September 30, 2025 • 55 mins
What if the future of math education blends joy, rigor, and teacher voice—with professional learning that meets educators where they are? We open with a lighthearted celebration of International Podcast Day and a look back at how radio paved the way for the on‑demand world. Then we sit down with former CPM executive director Elizabeth Coyner to trace her path from a small farm town classroom to leading a national organization through rapid growth, year‑round curriculum writing, and a seismic pivot to hybrid professional learning that stuck long after the pandemic.
Elizabeth shares what it took to build an equitable, accessible classroom solution—embedding universal design for learning, multilingual supports, and teacher-tested strategies—while navigating HR, compliance, and culture. She offers a candid and optimistic view of what’s next: time with family and grandchildren, tutoring math, and a mission to connect classroom teachers with state adoption cycles and review panels so their expertise shapes policy and materials. Her message is simple and powerful: the people closest to students should help design the system.
If you care about meaningful math learning, hybrid PD that respects teacher time, and a culture where students feel seen and capable, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review telling us one change you’ll try to spark more joy in your math classroom.
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:17):
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast, an outreach of CPMeducational program.
Boom.
SPEAKER_05 (00:31):
September the 30th.
It's the last day of September.
Because you know, there's thelittle poem to help you
remember.
Thirty days half September.
SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
Mmm.
That's the first one in thatpoem.
SPEAKER_05 (00:42):
It is.
Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_03 (00:43):
Yeah.
And it's it's kind I don't know.
I I I would like to clarify thlast day of September 2025,
because there will be otherSeptember.
SPEAKER_05 (00:53):
I understand.
I was like, there's still only30 days of September in 2026.
But I understand what you'resaying.
Yes.
Last day of September for thisSeptember, this occurrence of
September.
Correct.
Glad we've clarified that sothat people aren't worried.
Oh no, there's no moreSeptember's forever.
Yeah.
unknown (01:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_05 (01:10):
We would be causing all kinds of panic.
So what is the day for this 30thof September?
SPEAKER_03 (01:18):
And probably the next 30th of September also, but
you are listening right now onthis day.
You are already celebratingbecause it's International
Podcast Day.
SPEAKER_05 (01:30):
Wow.
Look at us.
SPEAKER_03 (01:32):
Or celebrating the.
SPEAKER_05 (01:33):
I mean, we would be celebrating if we were recording
this on September 30th.
We'll pretend that we are.
Though that would be magical.
I think people are pretty muchover the over the illusion that
podcasts are recorded on the dayand time that they're actually
launched.
Do you think?
If they aren't, sorry.
I've burst your bubble on thestreet.
SPEAKER_03 (01:51):
Spoiler, you should at least do an announcement,
announcement, announcementalert.
SPEAKER_05 (01:56):
Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, by the way,
podcasts not live most of thetime.
SPEAKER_06 (02:01):
Hmm.
SPEAKER_05 (02:02):
Anyway, so it's International Podcast Day, where
you know, some people might berecording a podcast on this
particular day.
SPEAKER_03 (02:09):
True.
SPEAKER_05 (02:09):
Some might be listening to a podcast that was
recorded on different days onthis day.
Either way.
SPEAKER_03 (02:15):
Those are two of the three ways you could celebrate
today is to find a podcast tolisten to or create your own.
SPEAKER_05 (02:21):
Uh huh.
SPEAKER_03 (02:21):
So those are two.
SPEAKER_06 (02:22):
There you go of the three.
SPEAKER_03 (02:24):
There's three?
Yeah, the third one is to donateto your favorite producer.
I don't know why it says that.
Nor nor am I solicitingdonations.
But that's the third.
That's the third suggestion.
SPEAKER_05 (02:38):
Wow.
SPEAKER_03 (02:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (02:39):
I I wondering who sponsors International Podcast
Day now.
I think that is I think that isevident.
SPEAKER_03 (02:47):
Clearly.
Clearly.
That's funny.
No, I think about it actuallyjust looking at the calendar,
looking at the day.
And we are living in a timewhere technology has changed.
Like I'm thinking radio, I'mthinking theater, I'm thinking
all these things.
(03:07):
And to me, I it's probably notdeemed podcast, but Prairie Home
Companion, not a Minnesota, wasalways a radio show.
But that feels kind of like anentertainment podcast idea that
podcast was probably built offof.
SPEAKER_05 (03:23):
Are those kind of podcast was definitely built off
the idea of like there wereradio shows, there were news
programs, there were radioprograms of various kinds.
They became like talk radioprograms.
And at some point people werelike, I don't have to look, I
don't want to listen to that inthe moment.
Sure.
And I and like, you know, theydidn't have a like Revo for TiVo
(03:45):
or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_03 (03:47):
Revo.
Yes.
SPEAKER_05 (03:48):
So that was what podcasting became.
Yes.
We're in we're in Revo.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I think did you would youremember when you first became
aware of podcasts?
Um don't say yesterday.
SPEAKER_03 (04:03):
No, it wasn't yesterday.
But at this like uh I'm tryingto think, like it didn't feel
out of the realm of the radiothing I already did or the TV
thing I already did.
Like it kind of just blended in,so it doesn't stand out to me as
a momentous awareness moment.
SPEAKER_05 (04:22):
Well, I I mean I remember like like the first
podcasts I became like I that Iever started listening to.
I was gonna say listening to orwatching, but that didn't make
any sense.
I mean you can watch them now.
Yes.
Some, not ours.
The I I I remember like likeradio, I think was one of the
first ones that I kind of becameaware of and liked, but it was
(04:45):
also a repeat of what I waslistening to on the radio.
Like a lot of the NPR ones thatI started listening to, where
you could listen to them live orand then they were also the
podcast, right?
So it was like it was it'd be Ithink it really does feel like
for me, it started as a replayof live radio.
Oh, the other one that I alwayslistened to, oh, what was it
called?
Was uh vinyl cafe.
(05:06):
That one I listened to a lot.
It's just I don't think that'son anymore.
But it was a storytelling show,like this guy told stories and
they had artists and variousthings, but it was it was a
recording of a live productionthat then was the podcast.
So I feel like I feel likethat's where I started and
that's where they they all maybestarted.
SPEAKER_03 (05:24):
So like the Prairie Home Companion or the uh shoot,
I'm trying to think of one.
I think Mo Raka might have beeninvolved, but they were.
They were on stage, you bought aticket, yeah, and then they
would record and replay them.
SPEAKER_05 (05:37):
Even like um a lot of the I I can just keep saying
NPR ones, but like wait, wait,don't tell me the the who are
those car guys, the the car guycar talk, was that their name?
The two guys click and clack.
I didn't oh yeah, I didn't likelistening to them.
They were they were irritatingto me.
But that but I think that like Ithink they started as that.
(05:59):
Like you were like, Oh, I needto tune in at like five o'clock
on Sunday, and then they werejust replays.
And now then there was like theywent into the whole like you
know, true crimes and sportstalk.
I mean, there's like there's somany kinds of podcasts now.
It's so I mean there's clearlyCPM.
SPEAKER_03 (06:16):
A lot of opinion, uh opinion-oriented, right?
Too we have our ours is notopinion.
SPEAKER_05 (06:21):
No, no, we don't have opinions at all.
Ours is completely neutral,completely neutral.
SPEAKER_03 (06:26):
Like I'm thinking of like I used to stay awake on
Sundays to listen to Dr.
Demento on the radio.
I keep going back to radio, it'snot international radio show
day, but it's that's what that'sthe origin of podcasts, though,
right?
SPEAKER_05 (06:37):
It was the origin of podcasts, I think, for my
understanding of it, somebodyelse who's a better historian
than me.
Uh huh.
Right.
Like it it is, it's it's it'sthe radio part, right?
Because it's right.
I mean, only until recently youyou listened to podcasts.
You didn't watch podcasts.
Now there's this this I don't Istill it's still strange to me
to watch a podcast.
(06:58):
I don't I don't actually look atthem, I just listen to them
while they're talking.
SPEAKER_03 (07:02):
But I wonder if we should try one on on camera just
to see what people think.
SPEAKER_05 (07:06):
I don't know.
I mean, I don't even know.
Like this is gonna show myignorance, but can you watch a
podcast in the same way, likeyour same podcast?
Like if I have my like you knowmy iTunes podcast or whatever, I
can just watch it in the sameapp as I'm listening to it.
I would think so.
I don't know.
I've only ever done I've onlyever l watched podcasts on a
browser, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_03 (07:28):
But well, if you're interested in watching us, you
can write to cpm podcast atcpm.org.
SPEAKER_05 (07:34):
I know if we get if we get we get six replies, we
will do one where we'll recordourselves in just six.
SPEAKER_03 (07:43):
Well, that's a lot more than we get.
SPEAKER_05 (07:48):
I'm gonna say that's a lot more replies than we
usually get.
So there we go.
So we're setting the bar low buthigh at the same time.
SPEAKER_03 (07:58):
Too funny.
