas tree and
I'm playing, you know, Carol'son the piano and we're, you

(11:29):
know, singing, you know, canyou picture it? Can you picture
it?

Dan Meyer (11:31):
I can. I'll bring over my sauteed onion and
garlic mixture that , uh,everyone loves.

Bethany Lockhart Johnso (11:35):
You'll build the flavor, you'll build
the flavor we'll

Dan Meyer (11:38):
Enjoy together. But

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (11:39):
This is a lot of fun to ask our
guests this question, and weencourage you, listeners to
share and to think about what'ssomething that you're building
fluency in or what's somethingyou'd like to build fluency in.

Dan Meyer (11:49):
So one point of all of this, this whole season has
been like, what is fluencyanyway? And there are lots of
different academic definitionsone might use here. Um, I'm
just curious for you, Bethany,what has concretely stuck to
you throughout this season?
What does it mean to be fluent?
Do you have like a , a sentenceat this point that you might
help someone else learn what itis we're talking about when we

(12:12):
talk about fluency?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:14):
Sure.
I, I feel like it, it has grownover the course of this season,
but when I think about likemath fact fluency, I am
thinking about like, studentswho are fluency, students are
accurate. The answer iscorrect. They're flexible in
their strategy. They're usingstrategies appropriately. Like
they're using a known fact tohelp them solve or using a

(12:37):
strategy that fits the problem.
And, you know, honestly, I knowthis is a little controversial,
but fluency for me alsoincorporates speed. And I don't
mean speed in terms of timetests . I mean, like, it's
there, it's at your fingertip,right? I'm not hunting around
for middle CI just know wheremiddle C is, right when I'm

(12:59):
playing the piano. And so for astudent, they can be a really
fast skip counter 5, 5, 10, 15,2 0 5 times five is 25, right?
But when they just know it,it's just there.

Dan Meyer (13:11):
Yeah. I think I, I would add, or maybe, I don't
know if I'm saying modify theideas about speed, but I think
automaticity, like automaticand efficient are words that
speak to me very strongly whenit comes to math. Um, maybe
that's the same as fast orspeedy. Um, regardless, I do
think it's interesting to thinkabout for all of the different

(13:34):
disciplines our guests talkedabout developing fluency in
which of those, like requiresspeed for which of them is like
speed and actual attribute orvirtue. Like when Art Rudy
talks about trying to getbetter at being a spouse or, or
John Staley talks about, youknow, hi , his spiritual
practices. Like I'm thinkingabout those. Like, speed really

(13:54):
doesn't have like a place inthose like trying to like more
automatically and quickly , uh,treat your spouse with kindness
or, you know, really burnthrough those prayers and
faster and faster reps, youknow, every time. Uh, so I ,
I'm walking away with a lot ofclosed questions or more closed
questions than we started, butI still am wondering, to what
extent is speed versusautomaticity versus efficiency,

(14:17):
an element of math class? Uh ,just an open question and uh ,
I'm still thinking about it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (14:21):
Yeah, no, thank , thanks for flagging
that. I like efficiency a lotbetter than speed. Uh, 'cause I
think too often speed that wordin the wrong hands can cause a
lot of math anxiety. And wedon't want our kids to think
that's what math is about.
Well, the person who's fastestat math is the true
mathematician. So if we canthink about it in terms of

(14:43):
efficiency, that feels a lotmore to the core of what we,
what our guests kind ofhighlighted and flagged.

Dan Meyer (14:49):
Yeah. Yeah. I , I think so. Um, I can I share my
favorite quote about fluency?
I've not shared it with you oron the pod. Certainly , um, so
far

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (15:01):
I would love that it's

Dan Meyer (15:03):
A quote that a lot of people who I think disagree
with me and I disagree with onother matters around like
engagement and the role ofdirect instruction. We all kind
of like this quote, which putsit near and dear to my heart
for that reason. And , and thatit's, I think it's a smart
quote. Um, it's from someonenamed Alfred North Whitehead.
Um, someone who is a , I thinka mathematician a very long
time ago , um, says this, it isa profoundly erroneous truism.

(15:27):
So a wrong thing repeated byall kinds of copy books and by
eminent people when they'remaking speeches that we should
cultivate the habit of thinkingof what we are doing. The
precise opposite is the casecivilization advances by
extending the number ofimportant operations which we
can perform without thinkingabout them. Operations of
thought are like cavalrycharges in a battle. They're

(15:49):
strictly limited in number,they require fresh horses and
must only be made at decisivemoments. And that imagery, I
think, has stuck with me for awhile about, like, the skip
counting to 25, for instance.
That's like a cavalry charge .
You've only got a little bitthere. You only got a few of
those, and you're actuallybetter off when you can do
these things without thinkingabout them. I , I think that

(16:11):
oftentimes we say then thatthat has certain implications
for teaching that I think go alittle bit awry, where if we'd
like people to be automatic,the thing to do is to put them
under these kind of , um,contrived conditions of time
and stress. But I do like thisidea that, yeah, like all
things being equal, I wouldlove to not have to think about
where a middle C is or whichspices on my list I should get

(16:34):
for roast chicken or what fivetimes five is. So that's a just
a little parting, you know,season ending offering for the
potluck here.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:42):
I love it. And actually, you,
lest you forget, you haveshared that quote. I can't
forget Mr. Whitehead. What,

Dan Meyer (16:48):
What, really?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:49):
I can't . Yeah . In fact, I think
you shared it in the episodewith Val, but it's still true
though. It , it's still true.
It is still true. And that it'strue ,

Dan Meyer (16:59):
Uh , a few months later. It's true. All

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (17:01):
Where it's , that was a couple years
ago. It's okay. And it didstick with me. That's the
thing. It stuck with me. Youhave these limited resources,
right? Our working memory islimited. Yep . And so we, we
talked about this last season.
If we can not expend all of ourworking memory on trying to
figure out six times seven, youknow, by the time we're done

(17:25):
with that, we don't have that ,those resources left for the
juicy problem ahead of us.
Actually, let me give you anexample. Yesterday, I, I'm
sitting on the couch with mykid and we were talking about
something , and I don't knowwhere it came from , but all of
a sudden I said, do you wannamake some cookies? And what do

(17:46):
you think his answer was, Dan,

Dan Meyer (17:47):
No thank you, carrots. Please.

Bethany Lockhart John (17:49):
Exactly.
So I said , of course. He said,absolutely. And oh , he did not
see . He said, yes, I do. And Isaid, oh, let's make
snickerdoodle cookies, right?
And so I said, I have a recipefor snickerdoodles, the best
snickerdoodles I've ever had.
My friend gave it to me like 10years ago. I know just where it
is. I went to my recipe area tolook for the stickle Do recipe

(18:14):
for 15 minutes. I looked forthis recipe, and at the end of
that 15 minutes, I still hadn'tfound it. And guess what? I was
all done with the idea ofmaking cookies. I had used up
all of my energy tryingto look for this recipe. Now,
some may say, why didn't youjust google a sticker noodle
recipe? That would've beenfaster. Why didn't you look at

(18:35):
a kid ? You know, though, youknow , listen, I had a vision
, I wanted to makethese cookies with my kid, and
I was so frustrated that Icouldn't find it. I went, you
know what? Let's go playoutside , which is
probably, you know, anyway,that's what I think of when I
think of Mr. Whitehead. I thinkof this idea that I had this
much energy and I'm holding myfingers not very far apart. I

(18:58):
had this much energy and I usedit all up on the hunt and muck
instead of on like the juicypart.

Dan Meyer (19:06):
Your fresh horses were no longer so fresh.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:09):
Okay?
So we had 10 episodes. Dan, forour listeners, we wanna help
kids develop fluency. What dowe do based on what we've
learned so far this season? I'mcurious if, you know, there are
some specific takeaways wecould share and , uh, we could
even share some clips from someof our guests.

Dan Meyer (19:28):
Yes. Let's , uh, let's roll on it . I got, I got
like maybe three that come tomind immediately. Okay. One
uncontroversially repetition ofa certain sort, repetition
being helpful to developfluency. Let's , uh, attach
tons of caveats to what kindsand, and what amounts and what,
what experiences are repeated.
Um, the second I wanna thinkabout that I've been thinking
about throughout our season ishow students are often

(19:51):
repeating and developingfluency in more than just the
mathematical operation at hand.
They're developing fluency incertain ways of thinking about
themselves mathematically, andideas about what math is more
generally. So like, it's easyto think about, well, when I
give kids this kind ofworksheet with all these
problems, like they're gettingfluent in this operation, but
also they're getting fluent inthis either a sense of math has

(20:13):
purpose, or math doesn't havepurpose beyond getting a grade
on my worksheet, or who am I,they're practicing, who am I as
a mathematician? I'm someonewho takes orders and executes
them faithfully withoutcreativity, let's say. So I ,
I've been keeping that in mindthrough some of the guests that
we had on. And then, you know,me, I love like the technical
aspects of creating a mathexperience. Think about that

(20:36):
constantly working curriculumright now. And so I, I pulled a
lot, I think, from Dr. JennyBay Williams in thinking about
like, fluency and , um, kind ofconceptual growth, not as a,
like a strict binary, not aslike a , a light switch. And
it's either in the, the fluencymode or the concept building
mode, but is a dial that can beturned kind of part way . And

(20:59):
so I loved, I loved , um, theway the games that we played at
the NCTM live session with Dr.
Jenny Bay Williams. I loved howthose involve fluency and
subtracting two digit numbers,but also through some of the,
the strategy of the game. Wewere thinking conceptually
about place value, forinstance, about the tens and

(21:20):
the units and how they interactwith each other. So that's like
a couple off the top there thatjust really got me lit up. Um,
I think you , maybe you canhear my tone of voice that I'm
very much more engaged andexcited about ideas of fluency
, uh, than I was episode one ofthis season. That, for me has
been a , a real , uh, real joy.
What about you? Uh, anythoughts on those thoughts or

(21:40):
thoughts of your own about what, uh, you pulled out of this
season? How to develop fluency?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:45):
I love that connection between
math identity, thinking aboutmath, identity and fluency. I
think that's really powerful.
We are, these repeatedexperience in mathematics are
building our math identity.
That's so great. Um, I, yeah, Imean, there's so many
takeaways, but I think a fewthat I really appreciated were
the ideas around not going thisalone. I think both Muriel and

(22:10):
Jody Guino , Dr. Johns Staley ,I feel like so many talked
about how do you do this workwith others? And there's so
many people who have beenthinking about fluency. So for
our listeners who are like, Ihave this bigger idea of what
fluency could look like. How doI start this work? Or how do I
shift the work I'm alreadydoing? There's so many
different resources out there,right? Just our guests alone

(22:32):
have myriad resources thatthey, that they offer. And how
can you find, for example, anaccountability buddy? Maybe
your whole school doesn't wannado a year long fluency study,
like Dr. Garino talked aboutthat. That's kind of a rarity.
But can you find a buddy inyour school or via X or at a

(22:56):
conference that you can diveinto the work together and you
can together, like shareresources or learn what's out
there or what your school orgrade level's already doing.
Take a look and see what are wedoing and what little shifts
could we make that will at leadto big shifts. And , um, I
wanna share a clip from Dr.
Orino talking about that.