SPEAKER_05 (07:59):
All right, what are you gonna do for an
international podcast day there,Joel?
SPEAKER_03 (08:02):
Um, I might try and find a podcast.
SPEAKER_05 (08:06):
Like a new you mean any podcast?
You could find ours, or just anew podcast.
SPEAKER_03 (08:11):
A new one, yeah.
A new one.
A new one.
Like just investigate, maybefind something, and then invest
the time to listen.
SPEAKER_05 (08:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (08:19):
That's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_03 (08:20):
How about you?
SPEAKER_05 (08:21):
And I'm gonna get this podcast ready and launch
it.
And then uh yeah.
No, I like I like that idea.
I'm I used to listen to podcastsa lot before the pandemic, and
then I just kind of stoppedbecause I wasn't traveling,
because that was a place Ilistened to them, and I I think
I I think I should find some newones.
SPEAKER_02 (08:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (08:39):
So there you go.
Makes sense to me.
Uh listen to this rest of thispodcast and then go find a new
one.
SPEAKER_03 (08:45):
Love it.
SPEAKER_05 (09:03):
Okay.
Well, we're very excited todaybecause we have Elizabeth Coiner
on the podcast with us.
And Elizabeth's in this, I'mgonna say, describe this as this
liminal space right now, whereshe she was Joel and I as
executive director, executivedirector of CPM for a number of
years.
We're gonna learn some moreabout that.
(09:24):
And now she's in this placewhere she's consulting and
helping us uh before she movesoff into you know, spending a
bunch of time with grandbabies,I think is her plan.
But we'll find out what her planis.
So welcome to the podcast,Elizabeth.
Welcome.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Awesome.
So why don't you can you startby just sort of telling us a
(09:44):
little bit about your CPM story?
All the way back?
How as far back as you feelcomfortable?
However, far, how far far you'reyou're in control here.
SPEAKER_04 (09:54):
Um, I am a fellow of the Northern California Math
Project at UC Davis.
And I happened to be a at theend of my third year of
teaching, which is the youngestuh time where you could apply
and be accepted into theprogram, and you had to have a
recommendation from anotherfellow.
(10:14):
And I taught at a little farmschool where I was the entire
math and some years the entirescience department.
And um, my eighth graders weretalking about bumblebees in
class.
And it was only one group ofeighth graders because there
were three feeder schools in asmall farm town, South Sutter
(10:35):
County, had three schooldistricts for K-8.
And so I called their eighthgrade teacher and I said, Your
kids are talking aboutbumblebees, and I don't
understand what those are.
So she said, Well, how about Icome up and talk to you?
And um, she explained thatbumblebees were her um black and
yellow counters for teachinginteger operations in middle
(10:58):
school.
And the kids would color themblack and yellow, and they
thought it looked likebumblebees when they were
circling their zero pairs,they'd have their little wings.
So though the students couldn'ttell me what the bumblebees
were, she could.
And she had learned that my mathclass was pretty much strictly
lecture.
Uh, I do, you do, we do.
(11:19):
Oh, wait, that's not the rightorder.
I do, we do.
You try to do.
And so um she told me about thisopportunity and she said she'd
like to sponsor my application.
So I put it in and you had tosubmit your best lesson that
you'd ever written.
So I did a math lesson, and thenI sent a chemistry physics
(11:42):
lesson too, because you have tobe way more creative in a small
school science lab.
Yeah.
And I got accepted and we had agreat time.
And I learned what algebra tileswere.
Mary Laycock came and talked tous, and the director of the
project that year was KenJohnson because Judy Kish was
(12:04):
across the hall working with theteam that was uh going through
their field test of math one,the original series.
And Karen Wootton was over thereas a master's student who was
helping them edit.
And Susan Hoffmeier was in themath project with me.
So I met some longtime CPM namesyou know that summer.
SPEAKER_06 (12:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (12:26):
Yeah.
And the eighth grade teacher AnnSims, who's now in Utah, and
Susan were at separate K-8s, andthey got permission to be a
partner.
And because I didn't have a mathteaching colleague at my school,
they agreed to adopt me.
So I got to participate.
SPEAKER_03 (12:44):
Very cool.
SPEAKER_04 (12:45):
And so that's how it got started.
And then as we were spreadingfrom the Sacramento area south,
I got to serve as a teacherleader and to pitch the program
places and do sessions at CMCNorth.
And um, then we were writing anupdate and an edit, and I just
got involved.
And you can fast forward to, youknow, three generations later
(13:08):
later, where we're doing, youknow, connections.
We started the middle schoolprogram when I shifted to middle
school.
Then I came back to high schooland I wanted all middle school
teachers on the middle schoolwriting program.
So I didn't participate.
And then I learned a lot of highschool teachers did.
So that was hard.
But I sent my daughter Hannah,and she served as an assistant
(13:30):
uh from the high school kids todraw pictures and put things in
Word and check solutions.
And our longtime uh employees,Eli Mirabel and Carmen De La
Cruz, were part of that crew.
So we've literally watched themmature in their careers, which
has been fun and fascinating.
(13:50):
And I taught 10 years in highschool, 10 years in middle
school, and then went back tohigh school teaching.
But I went to Christian BrothersHigh School where Brian Howie
and my husband, Scott Queiner,were teaching.
And um, it was great.
But Brian announced he wasretiring and he said, Can you
come over for dinner?
(14:11):
And I said, Sure.
And the whole family went and weshowed up and they said, Oh,
this was just for you, not thefamily.
SPEAKER_07 (14:17):
Oh, that's been a good thing.
SPEAKER_04 (14:18):
So we had a nice dinner anyway, and Scott and the
girls played with Kathy Hoey,and he said, I've got a
proposition for you.
And so Brian and I startedworking together um after school
in the evenings, et cetera, andit transitioned into me being
the executive director.
unknown (14:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (14:38):
So what year was that?
What year did you become theexecutive director?
I officially became theexecutive director at the
February board meeting in 2014.
SPEAKER_07 (14:46):
Okay.
unknown (14:47):
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (14:48):
So it 11 a little more over eleven years.
SPEAKER_03 (14:52):
Yeah.
That's cool.
SPEAKER_05 (14:55):
Yeah, and we were a little tough.
That's been quite a journey foryou.
Yeah.
We were we were small then.
SPEAKER_03 (15:01):
Still.
SPEAKER_05 (15:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:02):
Well, I I remember joining CPM in 2015, and uh you
were um I I don't know what theright word is, onboarding the
new teacher leaders or whateverat when we were in Denver for
our SO.
I I don't even know what thatacronym stands for.
Summer Institute.
(15:23):
Thank you.
But the uh I just remember yousharing that story of, yeah,
this is my for in my first yearof being the executive director
and all that sort of thing.
So I have that memory of you.
SPEAKER_04 (15:36):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (15:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (15:37):
Um, I remember meeting you there, and we had no
HR department and onboardingteacher leaders as our program
had grown the popularity of theCore Connections 2 series.
Teacher leaders were seasonalemployees, and we would offboard
them on April 30th andre-onboard them on May 1st.
(16:00):
That's the PL season as opposedto the school year season, which
is July to the end of June.
And um, you know, most teacherleaders worked between four days
in the summer to 16 days thatthey got involved with two
series.
And so it took a lot of teacherleaders to pull that off.
And some years we wereonboarding 400 teacher leaders.
SPEAKER_07 (16:22):
Wow.
SPEAKER_04 (16:22):
That's a lot of personnel folders, a lot of
welcome letters, a lot of thankyou letters.
It was crazy.
And um Debbie Jacobs is a anamazing director of business
administration and to pull allof that off.
And, you know, independentcontractors, you guys are you
(16:43):
guys, the teacher leaders werenot independent contractors.
And so we had to change a lot ofthe things for employment law
compliance.
SPEAKER_07 (16:53):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (16:54):
And I think that was one of the hardest things is
change takes time and change ishard, right?
And everybody wants thisorganization to keep moving
forward until all of a suddenone of those changes disrupts
their routines and there's ahiccup.
And you gotta take a pause andtake a breath and not be afraid
(17:17):
to go back and say, okay, whyare we doing this?
It's so that we can maintain ourstatus and keep things going.
And now we have an amazing HRdepartment that's taking on that
reign.
SPEAKER_06 (17:32):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04 (17:33):
And I'll tell you, it's a real blessing of working
with the business professionalsand our dev team that have been
so committed.
It's the dev and the ed techteams that are so committed to
the program, and they're justgenuinely good people.
And then teachers, there's noissues that regular employers
(17:54):
have to worry about.
You know, my sister-in-law is adirector of Medicaid, Medicare,
and you know, she had the wholeorganization underneath her, but
she had a lot of administrativesupport.
But the bottom line is whenyou're at the top, you are
responsible for all of theunhappy people and um I'll say
(18:16):
problematic people, and we don'thave problems, you know.
CPMers care about kids andquality education.
SPEAKER_03 (18:22):
Yeah.
So I guess I would say ingeneral, we're happy people.
I think we're happy to be here,right?
Like that feels good that be ina place like that.
SPEAKER_05 (18:32):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (18:32):
That's a tribute to you and your leadership.
SPEAKER_05 (18:34):
Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (18:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (18:37):
Creating a creating a space where, you know, that
really attracts people who arepassionate about what we're
doing and and and you know,fostering that mission, right?
There's a lot of business piecesto the mission which are hard
and challenging and not alwaysfun.
And balancing that and keepingthat mission going so that we
(18:57):
can all keep seeing that missionas we're moving forward is is a
challenging job that you've donewell for a number of years.
Well, thank you.
Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04 (19:08):
You know, we went to a full-time writing team who
could work year-round becausethe comprehensive nature of our
curriculum is so impressive.
I should say our classroomsolution is robust and complete.
But it was writers who wrote insix weeks in the summer, and
everybody who picked it up, andmanaging editors who, you know,
(19:31):
put in all the feedback.
And then the PL team workingwith their expertise, as they
said in my classroom, this iswhat's happening.
And I built this extra support.
Like, here's little cards I madeto keep the study team and
teaching strategies right at myhand.
All of those resources becameincorporated in the program.
You can't do it in six weeks andtake into account all of the
(19:54):
very important standards, youknow, universal design for
learning and embedded languagesupports.
And multilingual learners, it'sso exciting that we're not the
only ones talking about it.
Math was hard for everybody.
So we always made it inviting,approachable, equitable, and
(20:16):
accessible in the real sensebecause math nerds can do it.
Ha ha.
But the you know, everybodyneeds a window to see where they
want to go and to see themselvesin the space.
And once you build thatrelationship, they can get in
there on the low floor and takeit to the heights.
(20:40):
And the hard part was strugglingwith teachers who wanted to be
involved in the professionallearning.
And when we had our eight-dayseries and districts give them
two PL days during the year, sowe some areas shifted, you know,
four summer days to five andthen took one more and one more.
(21:01):
But they were missing out on aday of full learning and people
adapting.
So I was really happy when welooked at the statistics and
said more teachers are missingdays at PL and they're missing
that opportunity.
So we need to change how wedeliver it to meet the teachers'
(21:24):
needs.
And we designed the style thatthere would be that hybrid
approach to professionallearning.
You guys were there along thatjourney.
SPEAKER_06 (21:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (21:34):
And then the pandemic hit, and wow.
The the high-speed gear shiftthat the professional learning
department did to support theteachers, and you have to
commend the teachers that wereon the front lines teaching for
the first time through thesewindows of Zoom or whatever
(21:55):
their platforms were.
unknown (21:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_04 (21:56):
Unbelievable.
And the pandemic ended orshifted phases, and and all of
us wanted to go back to inperson.
In person is better, but we'verun an entire virtual company,
our whole existence, waypre-pandemic.
(22:19):
And then schools still aren'tgiving teachers the opportunity.
So the power of recognizing westill need hybrid opportunities,
um, virtual in person and thevirtual on demand.
Absolutely.
It's very important.
So thanks for your work to makeit accessible to the teachers.
SPEAKER_06 (22:42):
Yeah.
It's a pleasure.
SPEAKER_05 (22:46):
So so as you now are wrapping up your term and as
executive director, and I meanthat's a long, that's a long
haul.
Eleven years is a long time touh be in that position.
We're wondering what's next foryou?
Where are you going?
What's I mean, I know you havesome new grandchildren that
you're very excited about.
SPEAKER_04 (23:06):
Um, I come from a big family.
And um um there were eight ofus, and my I have four step
brothers and sisters too, so youknow, cheaper by the dozen.
Um but the kids in my family arespread out over 21 years.
And um Scott retired fromteaching to do the bucket list
(23:28):
with his dad, and then his dadhad a cancer that became
terminal.
And um at that time we tookturns with his brother and his
sister keeping mom and dad intheir house, and his mom had
dementia and um so over thecourse of saying goodbye to
(23:56):
them, and then I had twobrothers-in-law pass away as
well.
You realize you don't know howmany tomorrow you have.
And my my siblings areapproaching the octogenarian
status.
Oh my goodness.
(24:16):
And so um our parents have beengone since 1978 and 2005 and um
Scott's brothers, sisters, mybrothers and sisters, we are you
know, the the senior generationin our family.
(24:39):
And even though I've got people21 years older than I am, we are
ready to make sure that we haveall the time we need for our
family.
SPEAKER_06 (24:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (24:49):
And it's important to be there for them.
One of the outcomes of uhoutgrowths of the pandemic for
us is because CPM had thosevirtual uh gatherings in the
evening.
I called my siblings and I said,we have to get together.
And it can't be somebody else'sfuneral, and there's no time for
(25:12):
the host at a family wedding.
So we started a Sunday Zoom callat 1:30 Pacific or 4:30 Eastern,
and we cover all the time zones,and we still get together every
single Sunday.
That's awesome.
Sometimes, like my brother's inJapan this week, so he's not
coming, or you know, I've got togo to the Air Force Academy
(25:34):
because it's my grandson'sfamily weekend.
People miss, but the family callis there, and it's really neat.
And then our family does anannual family vacation, the
O'Neill family gathering.
And with CPM, um all the otherlittle gatherings always happen
(25:54):
to coincide with a weekendmeeting or a week-long meeting,
and I don't want to miss anymore of those.
So and I have a six-year-oldgrandson and a three-year-old
grandson in Napa, and I have atwo-month-old grandson in
Oceanside.
For those of you who don't know,California, that's about a
417-mile journey between thetwo.
(26:16):
So I can't have breakfast withone and lunch with the other
back and forth daily.
Um, Scott's been the Manny forthe big boys, and he's they're
in school.
So Mary's like, it's my turn tohave grandparents.
So we've established a residenceat both ends.
Thankfully, seniors are able torent pretty much because they
(26:38):
know I'm not gonna tear up theircondo.
Or they think we're not.
And so I'm gonna spend time withfamily.
SPEAKER_03 (26:46):
I love it.
SPEAKER_04 (26:47):
Once we get the little ones to school, then I
want to go to Ireland andScotland.
SPEAKER_06 (26:52):
Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_03 (26:53):
It's a little travel.
SPEAKER_04 (26:54):
Have you been have you been to those areas before?
No, I haven't.
Oh, and my kids have gone.
They are half O'Neal, whetherthey like to admit it or not.
And uh, they all go and takepictures of themselves under all
the pars and pars, yeah, pubsand bars that have our name on
them.
SPEAKER_03 (27:12):
So of course.
SPEAKER_04 (27:13):
Yeah.
Nice, nice.
SPEAKER_05 (27:15):
Well, that sounds amazing.
Yeah, that sounds good.
That was lovely.
What a what a what a like greatnext piece to look forward to.
You know, I look forward to whenI retire.
How about you, Joel?
SPEAKER_03 (27:27):
Um, I I haven't really thought about retirement
yet.
That doesn't seem quite in myscope.
SPEAKER_04 (27:35):
It's still too far away.
Yeah.
unknown (27:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (27:37):
When I left Christian Brothers for this job,
yeah, I would uh go back to thefaculty parties where
significant others were thereand they go, Oh, yeah, you're
retired.
And I said, Oh yeah, I'mretired.
Well, you're just doing thatmath thing that you used to do
in the summer.
Yep, that's part-time thing.
SPEAKER_03 (27:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (28:00):
Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04 (28:02):
It'll be fun to be able to actually say, I'm
retired.
Yeah.
But, you know, I want tovolunteer at a school and tutor
math, you know, right there.
Show them how to usemanipulative sin.
And the beauty of where we liveat both ends of the state is
that, you know, CPM is awell-respected presence.
SPEAKER_03 (28:22):
Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_04 (28:24):
I cannot take my More Math for More People bag
into the grocery store withoutsomebody commenting.
SPEAKER_03 (28:30):
I I have a t-shirt, actually, More Math for More
People, and people comment allthe time.
They love that phrase.
You know?
Well, it sounds like you have uhbuilt a lot of uh great
memories, a lot of greatfriendships.
So moving forward in this, youjust said maybe you'd go into
the schools and tutor orsomething like that.
How how do you kind of seeyourself working with math?
(28:53):
I mean, is that is it ever gonnago away?
SPEAKER_04 (28:55):
Yeah, math won't go away.
Yeah you know, when you've gotlittle kids in the house and the
three-year-old is in the why,why, why?
Yesterday's question, why am Igetting wet?
It's raining.
SPEAKER_06 (29:10):
Yeah.
But I didn't answer it.
SPEAKER_04 (29:13):
I said, you tell me.
Well, because it's raining.
unknown (29:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (29:18):
Um it's a questioning strategy with
three-year-olds.
SPEAKER_04 (29:21):
And math is not going away.
I mean, we do a morning mathproblem with the little boys,
whoever's with them everymorning, and the geometry whip
around is a staple.
You know, I have who has.
And um Calvin is doing two digitby three digit multiplication in
(29:41):
a rectangular array.