Jody Guarino (23:15):
In that situation, I think there was a
lot of leaning into each other.
So I think if, 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
like accountability partner orthought partner that can, you
can sort of lean on each otheras you're doing this

Dan Meyer (23:33):
Great advice for any kind of learning at a community
like a school. Like it's greatwhen everyone's pulling in the
same direction, but at minimum,find someone who's interested
in what you're interested inand learn together.

Bethany Lockhart J (23:45):
Absolutely.
A couple other things thatstuck out to me. One was the
strategy of it, right? Like Iwasn't at NCTM sadly, so I
didn't get to experience thisgame in real time . But while I
think that there was power in a, in a game like the one that
you all played, I also thinkabout, you know, how are we
incorporating strategy the waythat like Dr. Val Henry

(24:10):
teaches, or, or Muriel vonAspen talks about, to make sure
that the facts that thestudents are practicing are
going to be supporting theirfluency development and
supporting those known factsthat they're going to be able
to pull from. So for example,flipping those cards over, you
don't know what you're gonnaget. So if you're already
fluent, you're practicing and ,and you are building fluency.

(24:33):
But for those students whoaren't fluent, how do those
students have access to thatgame? And we talked a little
about maybe you have a hundredcharts there, or maybe, you
know, there's other games thatyou can incorporate, but I
don't wanna forget about thatpower of, for example, the
tens, the fives that studentscan use to then help them build
all the other facts that aregonna come from there. And one

(24:55):
of the most important thingsthat I got from Muriel, no
matter how students learnedfacts, she remembered going in
and talking to these studentsand they were saying, you know,
she asked them a question thatwas beyond 12 times 12, right?
So the students maybe knewtheir facts up to there what
was on the multiplicationchart, but then when she asked

(25:16):
them a question 13 timessomething, they were like,
well, we didn't learn those. Weonly, we stopped at 12. We
didn't learn this. And that tome was so powerful. 'cause she
said, well, when we know how touse strategy, we know how to
use known facts to figure outunknown facts. We know how to
compose and decompose. We areable to be strategic in our
solving. Mm-Hmm, . Yeah. Yeah. One other thing I

(25:38):
wanna flag, I really wanna talkabout assessments for a second
and I wanna talk about what Dr.
Val Henry brought to theepisode in talking about
one-on-one assessments. And forso many teachers, they, I feel
like they think that one-on-oneassessments is out of reach.
But she talked about the powerof sitting with a student and

(25:59):
asking, how did you get thatanswer? Or, tell me about your
thinking. And then Dr. Garinotalked about how that can
happen in a real like,formative assessment context
when you're walking around andnoticing the way a student is
solving a problem when they'replaying a game, for example,
and I wanna play a clip fromDr. Henry's interview, but Dan,

(26:25):
can you weigh in on this for asecond? Because I wanna remind
listeners, last season weinterviewed Dr. Erin Maloney,
who we adored and who I totallythink we'd be friends with her
in real life. Dr. Maloneytalked about some potential
benefits that she sees fromtime to practice. So let ,
let's play a quick clip fromDr. Maloney's interview last

(26:47):
season where she flagged timedwork.

Erin Maloney (26:50):
So we know that anxiety really ties up those
memory resources. And so themore you can make the math
automatic, the more immune it'sgoing to be to anxiety in the
moment. And so I know that, Iknow that this part can be a
little bit controversialbecause we don't wanna
necessarily demotivate childrenand kind of kill the enthusiasm

(27:13):
for math that we're trying tocultivate. But really, you
know, really committing yourarithmetic facts to memory can
be extremely helpful. So reallylearning those timestables
really learning your additionand subtraction facts. 'cause
what happens is then whenyou're in a situation where you
need that information, right?
Even if you're anxious andyou're, you're working with
sort of fewer cognitiveresources than what you would

(27:35):
normally have, you actuallydon't need that many cognitive
resources to be able to pullsomething from memory that
you've memorized. So it reallyhelps to kind of protect you
against some of the negativeimpacts of the anxiety while
you're doing that test.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:48):
And you're not using all your
cognitive resources to figureout seven times eight, because
yeah , you can really focus onlike what you're trying to do
with that. So , you know, oh ,that's fascinating. Yeah .
Yeah.

Erin Maloney (27:57):
Yes . No, a hundred percent right. And so I
know I don't hate time tests inthe way that a lot of people do
, uh, but I, so I love time topractice. So I think once we've
got to a point where childrenhave a fairly decent
understanding of skills , like,of a skill, once they've got a
fairly decent grasp on it, thenI love the idea of the, the

(28:19):
timed practice. So it can bestill in a low pressure
situation where in many ways itdoesn't matter if you get the
answer to the question correct,but we're practicing doing it
in a situation in which youmight be feeling a little bit
of pressure, but it's not realpressure, if that makes sense.
And again, it can be done in afun way.

Dan Meyer (28:38):
That was , uh, I think a , a really interesting
moment in our anxietydiscussion and certainly the,
the kind of the wormhole thattunnels between last season and
this one. And , um, yeah, I, Ifind that really compelling and
obviously based in evidencethat when people are anxious,
they're working memory is justgetting soaked , um, trying to
deal with that anxiety andthey're not able to create
fresh, fresh charges of theirhorses in the cavalry. Um, and

(29:00):
then my, my question to followthat is like, to what degree is
timing then the best way tocreate that automaticity and
efficiency for students liketotal agreement that being able
to, to know, you know, seventimes eight automatically much
better than having a skipcount. Um, certainly easier for
lots of higher order tasks, butto what degree is having

(29:23):
students doing , uh, a madminute worksheet , um, with
eight times seven somewhere onit? To what degree is that
gonna be helpful at developingthat versus other activities of
the sort that we've beenworking on? Is, is, is the idea
that we would expose studentsto anxiety producing
experiences for many of themand that would inoculate them
against experiencing anxiety?

(29:44):
That to me feels like , um, a ,a path that it just doesn't
seem, to me, it mostly seemslike it's a , uh, it's giving
up to some degree. I'm not, I'mnot saying I would never, you
know, want to involve time, butwe've just learned over this
season how many creative waysthere are to generate to help
students generate automaticity.
I'm not sure why I would usetiming, except if I didn't have

(30:05):
access to those other ideas.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (30:07):
So let's hear from Val. In her
episode, she talked aboutone-on-one assessment.

Val Henry (30:11):
When I first started reading the literature about
fluency, one of the things Irealized was that the
psychologists who actuallyspecialize in studying the
challenges of fluency inmathematics do one-on-one
assessments, so that they canreally hear students not only

(30:34):
say the answer correctly orincorrectly, and they can get a
sense of how long it took themto come up with their answer,
but they also get to ask themthis really important question,
which is, how did you get thatanswer? And so, one-on-one
assessments are so differentthan time tests in a couple of

(30:59):
different ways. The first oneis that you actually find out
how fluent I'm gonna , I'mgonna move away from whether or
not they're fluent, but sort ofhow fluent they are with the
fact, with the math problem, asopposed to on a time test ,
which typically has, you know,20 or 50 or a hundred problems

(31:22):
and students completed, and youhave no understanding of how
they completed it, whether theywere skip counting on their
fingers, whether they werejumping around and kind of
going, okay, five times sevenis 35, so now I'm gonna look
for seven times five becausenow it's in my short term

(31:42):
memory, and then I'm gonna do35 divided by seven and 35
divided by five, all withoutreally having been fluent with
any of those, but justcapitalizing on skip counting
and short term memory. Soone-on-one assessment taught me
a lot about how to reallyunderstand what's happening

(32:03):
with students.

Dan Meyer (32:05):
So Bethany, you taught elementary. I'm really
curious how you would balancethe different kinds of
imperatives here. The valuethat Val saw in interviewing
students, one-on-one, the moreefficient experience in terms
of like able to have kids doall doing a thing
simultaneously of a, a timedmath worksheet. Like how do

(32:25):
you, how, how do you thinkabout those two different
experiences and their , theiradvantages and disadvantages?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (32:30):
For me, it came down to what's the
point of the assessment, right?
The point for me, the point ofthe assessment was to find out
what my students knew, whatthey were thinking, and how
they were thinking about it.
And then for me to be able touse that information to direct
my instruction. So if I look ata sheet where students have
filled in a page of answers, I,I may be able to put that neat

(32:53):
score on the top and enteredinto my grade book , but then
what do I actually know aboutwhat that student knows and how
they're thinking about numbers,right? So for me, the , the ,
the key that I learned from Dr.
Henry is that you're not doingone-on-one assessments every
day, right? You're , uh, Dr.
Garino talked about this aswell, the power of formative

(33:14):
assessment as you're walkingaround and the students are
playing games as you'rebringing the students back and
doing a share out of how theywere thinking about the numbers
when they were playing thegames, you're taking notes on
those and then you are sittingdown with students, you know, a
few times a year or certainstudents that you are curious
about, like how they'rethinking about those numbers.

(33:35):
You can anytime just ask them,Hey, how did you solve this?
Or, or how did you get thatanswer? Or , or show me, show
me what you're thinking, or Canyou show me what these blocks,
what you're thinking? And then,you know, sitting down and
asking students , uh, two ,one-on-one the different facts
I think was for me, really,really powerful. And the key

(33:56):
for me was that it was lowpressure, it was
conversational. It was, Hey,this is a chance to show what
you know, and like talk, let'stalk about your thinking. And
that for me gave me so muchmore to work with as a teacher
than just a page of answers.

Dan Meyer (34:13):
I love that. And I feel like it , it just speaks
to the idea that the mostpowerful form of inquiry-based
learning is not necessarilywhen students are inquiring
into an area about which theyknow nothing, but when their
teacher is inquiring into theways that they think about
mathematics, equippingthemselves with all kinds of
resources for theirinstruction.