SPEAKER_07 (29:44):
Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04 (29:44):
And um I think that if there isn't an easy way to
get into um supporting mathprograms, working with kids, or
finding ways to help adults whohave that math.
Poor relationship who want toget a better relationship with
(30:05):
math for themselves and thosethey love because they see the
importance.
I think it's important to umreally continue to support
literacy because you have to beable to read and you have to
understand data in order tocontribute to society.
But being involved with theCalifornia adoption and they put
(30:27):
out a call for teachers, andteachers are passionate about
high-quality instructionalmaterials.
But I don't think that there'senough of a connection between
the people who care aboutwriting the curriculum and
individual teachers who don'tsee those notices because they
(30:49):
go to the district office andthen they get filtered around
and the average teacher doesn'tthink that's for me.
And I think that we need to sothis is one of the areas I want
to help with.
Yeah.
We need to have a way to takethose informational calls for
review panels, for um give yourinput on changes to standards or
(31:12):
frameworks or pedagogy pedagogyguidelines or what's in the
frameworks so that classroomteachers who know what kids need
and know how kids respondpositively know that their
expertise has a role in the inthe process.
(31:34):
So I want to stay on top of thestate adoption cycle, and I know
that through my career I learnedabout some of the big districts,
but the teachers who would neversay, I want to be on that
committee, or I would like toshare what I know so that more
(31:55):
students can benefit, I want tosee how I can help to facilitate
that communication.
And I think that it may meanspeaking up at affiliate
organizations and continuing tobe present in the math circles.
I think a lot of universityprofessors are passionate about
(32:18):
the field of mathematics, butthey don't really know how what
the opportunities are in the TKthrough 12 sphere.
So helping bridge that gap andlet them know that their
interaction with the umgrassroots teachers are very
(32:40):
important.
SPEAKER_03 (32:41):
Absolutely.
Well, that'll be great.
SPEAKER_05 (32:44):
Yeah, and it I it sounds like you're really well
positioned and passionate aboutthat, so I can see that really
working for you.
Well that's about all the timewe have for today.
We really appreciate you comingon and telling us your story and
talking about your passion andyour time at CPM and and and you
(33:06):
know getting getting to know youa little bit better.
I've known you forever.
And I and I have reallyappreciated working with you, so
thank you.
Well, thank you.
For all you've done.
It's really been a honor.
Yeah.
We hope to see you at theteacher conference, right?
You'll you'll be a legacy membernow.
You can come back to the teacherconference anytime, so we hope
(33:27):
to see you there.
SPEAKER_04 (33:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (33:28):
Anna every year.
SPEAKER_04 (33:29):
It's it's a very impressive thing for teachers to
come connect with other teacherswho know the value of the
program.
And if there's a teacher whoremembers that or is listening
to this podcast because mathcame up and they're not a CPM
teacher, they should come checkit out.
SPEAKER_07 (33:51):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (33:52):
I agree.
SPEAKER_05 (33:52):
Absolutely.
It's gonna be great.
Well, enjoy this next enjoy thisnext chapter.
Oh, thank you very much.
I will.
SPEAKER_03 (34:00):
Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_05 (34:20):
One from our teacher researcher, Andy Peterson
Longmore, and one from Chivo,one of our ABP participants.
Enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
Hi, so I'm Andy Peterson Longmore.
I am a teacher in the Nina JointSchool District, and I'm a part
of TRC 12.0.
So, in case you didn't catch thefirst segment of the podcast, I
am in my third year as a memberof the TRC.
Uh, this year I am doing a studyon joy in the math classroom,
specifically for high schoolstudents.
(34:51):
Since what we find is mostlystudents who are at a high
school level are kind of putinto classes where they don't
get to experience joy or havefun.
We're just looking for ways thatwe can make this so much better
for them and make maybe inincrease learning.
So now that I'm actually into myschool year, my classes this
year, I have actually had achange.
So last year I was in geometryand algebra two.
(35:13):
I had two algebra twos and threegeometries.
We had some retirements andmovement in our department.
So I took on algebra one thisyear for the first time in
probably three or four years,along with algebra two.
So I have two classes of algebraone, 23 and 24 kids
respectively.
And then my algebra two classes,I've got three of those, 27, 31,
and 24 kids.
Um, our population here in Ninais pretty suburban white bred, I
(35:38):
like to say.
We have a mostly uh white middleclass population.
Um, we do have some changes tothat population.
We're seeing a lot more studentsof color move in, which has been
a really nice change for us, anda lot of students with a lower
income.
Um, so we're just kind ofnavigating some of those
changes.
Now, with my study, we'relooking at joy.
(36:00):
And what our team decided on wasour first innovation is going to
be the culture of joy in aclassroom.
So, how do we build that cultureof joy?
And one of the things that Istarted doing during my study is
a little bit of like randomsampling from my classes.
So I choose three students outof each class and I choose them
either at at random using asmany different random ways that
I could come up with.
(36:20):
So one time I did a randomnumber generator by last name.
One time I put cards on thetable, and then the first kid at
that table to pick up the cardwas the one I chose.
Sometimes I go in order byheight and I ask them to stand
up and decide how tall they areto organize each other by
height, and then I pick threerandom kids out of that.
Um, and I use those kids to justanswer my quick survey questions
on different things.
(36:41):
So one of the questions I askedthem about was how are they
seeing, how are they getting joyin their other classes?
So if it's not in this roomspecifically, but maybe a
previous math class or adifferent class that you have or
had in the past, what makesthose classes fun and exciting
and joyful for you?
And what kind of came out in ourschool was most of our students
(37:02):
really love their social studiesclasses.
So I started to dig into that alittle bit and see if I could
come up with what is it that isreally making them love those
classes and how can we harnessthat in a math classroom?
So is it like the things thatthey're doing?
Is it the things they're talkingabout?
Whatever we could come up withto see what's what's bringing
this joy for them.
And one of the things thatstarted to come out as I started
(37:24):
to dig into this a little bitmore and ask more questions
about it and speak to theteachers even students really
loved the performance taskaspect of social studies classes
or the simulation part of thosesocial studies classes.
Our social studies departmenthere really leverages a lot of
different ways of makingstudents get involved in the in
(37:45):
the history.
So they do a simulation of aparticular battle, I believe,
where they have the students inthe classroom and they use like
dice to represent what'shappening and stuff like that.
So it almost becomes like agiant DD battle, which is kind
of fun.
They have things where they'llhave the students uh represent
different classes of peoplethroughout history and talk
(38:05):
about like, well, now thatyou're in this class, these are
the things that are happening toyou, these people are in this
class, this is what's happeningto them, and then have the
students have a discussion asthough it was their own life.
And students really, really seemto enjoy being forced into that
like immersive situation.
So I was trying to come up withways to bring that into our
classroom.
But the other thing thatstudents talked a lot about was
(38:27):
just that culture that exists inthose social studies classes.
So there's a lot of discussion,there's a lot of movement,
there's a lot of play on wordsand like intelligent jokes that
are happening in those classesthat they really seem to love.
So when I was thinking about theculture of joy as our first
innovation in the mathclassroom, I was trying to build
on those same ideas.
So, how can we bring in thatdiscussion type atmosphere that
happens in a social studiesclassroom?
(38:49):
How can we harness the movementidea that happens in a social
studies classroom?
Those jokes and things likethat.
So, for discussion, some of thethings that the students really
liked was this idea of more freediscussion that happens in
social studies than it does inmath.
So, what they meant by that as Istarted to dig into it a little
bit more is that the teacherisn't necessarily calling on
(39:12):
students in the class.
A lot of times they present thediscussion and then let the
students talk and interjectperiodically.
So there isn't really any handraising.
So I thought I would give that atry in my classes and just see
how that went this time and seehow students perceived it.
So far it's going really well.
Students really seem to likethat model because they don't
feel quite as scared to raisetheir hand or to be to like int
(39:36):
interject in the conversation.
But I have had a few surveyresponses from my students when
I'm asking them about it.
It seems to be hit or miss.
So what I'm noticing in myresearch is that the girls in my
class tend to not like it asmuch as the boys do, which I
thought was a really interestingkind of trend.
So that's going to be somethingI'm digging into over the next
(39:57):
couple of weeks and figuring outwhat is it about this particular
model that works really well forthe male students in my class
and doesn't work as well for thefemale students of my class.
And is there a way for us tomitigate that?
They really like the movement.
And as we all know, buildingthinking classrooms is a huge
idea in the math world rightnow, particularly within CPM as
well.
So obviously we have thevertical non-permanent white
(40:18):
spaces that we're using andstuff like that, but we're
trying to go even further withthis movement idea since that's
what they're doing in thesesocial studies classes that
these students really seem tolove.
So I'm working on building inmovement in different ways
that's purposeful.
So not just getting up andstretching because we're getting
up and stretching, but is therea way for us to move while we're
doing math that allows for, thatallows for better learning?
(40:40):
And I haven't come up withanything that's worked really,
really well yet.