Bethany Lockhart J (34:32):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. If given thechance, I could go through a
thousand more points, which Iknow, Dan , I can tell from
your expression that you wouldlike me to. But I want to point
out one more thing that I wouldhope to leave listeners with,
and that was for teachers tobuild meaningful ways to
regularly and strategicallypractice fluency and not

(34:55):
expecting students just toabsorb these facts or expecting
it to happen at home. And Iwanna include one more clip
from one of our guests, Miravon Aspen, on why it's so
important to develop fluency inthe classroom rather than
relying on caregivers to do it

Myuriel von Aspen (35:10):
For some children, we, the teachers
might be the only ones that cansupport them with the work of
fluency, of learning their mathfacts because maybe they have
parents are home that areworking two jobs, three jobs.
It may not have thoseopportunities that other
children have at home. And sotaking away those opportunities

(35:31):
from our students, we're takingaway the chance for them to
learn higher maths later on,because we are what they have
to learn those foundationalskills.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (35:41):
I loved that clip so much, and I,
I feel like with the mathanxiety that, you know, often
caregivers can bring into theirparenting, right? Whether they,
they mean to or not. We talkedabout this last season, you
know, if there's a way, forexample, for a teacher to show
caregivers a game that would bebuilding fluency that they

(36:03):
could do at home with theirkiddos. So they're still
practicing fluency at home, butthey're having like a fun
interaction around math, funconversations around math. I
think that would be morepowerful than, you know, just
drilling, drilling, drilling,right? So how do we make sure
as teachers, we're doing thework in the classroom and
finding ways that are positiveand community building at home

(36:26):
for students to practice?

Dan Meyer (36:28):
I love that. Yeah. I mean , as a parent of
elementary kids, I don't want ,I don't want to be in a
coercive relationship at theend of the school day with my
kids about, you know, workingthrough these particular
exercises. They , they don'thave a , a strong connection
to. But it's been wonderful todo the kinds of games that we
learned about from Dr. BayWilliams and that you've
alerted me to Bethanythroughout the run of this

(36:50):
season. And I think maybe thebiggest takeaway for me of the,
like, the outcome of this wholeseason for me has been a desire
to participate in a family mathnight at my kids' elementary
school to partner up with otherparents and hopefully just
equip parents to whateverdegree I can with resources ,
um, to help them have thesekinds of moments with their
kids at home where they don't,might not feel equipped
otherwise, or to have the timeor energy to do a really

(37:11):
intensive kinds of fluencybuilding. Like, let's do some
like low key fluency building.

Bethany Lockhart Johnso (37:16):
That's awesome. That's awesome. And we
know that students not knowingtheir math facts can be a
reason that they can continueto struggle in mathematics,
develop math anxiety, andultimately f feel like, you
know, maybe math isn't for themor they're not capable
mathematicians, and it's justnot the case, right? This is

(37:39):
something that students canmake sense of, they can make
sense of it in meaningful waysthat are fun and that are
competence building, right? Andit , it's something that I hope
that our listeners feel excitedto dive into more and excited
to explore.

Dan Meyer (37:58):
So, Bethany, just to close this up, I'm super
curious, after all the learningwe've done , um, you know,
you've been a very helpfulguide for me through the work
of fluency with our guests. Ofcourse. I'm curious if there's
any questions that are still,that still seem most
provocative to you after allthis learning. Where are you
at?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (38:16):
You know, Dan , I'll admit I'm a
little sad that this season isover. I feel like I have a ton
of questions, but I, more thananything, I'm just so excited
to see how you have kind ofevolved, should we say around
your thinking about fluency.
And I'll take it and,you know, deep diving into math

(38:37):
fact fluency is what Ienvisioned our season would be
about, and it was for the mostpart. But I also appreciated
when Jason Ziba talked aboutfluency with the count
sequence, for example, right?
What does fluency look likebeyond math facts? What does it
look like in secondary, in yourworld, Dan? I feel like there's

(38:57):
so many different directionsthat we could take the
conversation. And I, I wannakeep learning and reading about
what's happening, figuring outhow to talk about math fact
fluency. So many teachers haveopinions on it, which is great,
but how do we keep havingconversations about what is

(39:17):
actually happening in theclassrooms? And then how do we
keep building on that work? Andespecially how do we talk about
fluency work and practice in away that is affirming to our
students, and we make sure thatthe work we're doing, like you
said, is continuing to build apositive relationship with
mathematics. What about you?

Dan Meyer (39:39):
I love that. Yeah. I wanted just more examples of
everything, really. You know,like, it's one thing to get a ,
an example of a really , uh,exciting policy about fluency
or definition or a game. Um ,just want , want , want more of
all the above as I help get myown lay of the land of fluency,
all in all, a very excitingseason.

Bethany Lockhart Johnso (39:57):
Thanks for being willing to dive in,
Dan.

Dan Meyer (40:00):
Anytime . So now we're gonna move on to some
life updates from me and fromBethany. Here's the deal. This
is the final season. It's notjust the last episode of
fluency, it's the final episodeof the run of our podcast Math
teacher lounge.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (40:16):
I mean, we've said it all. We've
covered every math topicimaginable, right? Dan? So what
else could we talk

Dan Meyer (40:21):
About? We solved it . We solved it. We've done
folks, you know, ,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (40:24):
We did it. We

Dan Meyer (40:25):
Answered all the questions. What more do you
want from us? Any question youhave, any moment , uh,
throughout history, nextcentury, whatever. Just listen
to the archives. It's in there,folks, we got it for you .

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (40:33):
Dan.
Do you know that we first lookay, my kiddo is about to turn
three, right? We launched inDecember of 2020. This is
before the birth of my child.
You have, you know, in fact,you were one of the first
people I told that I waspregnant. I was like, Hey, by
the way, Dan , uh, you know,this big project we're planning

(40:55):
, uh, we're gonna need to likeschedule some . I mean,
this is big Dan. We've been ineach other's lives for three
years. Mm-Hmm, three years. Dan, how do you
feel

Dan Meyer (41:06):
About that? I'm excited to not just have a , a
, you know , a bonkers, funpodcast out this, but also to
be a , a godparent to someone'schild. I did not expect that
after , uh, when wetook on this. I'm gonna keep on
speaking, try to , trying tospeak that into existence.
Bethany , try to speak . Oh ,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (41:19):
You know, my kid loves him some,
Dan. Yeah, we

Dan Meyer (41:22):
Have some fun

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (41:22):
In just a little bit. We're gonna
tell you about some of what'snext for us, but first we wanna
pause to reflect.

Dan Meyer (41:28):
Yeah, I mean, like, it's been a , it's been a
really intellectual and funride. What , what's it been,
you know, since 2020, it's beensix seasons. We had a couple of
video seasons, four podcastseasons, 40 episodes. How many,
I got the stat right here. Howmany countries you think we ,
uh, we reach with this thing,Bethany,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (41:46):
At least two

Dan Meyer (41:47):
70 countries and territories, whoa , is what I'm
told by producer. MartinTerritories might be doing some
heavy lifting there. I'm notsure what we're counting as a
territory these days, .
Um , but that's great. Uh,yeah, a hundred thousand
podcast downloads, 2020 K videoviews. It's been really
exciting to have , uh, folksknowing that folks are out
there listening and sharingthings. And , uh, it's given us

(42:07):
a lot of incentive to do ourbest in thinking through these
issues. And it's been excitingto think through them with you
folks out there in , uh, inpodcast land , um, hearing your
comments, reading your emails,your tweets, your posts, and
all of that.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:22):
When we first started this, it was,
it . I just love how it'sevolved. I loved, I loved doing
the video seasons, but when wedived into the podcast seasons,
those were my favorite in thesense that we got to have such
more in-depth conversationswith the guests. It's been,
it's really fun to see how it'sevolved.

Dan Meyer (42:38):
It's been great to be a part of your, your , uh,
your drive time. Uh, instead ofjust your , uh, your video
watching time. Let's

Bethany Lockhart Johns (42:43):
Include a clip from our very first
episode. Dan.

Dan Meyer (42:48):
Hey folks, my name is Dan Meyer from Desmos.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:51):
And I'm Bethany Lockhart Johnson .
We're

Dan Meyer (42:53):
Very excited to bring to you folks a ongoing
video series called MathTeacher Lounge. And we wanna
acknowledge right off the jumpthat people have very different
, uh, have had very differentexperiences with teacher
lounges in the past.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (43:05):
The teacher lounge in school spaces
is not always a space whereconversations are safe, where
conversations are welcome. AndI've experienced both. I've
experienced teacher loungeswhere it didn't leave me
feeling recharged. It left mefeeling like, oh, I actually
just feel kind of crummy, . And then I've
experienced other teacherlounges where there people

(43:26):
brought emotion, broughtexhaustion, brought funny
stories, and you kind of justdecompressed. Yeah.

Dan Meyer (43:32):
I hope that we in this video series live up to
the , the highest potential,the highest ideals of a teacher
lounge, as you have describedit. I was ,

Bethany Lockhart Johnso (43:39):
Listen to us just starting out .

Dan Meyer (43:42):
We did it Bethany, we cooked it . I I
think that, you know, we have ,uh, been a credit to teacher
lounges and elevated the, thehighest aspirations. Can you
imagine having all the peoplethat we've had as guests, as
listeners, all in the sameteacher lounge? That'd

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (43:57):
Be amazing. Oh , man, let me tell
you. We explore topics like joyin math, math, anxiety,
technology, data science. Youdid some episodes on ai. I
mean, we interviewed guests,like classroom teachers, TikTok
Stars, university professors,and hello, we interviewed
friend of Big Bird, RosemaryTrulio from Sesame Workshop,

(44:19):
two episodes in front of a liveaudience. I mean, listeners,
thank you. Thank you forsharing this journey with us.
Dan, how has this podcastshaped your thinking? I mean,
that's not a big question,right? Like what what
would you say? Like, what'syour reflection you have on
this journey? Ooh ,

Dan Meyer (44:38):
Yeah, so much. I think just generally since
2020, I feel like myappreciation for the
sophistication of kids isthinking, especially early kid
thinking, has only grown. And,and at the same time, I've
learned so many strategies fordrawing out of kids that
sophistication. Um, you know,I've, I've always known that

(45:01):
kids don't come to classroomsas a , a blank slate for
teachers to write onto . But Ithink through your
participation here, hostingwith me and the guests that
we've brought on and the theseason themes , uh, and of
course my own, you know, lifewith a couple of roommates who
are, you know, six and under ,um, it's been just marvelous
for thinking about howsophisticated kids think about