We've just been trying out somedifferent things like word
association.
So if we're talking about slope,students are always doing the
same motion with their hand torepresent slope.
When we're talking aboutparabolas, they're always
showing that motion with theirhand to kind of represent a
parabola.
And that seems to be workingokay, but I still want to do a
(41:02):
little bit more with this.
And then the jokes, that's beensomething that I mean, we all
love our math dad jokes andstuff like that.
So that's been kind of a funpart to try and bring into this.
Uh, we have one interventionistin our department that really
loves the dad joke.
So I've been asking him to kindof offer up some suggestions if
he can.
So he leaves them on the boardand stuff for me.
(41:23):
And the students seem to reallyenjoy that.
I'm a little worried about thatin the long term just because I
don't want it to become a boringthing or something that students
don't really enjoy over the longterm.
So we're trying to figure outwhat the sweet spot is in terms
of how many of those should webe having a week, a month, or
how many times we should kind ofput it off to the side.
(41:46):
Thinking about what's comingnext for our project, we're
gonna be talking a lot aboutperformance tasks and projects.
So, like I said, thoseperformance tasks that exist in
the social studies world arethings that the students really,
really love and that they learna lot about and that they talk a
lot about.
I happen to coach debate.
So I have communication with allof my students who graduated
over the last several years, andI asked them, you know, what are
(42:08):
the things that you remembermost about your high school
experience?
Not just like being in the highschool, but specific classes
that you remember and you reallyenjoyed.
And almost every single one ofthem referenced at least one
social studies class period thatthey enjoyed.
So then we talked about what arethose things and how did those
lessons happen and how can we dothat?
So then I also started to thinkback.
(42:28):
I happened to be one of thoselucky people who is a math
teacher who also had CPM as astudent when I was in high
school at Ashwabanan highschool.
So I was thinking back to my ownexperience.
And when I was at Ashwabanan, weused to do certain big problems
as kind of a performance task.
So what we know is the screamernow in Algebra II used to be
called the circle of terror abajillion years ago when I was
(42:49):
in high school.
And I remember doing aperformance task around that.
So I was thinking about tryingto go back into what existed at
that time and maybe evenreaching out to my previous
teacher who still teaches atAshwavanan and see if I could
find out if they know what thatperformance task looked like and
how did they adjust the problemso that it was still the things
that we are doing, but make itmore of a performance task
(43:11):
situation than just a singularproblem in class.
Same thing could be true for Zoethe Goat in Geometry, the Blood
Lab in Algebra Two, or theBicycle Race in Algebra One.
So I'm kind of looking at howcan I take those problems that
already exist in our book thatare just really wonderful
problems that kids really enjoyand turn it into a performance
task.
That's something kids talk aboutlater on because they really
(43:32):
remember how exciting and howinteresting that was for them.
So that's kind of the route thatI'm planning to go with a lot of
our next portion of ourresearch.
And then the last piece of ourresearch that I haven't really
started to dig into yet is thisidea of like aesthetic
appreciation.
So when you look at math andpeople enjoying math, a lot of
(43:54):
what they really love to look atis the patterns and the pretty
side of math.
So we want to find a way toreally bring that into our
classroom and allow students toexperience that as man and
understand that those thingsthat they really enjoy exist or
are really essentially justmaths.
And that's just kind of where wewant to go with this.
(44:14):
So that isn't really a fleshedout idea yet, but that's
somewhere where we're planningto go.
Um, something else that I spenda lot of my time on, especially
with my research, is doing a lotof reading.
So I've been reading math-ish,as well as The Joy of X.
And let's see, what's the otherones?
Infinite powers is on my listfor next.
And then Deer Data, we've been,we used it last year, and I've
(44:35):
just been kind of re-lookingthrough all the pictures again,
trying to come up with someideas of different aesthetic
ideas that might be interestingfor us to use with our students
as we move forward.
I'm thinking that that might endup being a project that we work
on or a performance task wherestudents are given a few of the
dear data pages and that we wetalk about how you could use
that in your real life or whatthat could look like.
(44:56):
And then there was also thiskind of tangent idea that I had
about uh bullet journal, whichused to be a really huge popular
thing, I don't know, two, threeyears ago.
So that students could see likehow does that play into this
idea of aesthetic appreciation.
So those are kind of the bigpieces that we're looking at
right now.
When teachers hear that I dothis research, a lot of times
(45:16):
the question comes like, how doyou have time for that?
And how do you really, you know,how do you make time for this?
Because if you didn't know, Ihave a four-month-old son at
home who is, you know, taking upa lot of my time.
I've got a husband and a familyand things that I'm doing.
But one of the things that Ijust keep bringing it back to is
I truly believe that if you arenot learning as a teacher, that
you probably need to retire,that you're you're no longer
(45:39):
getting better.
So for me, this is just mebecoming or me being a teacher.
In order to be a good teacher, Ineed to continue learning.
And my district does a wonderfuljob of doing PLDs as much as
they can and giving us as manyopportunities to learn things as
we can.
But with a district as large asours, it's very hard to get
specific targeted professionaldevelopment, especially for just
(46:00):
one department at a high schoolwhen we have 600 teachers in our
district.
So they give us professionaldevelopment that tends to be a
lot more generic and basedaround everybody as opposed to
just one department.
So, this is my way of gettingthat learning that I crave and
that I seek, but on a moretargeted, specific level of
something that I'm reallyinterested in.
(46:22):
Mike is one of the people that Iwork with as part of our
research team.
And we were talking last timethat I met with the uh
leadership about what I can doto be better about making sure
I'm like actually doing this anddoing it well.
And one of the things we talkedabout was just recording down
your own thoughts, almost likeum in your phone or something
(46:42):
like that.
So just on your drive home, justrecording everything that you're
thinking about for your researchso that when you get home, you
can just AI your notes out ofthat and then add it into our
reflection document that we useeach week to record our data.
And that's been something I'vebeen trying to leverage a little
bit more as a way of using mytime effectively.
So I've only got about a15-minute drive from school to
(47:04):
home.
And if I use that twice a weekto just record my thoughts, it's
a really nice way to get areally clear picture of what's
going on in my classroom.
What are the things I could begetting data on, all of those
kinds of things.
And I've tested out a coupledifferent ways to transcribe
those notes, and not all of themhave been great.
So I'm working on coming up withsomething that works a little
bit better for me.
I don't know if it's because Italk too fast or what.
(47:26):
Um, but getting those notes torecord hasn't been awesome.
And but saying the things outloud and then being able to
listen back to it as Itranscribe myself has been
super, super helpful.
It offers kind of like a thirdwave reflection on the whole
week that I really enjoy.
I cannot stress enough how muchI think it has improved my
teaching practice over the lastthree years as a way to really
(47:50):
become better at what I'm doing,more thoughtful about what I'm
doing, and more research focusedabout what I'm doing.
So looking ahead, um, I thinkI'm gonna spend a lot of the
next probably month or so justthinking about those projects
and performance tasks, andhopefully I'll be able to update
you in October on what thoseperformance tasks are looking
(48:14):
like.
SPEAKER_00 (48:15):
Good evening.
Is Chi checking in Salmida,California?
It's a pretty tough day todaybecause I stay up late to trying
to get our grades in for ourpowers report last night.
And um and also our internetwent out this morning with the
Google workspace outage, Iguess, across the nation.
(48:37):
So we had to do some adjustingbecause this was one of the few
days that we planned to usedeath math as a way for our
students to practice, but thatdid not happen.
So we had to kinda call Audibleand scramble a little bit to
figure out what to do for the 84minutes bock that we have.
We originally had a scavengerhunt plan for the second half,
(48:58):
so we really just needed toaccount for maybe forty, thirty
thirty to forty minutes ofactivity that would have been
top of the math.
And we ended up just practicingon a package that we got at the
beginning of the week that wouldshow up on the quiz that they
were taking today or tomorrow.
So, you know, this whole act oftrying to beat the grades, just
(49:21):
trying to beat the deadline,trying to get all the grades in,
got me thinking about, you know,give me another chance to
reflecting on what my grade bookis about and what is that
communicating to students.
I think by and large, you know,students kinda interpret grades
as their progress if they'redoing well and they're not doing
(49:41):
well.
Parents also most parents alsoare looking at, you know, these
grades as a barometer of howtheir kids is doing in class.
So, you know, it's a verypowerful tool.
But at the same time, it haslike great importance in terms
of like, you know, the future ofa tr of a student.
(50:03):
Because, you know, like if theyfeel that if they got a aid
somehow because they did all thehomework and they turned in
everything, but they don'tmaster the standards, then we
don't really set 'em up for setthem up for success in the next
class.
And also, what are we reallyteaching in um math education
then?
Are we teaching compliance orare we teaching mastery?
(50:25):
So, you know, those are thingsthat kind of come up and as I
look at my grade book, I feelthat there might be some room
for revisiting at the end of theyear, uh or even just at the end
of the semester.
Because currently my gradebookbreakdowns broken down into
summative and formativeassessments.
Uh summative assessments are of85% of the final grade, and
(50:46):
formative is 15.
And I was putting in a lot ofhomework grades, and I had
students who were strugglingthat came up to me and asked me
if I'm gonna put in those gradesfor the Povers Award and if
that's gonna bring the grade up.
And I try to explain to themthat yes, it will bring a grade
up, but having the piece ofpaper and having the 10 out of
10 on the homework, which isformative assessment, would not
(51:09):
help that much, right?
The best way to do better in theclass is to perform better on
quizzes that we have had so far.
Section weekly quizzes, whichare summative assessments for
us.
I had the debate with um Michaelteacher about, you know, should
it be summative or could it beor should it be formative?
(51:30):
And what we stand on was that,you know, the the value for us
is that yes, it gives us uhinsight about what our students
know and what we need to spendmore time on.
But also it we want to give thema little wince here and there so
that, you know, if they had agood week and they can perform
well on this quiz, then for themto see a tangible like raise in
(51:55):
their grades instead of waittill the chapel tests which
would make or break theirgrades.
Um so that was the intentionbehind using that as a summative
assessment.
And also we let them use theirnotes, their classwork as part
of the to to to use it on thequiz.
So, you know, there there'sthere's enough there for us to
(52:16):
feel justified about it beingsummative assessment.
What happened a lot this pastweek was up until Wednesday was
these conversations about, hey,you know, are you gonna put
these grades in?
Is that gonna bring my grade up?
And the question is yes, andyes.
But the thing is, how much arewe bringing these grades up?
Right?
I try to have conversations withindividual students who are
(52:39):
maybe failing the class rightnow because they have done very
badly on the quizzes.
But the reason why they performso badly is because during class
time they're not participatingor they're being distracted by
the friends or whoever else, andyou know, therefore perform
really badly on the quizzes.
And hopefully we're early on inthe semester where that can be a
(52:59):
lesson for us that you know weneed to do better during class
time.
But I don't know.
I don't know how much of thatcome across at 14 year old that
you tell them like what you dotoday or what you do at the
beginning of the week would beimportant for us on the at the
end of the week kind of thing.
(53:20):
So anyways, that's somethingwe're trying this semester, me
and my co-teacher partner, andum we'll report back about the
usefulness of these quizzes.
I think that's it for today.
I gotta go to our ABP share out.
So I'll catch you guys nextweek.
SPEAKER_05 (53:46):
So that is all we have time for on this episode of
the More Math for More Peoplepodcast.
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
media, find our links in thepodcast description.
And the music for the podcastwas created by Julius H.
It can be found on pixabay.com.
So thank you very much, Julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
(54:09):
More People.
What day will that be, Joel?
SPEAKER_03 (54:12):
It'll be October 14th.
And we will be celebrating AdaLovelace Day.
We celebrate on this day.
It's a celebration of women inscience and STEM careers.
And Ada was the daughter of LordByron Loveless and is known as
(54:34):
the first person to recognizethe potential of early computers
and published what is knowntoday as an algorithm.
Before most others, Loveless hadrecognized that computers could
do more than simple numbercrunching, opening the door to
complex functions and usheringthe modern era of computing, and
bringing in that computer age.
(54:55):
And so it reminds me too of thisAI discussion we're having,
calculators, of course, and wewill discuss it all.
October 14th for 80 LovelessDay.
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast, an outreach of CPMeducational program.
Boom.
SPEAKER_05 (00:31):
September the 30th.
It's the last day of September.
Because you know, there's thelittle poem to help you
remember.
Thirty days half September.
SPEAKER_03 (00:40):
Mmm.
That's the first one in thatpoem.
SPEAKER_05 (00:42):
It is.
Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_03 (00:43):
Yeah.
And it's it's kind I don't know.
I I I would like to clarify thlast day of September 2025,
because there will be otherSeptember.
SPEAKER_05 (00:53):
I understand.
I was like, there's still only30 days of September in 2026.
But I understand what you'resaying.
Yes.
Last day of September for thisSeptember, this occurrence of
September.
Correct.
Glad we've clarified that sothat people aren't worried.
Oh no, there's no moreSeptember's forever.
Yeah.
unknown (01:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_05 (01:10):
We would be causing all kinds of panic.
So what is the day for this 30thof September?
SPEAKER_03 (01:18):
And probably the next 30th of September also, but
you are listening right now onthis day.
You are already celebratingbecause it's International
Podcast Day.
SPEAKER_05 (01:30):
Wow.
Look at us.
SPEAKER_03 (01:32):
Or celebrating the.
SPEAKER_05 (01:33):
I mean, we would be celebrating if we were recording
this on September 30th.
We'll pretend that we are.
Though that would be magical.
I think people are pretty muchover the over the illusion that
podcasts are recorded on the dayand time that they're actually
launched.
Do you think?
If they aren't, sorry.
I've burst your bubble on thestreet.
SPEAKER_03 (01:51):
Spoiler, you should at least do an announcement,
announcement, announcementalert.
SPEAKER_05 (01:56):
Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, by the way,
podcasts not live most of thetime.
SPEAKER_06 (02:01):
Hmm.
SPEAKER_05 (02:02):
Anyway, so it's International Podcast Day, where
you know, some people might berecording a podcast on this
particular day.
SPEAKER_03 (02:09):
True.
SPEAKER_05 (02:09):
Some might be listening to a podcast that was
recorded on different days onthis day.
Either way.
SPEAKER_03 (02:15):
Those are two of the three ways you could celebrate
today is to find a podcast tolisten to or create your own.
SPEAKER_05 (02:21):
Uh huh.
SPEAKER_03 (02:21):
So those are two.
SPEAKER_06 (02:22):
There you go of the three.
SPEAKER_03 (02:24):
There's three?
Yeah, the third one is to donateto your favorite producer.
I don't know why it says that.
Nor nor am I solicitingdonations.
But that's the third.
That's the third suggestion.
SPEAKER_05 (02:38):
Wow.
SPEAKER_03 (02:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (02:39):
I I wondering who sponsors International Podcast
Day now.
I think that is I think that isevident.
SPEAKER_03 (02:47):
Clearly.
Clearly.
That's funny.
No, I think about it actuallyjust looking at the calendar,
looking at the day.
And we are living in a timewhere technology has changed.
Like I'm thinking radio, I'mthinking theater, I'm thinking
all these things.
(03:07):
And to me, I it's probably notdeemed podcast, but Prairie Home
Companion, not a Minnesota, wasalways a radio show.
But that feels kind of like anentertainment podcast idea that
podcast was probably built offof.
SPEAKER_05 (03:23):
Are those kind of podcast was definitely built off
the idea of like there wereradio shows, there were news
programs, there were radioprograms of various kinds.
They became like talk radioprograms.
And at some point people werelike, I don't have to look, I
don't want to listen to that inthe moment.
Sure.
And I and like, you know, theydidn't have a like Revo for TiVo
(03:45):
or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_03 (03:47):
Revo.
Yes.
SPEAKER_05 (03:48):
So that was what podcasting became.
Yes.
We're in we're in Revo.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I think did you would youremember when you first became
aware of podcasts?
Um don't say yesterday.
SPEAKER_03 (04:03):
No, it wasn't yesterday.
But at this like uh I'm tryingto think, like it didn't feel
out of the realm of the radiothing I already did or the TV
thing I already did.
Like it kind of just blended in,so it doesn't stand out to me as
a momentous awareness moment.
SPEAKER_05 (04:22):
Well, I I mean I remember like like the first
podcasts I became like I that Iever started listening to.
I was gonna say listening to orwatching, but that didn't make
any sense.
I mean you can watch them now.
Yes.
Some, not ours.
The I I I remember like likeradio, I think was one of the
first ones that I kind of becameaware of and liked, but it was
(04:45):
also a repeat of what I waslistening to on the radio.
Like a lot of the NPR ones thatI started listening to, where
you could listen to them live orand then they were also the
podcast, right?
So it was like it was it'd be Ithink it really does feel like
for me, it started as a replayof live radio.
Oh, the other one that I alwayslistened to, oh, what was it
called?
Was uh vinyl cafe.
(05:06):
That one I listened to a lot.
It's just I don't think that'son anymore.
But it was a storytelling show,like this guy told stories and
they had artists and variousthings, but it was it was a
recording of a live productionthat then was the podcast.
So I feel like I feel likethat's where I started and
that's where they they all maybestarted.
SPEAKER_03 (05:24):
So like the Prairie Home Companion or the uh shoot,
I'm trying to think of one.
I think Mo Raka might have beeninvolved, but they were.
They were on stage, you bought aticket, yeah, and then they
would record and replay them.
SPEAKER_05 (05:37):
Even like um a lot of the I I can just keep saying
NPR ones, but like wait, wait,don't tell me the the who are
those car guys, the the car guycar talk, was that their name?
The two guys click and clack.
I didn't oh yeah, I didn't likelistening to them.