(45:21):
these ideas in mathematics. AndI , I'd also say that some of
our guests have just reallyalerted me even more and more
to how doing math is not just a, an operational skill, but
it's, it involves aspects ofyour personhood and your
community. And it's, it'ssocial in ways that are deeply
felt, even though they aresometimes invisible and not

(45:41):
obvious on a piece of paper ora scan drawn sheet or an exam.
So those are, I think, probablya couple of the , the biggest
aspects , uh, the biggestlearnings and developments for
me. And I've been so gratefulfor both of those. What do you
think, Bethany, what's been newor newly developed for you over
these last few years?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (45:59):
For me, you know, my personal
relationship with math hasabsolutely evolved since I was
a student in an elementaryclassroom. And it continues to
evolve. So I think my time onthis podcast has really allowed
it to evolve even more. Likeyou said, seeing math in
communities , uh, folksconnection to mathematics

(46:20):
outside of the classroom,seeing math everywhere. The
way, just the deep respect Ihave for teachers, for
educators, for researchers inreally attending to students'
thinking and really lettingtheir own thinking shift as
they get new evidence and as wetry to make this subject come

(46:42):
to life for, for students. AndI think the other thing too is
how, how , like the power ofthese ideas to also change
teachers' relationships withmathematics. Because there are
so many teachers out there forwhom math is a very scary
subject. And I hope that in ourwork we have helped to make it
a little bit more accessible.
You know? And I guess the otherthing too is how accessible

(47:05):
folks are. Uh, people areexcited to talk about these
ideas. And so if there'squestions or ideas that you're
curious about, you know, it's areminder that like, we don't
have to do this in a silo, inisolation in our classroom.
There are so many folks outthere who are doing work and
wanna connect, and it's a greatreminder. And I think every

(47:26):
episode has reminded me of that

Dan Meyer (47:29):
Love that I definitely agree with the , the
generosity of our guests andeagerness to share about ideas
they're passionate about.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:37):
I wanna shout out a couple
favorite moments. I think my,one of my favorite things about
this has been talking toauthors. You know, we did a
Facebook Live series , uh, withthe authors of hands Down Speak
Out. And I love good bookstudy, so I'm excited. Like,
how can we keep that goingbeyond the podcast? Like, are
there books that other folkswanna keep talking about? And,

(47:58):
you know, I just think ourauthors for being interested in
coming on and sharing theirwork, I loved our NCTM lives. I
love talking with Dr. RosemaryTrulio about early mathematics
as a mama of a , a toddler. Andyou know, Dan, I gotta say, I
loved working with you.

Dan Meyer (48:16):
Mm . Making a heart emoji right back.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (48:18):
And there was , there was some
special moments. Dan, I'd liketo share a special moment,
actually.

Dan Meyer (48:23):
I love the spirit that, that Bethany brings, and
yeah , it's been great to checkin with you, Bethany, on what I
love talking about this withyou. It's , it's grown up. I ,
yeah, I love that. I'm learninghere. Thank you for that,
Bethany. Thank you for that.
Bethany. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for that Bethany

Bethany Lockhart John (48:36):
.
Dan, it's been a pleasure. Youare , that's welcome.

Dan Meyer (48:41):
That was special for me too. You're

Bethany Lockhart John (48:42):
Welcome, Dan. That's what I have to say.
You're welcome. . Uh ,do you have any favorite
moments you wanna share?

Dan Meyer (48:49):
No, definitely working with you has been
really special too. Bethany.
Thank you for all of all ofthis. , you really
couldn't, you couldn't do apodcast with two of me though.
'cause it's just too, it's justtoo dry. And , uh, you have
really, you know, brought outthe humanity in me, which has
been important, I think, tomake this a listenable podcast
for , uh, mass consumption.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (49:10):
That beating heart of yours. Yeah.

Dan Meyer (49:12):
. Yeah. You are the heart and I , I'm the
bile duct of the body. We callmath teacher lounge. .
Yeah. Rock on . Look,folks, I just, I just , what ,
what , where is that who weare? You

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (49:21):
Need 'em both though. You need 'em
both.

Dan Meyer (49:23):
How could you live without a bile duct? Yeah. Um,
I really enjoyed avideo episode where I got to
hang with students and do a, a,a slow reveal graph. Ooh , yes.
Um , when we interviewed Jennala about what, what this kind
of thing was this, thisactivity structure, like to
just, not just talk about it,but do, it was a pile of fun.
Um, and also, yeah, meeting,meeting our community through

(49:46):
live shows and chatting withpeople at , at live conferences
is , was a great reminder of ,um, how social , um, and
national and international, thework of math education is how
we're all kind of in this giantboat called math education
together, trying to chart acourse together. Um, so yeah,
that's what I , I loved. It wasall , all a blast. And , um,

(50:06):
I'm gonna cue up a clip rightnow where Bethany sings a
compilation of my pr I'm sorry,I'm hearing from our producer ,
uh, that knows such clipexists, but , uh, you folks all
heard it, you know, you know,well , talk to me, Bethany, if
you, if we had a , a few moreseasons here, let's drop some
breadcrumbs for the folks whomight be be picking up the

(50:27):
podcast torch behind us here.
What would you want us , uh, usto cover or to take up in a , a
future season of Math Teacherlounge if there was one?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (50:36):
Ooh .
Well, I too loved yourclassroom episode, and so I'd
love to have more classroomfootage and , uh, you know, I
think it would be cool tofollow a classroom teacher for
a season or for a , you know ,a quarter Yes . And see how
they take up a certain idea orwork with students and just see
it evolve. For me, that wouldbe really exciting. And I think

(50:58):
the other thing I'd love to do,again, I loved our videos, the
video seasons, but they were,understandably, they needed to
be short. Right? Shorterconsumption for the videos. I
would love to go back toepisodes we did with, you know,
Megan , Frankie, Jenna , Omo ,Moses. I would love to go back

(51:20):
and have longer conversations,like be able to dive into those
, those topics that they, theyjust kinda like wet our
appetites right. Uh , in thevideo form . So I'd love to go
back in and have episodes withthem and talk more about their
work. What about you? What, wehave 10 more seasons, Dan. What
, what are we talking about?