They were they were irritatingto me.
But that but I think that like Ithink they started as that.
(05:59):
Like you were like, Oh, I needto tune in at like five o'clock
on Sunday, and then they werejust replays.
And now then there was like theywent into the whole like you
know, true crimes and sportstalk.
I mean, there's like there's somany kinds of podcasts now.
It's so I mean there's clearlyCPM.
SPEAKER_03 (06:16):
A lot of opinion, uh opinion-oriented, right?
Too we have our ours is notopinion.
SPEAKER_05 (06:21):
No, no, we don't have opinions at all.
Ours is completely neutral,completely neutral.
SPEAKER_03 (06:26):
Like I'm thinking of like I used to stay awake on
Sundays to listen to Dr.
Demento on the radio.
I keep going back to radio, it'snot international radio show
day, but it's that's what that'sthe origin of podcasts, though,
right?
SPEAKER_05 (06:37):
It was the origin of podcasts, I think, for my
understanding of it, somebodyelse who's a better historian
than me.
Uh huh.
Right.
Like it it is, it's it's it'sthe radio part, right?
Because it's right.
I mean, only until recently youyou listened to podcasts.
You didn't watch podcasts.
Now there's this this I don't Istill it's still strange to me
to watch a podcast.
(06:58):
I don't I don't actually look atthem, I just listen to them
while they're talking.
SPEAKER_03 (07:02):
But I wonder if we should try one on on camera just
to see what people think.
SPEAKER_05 (07:06):
I don't know.
I mean, I don't even know.
Like this is gonna show myignorance, but can you watch a
podcast in the same way, likeyour same podcast?
Like if I have my like you knowmy iTunes podcast or whatever, I
can just watch it in the sameapp as I'm listening to it.
I would think so.
I don't know.
I've only ever done I've onlyever l watched podcasts on a
browser, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_03 (07:28):
But well, if you're interested in watching us, you
can write to cpm podcast atcpm.org.
SPEAKER_05 (07:34):
I know if we get if we get we get six replies, we
will do one where we'll recordourselves in just six.
SPEAKER_03 (07:43):
Well, that's a lot more than we get.
SPEAKER_05 (07:48):
I'm gonna say that's a lot more replies than we
usually get.
So there we go.
So we're setting the bar low buthigh at the same time.
SPEAKER_03 (07:58):
Too funny.
SPEAKER_05 (07:59):
All right, what are you gonna do for an
international podcast day there,Joel?
SPEAKER_03 (08:02):
Um, I might try and find a podcast.
SPEAKER_05 (08:06):
Like a new you mean any podcast?
You could find ours, or just anew podcast.
SPEAKER_03 (08:11):
A new one, yeah.
A new one.
A new one.
Like just investigate, maybefind something, and then invest
the time to listen.
SPEAKER_05 (08:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (08:19):
That's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_03 (08:20):
How about you?
SPEAKER_05 (08:21):
And I'm gonna get this podcast ready and launch
it.
And then uh yeah.
No, I like I like that idea.
I'm I used to listen to podcastsa lot before the pandemic, and
then I just kind of stoppedbecause I wasn't traveling,
because that was a place Ilistened to them, and I I think
I I think I should find some newones.
SPEAKER_02 (08:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (08:39):
So there you go.
Makes sense to me.
Uh listen to this rest of thispodcast and then go find a new
one.
SPEAKER_03 (08:45):
Love it.
SPEAKER_05 (09:03):
Okay.
Well, we're very excited todaybecause we have Elizabeth Coiner
on the podcast with us.
And Elizabeth's in this, I'mgonna say, describe this as this
liminal space right now, whereshe she was Joel and I as
executive director, executivedirector of CPM for a number of
years.
We're gonna learn some moreabout that.
(09:24):
And now she's in this placewhere she's consulting and
helping us uh before she movesoff into you know, spending a
bunch of time with grandbabies,I think is her plan.
But we'll find out what her planis.
So welcome to the podcast,Elizabeth.
Welcome.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Awesome.
So why don't you can you startby just sort of telling us a
(09:44):
little bit about your CPM story?
All the way back?
How as far back as you feelcomfortable?
However, far, how far far you'reyou're in control here.
SPEAKER_04 (09:54):
Um, I am a fellow of the Northern California Math
Project at UC Davis.
And I happened to be a at theend of my third year of
teaching, which is the youngestuh time where you could apply
and be accepted into theprogram, and you had to have a
recommendation from anotherfellow.
(10:14):
And I taught at a little farmschool where I was the entire
math and some years the entirescience department.
And um, my eighth graders weretalking about bumblebees in
class.
And it was only one group ofeighth graders because there
were three feeder schools in asmall farm town, South Sutter
(10:35):
County, had three schooldistricts for K-8.
And so I called their eighthgrade teacher and I said, Your
kids are talking aboutbumblebees, and I don't
understand what those are.
So she said, Well, how about Icome up and talk to you?
And um, she explained thatbumblebees were her um black and
yellow counters for teachinginteger operations in middle
(10:58):
school.
And the kids would color themblack and yellow, and they
thought it looked likebumblebees when they were
circling their zero pairs,they'd have their little wings.
So though the students couldn'ttell me what the bumblebees
were, she could.
And she had learned that my mathclass was pretty much strictly
lecture.
Uh, I do, you do, we do.
(11:19):
Oh, wait, that's not the rightorder.
I do, we do.
You try to do.
And so um she told me about thisopportunity and she said she'd
like to sponsor my application.
So I put it in and you had tosubmit your best lesson that
you'd ever written.
So I did a math lesson, and thenI sent a chemistry physics
(11:42):
lesson too, because you have tobe way more creative in a small
school science lab.
Yeah.
And I got accepted and we had agreat time.
And I learned what algebra tileswere.
Mary Laycock came and talked tous, and the director of the
project that year was KenJohnson because Judy Kish was
(12:04):
across the hall working with theteam that was uh going through
their field test of math one,the original series.
And Karen Wootton was over thereas a master's student who was
helping them edit.
And Susan Hoffmeier was in themath project with me.
So I met some longtime CPM namesyou know that summer.
SPEAKER_06 (12:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (12:26):
Yeah.
And the eighth grade teacher AnnSims, who's now in Utah, and
Susan were at separate K-8s, andthey got permission to be a
partner.
And because I didn't have a mathteaching colleague at my school,
they agreed to adopt me.
So I got to participate.
SPEAKER_03 (12:44):
Very cool.
SPEAKER_04 (12:45):
And so that's how it got started.
And then as we were spreadingfrom the Sacramento area south,
I got to serve as a teacherleader and to pitch the program
places and do sessions at CMCNorth.
And um, then we were writing anupdate and an edit, and I just
got involved.
And you can fast forward to, youknow, three generations later
(13:08):
later, where we're doing, youknow, connections.
We started the middle schoolprogram when I shifted to middle
school.
Then I came back to high schooland I wanted all middle school
teachers on the middle schoolwriting program.
So I didn't participate.
And then I learned a lot of highschool teachers did.
So that was hard.
But I sent my daughter Hannah,and she served as an assistant
(13:30):
uh from the high school kids todraw pictures and put things in
Word and check solutions.
And our longtime uh employees,Eli Mirabel and Carmen De La
Cruz, were part of that crew.
So we've literally watched themmature in their careers, which
has been fun and fascinating.
(13:50):
And I taught 10 years in highschool, 10 years in middle
school, and then went back tohigh school teaching.
But I went to Christian BrothersHigh School where Brian Howie
and my husband, Scott Queiner,were teaching.
And um, it was great.
But Brian announced he wasretiring and he said, Can you
come over for dinner?
(14:11):
And I said, Sure.
And the whole family went and weshowed up and they said, Oh,
this was just for you, not thefamily.
SPEAKER_07 (14:17):
Oh, that's been a good thing.
SPEAKER_04 (14:18):
So we had a nice dinner anyway, and Scott and the
girls played with Kathy Hoey,and he said, I've got a
proposition for you.
And so Brian and I startedworking together um after school
in the evenings, et cetera, andit transitioned into me being
the executive director.
unknown (14:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (14:38):
So what year was that?
What year did you become theexecutive director?
I officially became theexecutive director at the
February board meeting in 2014.
SPEAKER_07 (14:46):
Okay.
unknown (14:47):
Okay.
SPEAKER_04 (14:48):
So it 11 a little more over eleven years.
SPEAKER_03 (14:52):
Yeah.
That's cool.
SPEAKER_05 (14:55):
Yeah, and we were a little tough.
That's been quite a journey foryou.
Yeah.
We were we were small then.
SPEAKER_03 (15:01):
Still.
SPEAKER_05 (15:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:02):
Well, I I remember joining CPM in 2015, and uh you
were um I I don't know what theright word is, onboarding the
new teacher leaders or whateverat when we were in Denver for
our SO.
I I don't even know what thatacronym stands for.
Summer Institute.
(15:23):
Thank you.