Dan Meyer (51:41):
I, I think that classroom teaching is some of
the most sophisticated workI've ever participated in or
observed. And I also think thatthat sophistication is like not
obvious sometimes to externalobservers. And so I love your
idea about following classroomteachers. I love , um, I love
how like , knowledgeableexperts can watch something

(52:02):
that seems like chaotic or notsuper sophisticated, perhaps.
Like I'm thinking about sportsor like the scrum of a football
game. And it just, it's allincomprehensible in some ways
to me not having ever played.
But the announcers up in thebooth, they have ways of making
that chaos seem orderly. Likethey'll predict what happens

(52:23):
next and they'll like wait inanticipation to see if their
predictions were correct. And Iwould love, I would love for
someone to give the sametreatment to classroom
teaching. Mm-Hmm .
to take likevideo of a classroom, which
yeah, like, might not seem likemuch is going on, or it might
not seem like anythingspectacular is there. And for
two people, I don't know , to like say, oh, check

(52:43):
that out. Did you see that moveright there ? Did you see that
? Run that tape back. I'm gonnadraw in yellow marker on the
screen. You know, and you cansee what that teacher's doing.
That's so interesting. I'd lovethat.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (52:53):
Yeah.
Debra Ball has a , an amazing ,uh, where she talks about all
of these moves within like aminute in a classroom, right?
Like the , the idea that wecould sit there and, you know,
you don't even realize as ateacher, you don't even realize
all the things that arehappening or some of those
moves, you get so fluent withsome of those teacher moves
that you don't even realize youknow what you're doing. Right?

(53:15):
And so that opportunity to stepback and have somebody else
observe , I love observingthat. And uh, yeah, that'd be
awesome. You know, not tomention 10 more seasons with
you buddy.

Dan Meyer (53:25):
Yeah, that'd be a blast. Um, yeah, check out
Debra Ball's. Uh , I think it'sher 2018 A ERA talk, if I'm
hearing you right, that herideas of discretionary moments,
these micro moments whereteachers make these decisions
that seem almost invisible ornot even with like a lot of
thought. 'cause they're fluentin it, right? and uh ,

(53:45):
it just has such a huge impacton kiddos.

Bethany Lockhart John (53:48):
Exactly.
Thank you for the propercitation. Thanks buddy. Um, but
hey, guess what listeners, eventhough our time in the math
teacher lounge is coming to anend, we want to again thank you
for being a part of thiscommunity, for your listening,
for your ideas, for yourthoughts, and there are still
plenty of opportunities to hearus talking about something we

(54:09):
love, which is math. So we aregonna be hosting a whole series
of webinars about the future ofmath in our, Dan and I, our ,
our home state of California.

Dan Meyer (54:19):
Yeah, those sessions are gonna be , uh, hot and fun
and they're gonna include like,what's the big idea about big
ideas, which is a , a key partof the math framework developed
here in California. That'llfeature Jason Ziba. We'll have
sessions on building equity andengagement in California's math
classrooms, which is for suregonna be useful for every math

(54:40):
classroom and how to addressstudents with authentic tasks
and also thinking aboutproblem-based learning with you
in your K12 classroom. There's, uh, several sessions that
will be , uh, just full of ,uh, meat and spice and really
useful for everybody for sure.
Find out more and register forthose at amplify.com/ca. Math

(55:01):
webinars, all one word. Andthere's other projects on the
horizon too.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (55:07):
Dan, you are gonna be part of
March's Math Symposium, MarchMadness. The March Math
Symposium from Amplify DesmosMath is coming. It's a free
virtual professionaldevelopment symposium and it's
gonna focus on curiosity driveninstruction, bolstering student
agency and building mathproficiency for life. That's

(55:30):
all gonna be on March 12th. Youcan find out more info about
the [e-mail] slash2024 Math Symposium, all one
word, and we'll, we'll makesure to have links to all these
upcoming events in the shownotes.

Dan Meyer (55:45):
And we'll also post updates in our Facebook group,
math teacher lounge, thecommunity, make sure you folks
keep , uh, an eye on Amplifypodcast hub and on Science of
Reading the podcast. We'll beshowing up there for future
math related content. You canfollow all of that at
amplify.com/hub.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (56:02):
You can also keep up with both of
us personally on X , formerlyknown as Twitter. Dan is at DD
Meyer and I'm at lockhart eduand we hope to see you all at
future conferences at theseupcoming events and webinars.
We so appreciate you. Thank youso much for listening and

(56:23):
joining us in the lounge.

Dan Meyer (56:25):
Don't be a stranger, folks. Take care. Bye.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (56:27):
Wait, let's cheers. Cheers

Dan Meyer (56:29):
Folks.