But the uh I just remember yousharing that story of, yeah,
this is my for in my first yearof being the executive director
and all that sort of thing.
So I have that memory of you.
SPEAKER_04 (15:36):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (15:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (15:37):
Um, I remember meeting you there, and we had no
HR department and onboardingteacher leaders as our program
had grown the popularity of theCore Connections 2 series.
Teacher leaders were seasonalemployees, and we would offboard
them on April 30th andre-onboard them on May 1st.
(16:00):
That's the PL season as opposedto the school year season, which
is July to the end of June.
And um, you know, most teacherleaders worked between four days
in the summer to 16 days thatthey got involved with two
series.
And so it took a lot of teacherleaders to pull that off.
And some years we wereonboarding 400 teacher leaders.
SPEAKER_07 (16:22):
Wow.
SPEAKER_04 (16:22):
That's a lot of personnel folders, a lot of
welcome letters, a lot of thankyou letters.
It was crazy.
And um Debbie Jacobs is a anamazing director of business
administration and to pull allof that off.
And, you know, independentcontractors, you guys are you
(16:43):
guys, the teacher leaders werenot independent contractors.
And so we had to change a lot ofthe things for employment law
compliance.
SPEAKER_07 (16:53):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (16:54):
And I think that was one of the hardest things is
change takes time and change ishard, right?
And everybody wants thisorganization to keep moving
forward until all of a suddenone of those changes disrupts
their routines and there's ahiccup.
And you gotta take a pause andtake a breath and not be afraid
(17:17):
to go back and say, okay, whyare we doing this?
It's so that we can maintain ourstatus and keep things going.
And now we have an amazing HRdepartment that's taking on that
reign.
SPEAKER_06 (17:32):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04 (17:33):
And I'll tell you, it's a real blessing of working
with the business professionalsand our dev team that have been
so committed.
It's the dev and the ed techteams that are so committed to
the program, and they're justgenuinely good people.
And then teachers, there's noissues that regular employers
(17:54):
have to worry about.
You know, my sister-in-law is adirector of Medicaid, Medicare,
and you know, she had the wholeorganization underneath her, but
she had a lot of administrativesupport.
But the bottom line is whenyou're at the top, you are
responsible for all of theunhappy people and um I'll say
(18:16):
problematic people, and we don'thave problems, you know.
CPMers care about kids andquality education.
SPEAKER_03 (18:22):
Yeah.
So I guess I would say ingeneral, we're happy people.
I think we're happy to be here,right?
Like that feels good that be ina place like that.
SPEAKER_05 (18:32):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (18:32):
That's a tribute to you and your leadership.
SPEAKER_05 (18:34):
Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (18:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (18:37):
Creating a creating a space where, you know, that
really attracts people who arepassionate about what we're
doing and and and you know,fostering that mission, right?
There's a lot of business piecesto the mission which are hard
and challenging and not alwaysfun.
And balancing that and keepingthat mission going so that we
(18:57):
can all keep seeing that missionas we're moving forward is is a
challenging job that you've donewell for a number of years.
Well, thank you.
Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04 (19:08):
You know, we went to a full-time writing team who
could work year-round becausethe comprehensive nature of our
curriculum is so impressive.
I should say our classroomsolution is robust and complete.
But it was writers who wrote insix weeks in the summer, and
everybody who picked it up, andmanaging editors who, you know,
(19:31):
put in all the feedback.
And then the PL team workingwith their expertise, as they
said in my classroom, this iswhat's happening.
And I built this extra support.
Like, here's little cards I madeto keep the study team and
teaching strategies right at myhand.
All of those resources becameincorporated in the program.
You can't do it in six weeks andtake into account all of the
(19:54):
very important standards, youknow, universal design for
learning and embedded languagesupports.
And multilingual learners, it'sso exciting that we're not the
only ones talking about it.
Math was hard for everybody.
So we always made it inviting,approachable, equitable, and
(20:16):
accessible in the real sensebecause math nerds can do it.
Ha ha.
But the you know, everybodyneeds a window to see where they
want to go and to see themselvesin the space.
And once you build thatrelationship, they can get in
there on the low floor and takeit to the heights.
(20:40):
And the hard part was strugglingwith teachers who wanted to be
involved in the professionallearning.
And when we had our eight-dayseries and districts give them
two PL days during the year, sowe some areas shifted, you know,
four summer days to five andthen took one more and one more.
(21:01):
But they were missing out on aday of full learning and people
adapting.
So I was really happy when welooked at the statistics and
said more teachers are missingdays at PL and they're missing
that opportunity.
So we need to change how wedeliver it to meet the teachers'
(21:24):
needs.
And we designed the style thatthere would be that hybrid
approach to professionallearning.
You guys were there along thatjourney.
SPEAKER_06 (21:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (21:34):
And then the pandemic hit, and wow.
The the high-speed gear shiftthat the professional learning
department did to support theteachers, and you have to
commend the teachers that wereon the front lines teaching for
the first time through thesewindows of Zoom or whatever
(21:55):
their platforms were.
unknown (21:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_04 (21:56):
Unbelievable.
And the pandemic ended orshifted phases, and and all of
us wanted to go back to inperson.
In person is better, but we'verun an entire virtual company,
our whole existence, waypre-pandemic.
(22:19):
And then schools still aren'tgiving teachers the opportunity.
So the power of recognizing westill need hybrid opportunities,
um, virtual in person and thevirtual on demand.
Absolutely.
It's very important.
So thanks for your work to makeit accessible to the teachers.
SPEAKER_06 (22:42):
Yeah.
It's a pleasure.
SPEAKER_05 (22:46):
So so as you now are wrapping up your term and as
executive director, and I meanthat's a long, that's a long
haul.
Eleven years is a long time touh be in that position.
We're wondering what's next foryou?
Where are you going?
What's I mean, I know you havesome new grandchildren that
you're very excited about.
SPEAKER_04 (23:06):
Um, I come from a big family.
And um um there were eight ofus, and my I have four step
brothers and sisters too, so youknow, cheaper by the dozen.
Um but the kids in my family arespread out over 21 years.
And um Scott retired fromteaching to do the bucket list
(23:28):
with his dad, and then his dadhad a cancer that became
terminal.
And um at that time we tookturns with his brother and his
sister keeping mom and dad intheir house, and his mom had
dementia and um so over thecourse of saying goodbye to
(23:56):
them, and then I had twobrothers-in-law pass away as
well.
You realize you don't know howmany tomorrow you have.
And my my siblings areapproaching the octogenarian
status.
Oh my goodness.
(24:16):
And so um our parents have beengone since 1978 and 2005 and um
Scott's brothers, sisters, mybrothers and sisters, we are you
know, the the senior generationin our family.
(24:39):
And even though I've got people21 years older than I am, we are
ready to make sure that we haveall the time we need for our
family.
SPEAKER_06 (24:48):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (24:49):
And it's important to be there for them.
One of the outcomes of uhoutgrowths of the pandemic for
us is because CPM had thosevirtual uh gatherings in the
evening.
I called my siblings and I said,we have to get together.
And it can't be somebody else'sfuneral, and there's no time for
(25:12):
the host at a family wedding.
So we started a Sunday Zoom callat 1:30 Pacific or 4:30 Eastern,
and we cover all the time zones,and we still get together every
single Sunday.
That's awesome.
Sometimes, like my brother's inJapan this week, so he's not
coming, or you know, I've got togo to the Air Force Academy
(25:34):
because it's my grandson'sfamily weekend.
People miss, but the family callis there, and it's really neat.
And then our family does anannual family vacation, the
O'Neill family gathering.
And with CPM, um all the otherlittle gatherings always happen
(25:54):
to coincide with a weekendmeeting or a week-long meeting,
and I don't want to miss anymore of those.
So and I have a six-year-oldgrandson and a three-year-old
grandson in Napa, and I have atwo-month-old grandson in
Oceanside.
For those of you who don't know,California, that's about a
417-mile journey between thetwo.
(26:16):
So I can't have breakfast withone and lunch with the other
back and forth daily.
Um, Scott's been the Manny forthe big boys, and he's they're
in school.
So Mary's like, it's my turn tohave grandparents.
So we've established a residenceat both ends.
Thankfully, seniors are able torent pretty much because they
(26:38):
know I'm not gonna tear up theircondo.
Or they think we're not.
And so I'm gonna spend time withfamily.
SPEAKER_03 (26:46):
I love it.
SPEAKER_04 (26:47):
Once we get the little ones to school, then I
want to go to Ireland andScotland.
SPEAKER_06 (26:52):
Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_03 (26:53):
It's a little travel.
SPEAKER_04 (26:54):
Have you been have you been to those areas before?
No, I haven't.
Oh, and my kids have gone.
They are half O'Neal, whetherthey like to admit it or not.
And uh, they all go and takepictures of themselves under all
the pars and pars, yeah, pubsand bars that have our name on
them.
SPEAKER_03 (27:12):
So of course.
SPEAKER_04 (27:13):
Yeah.
Nice, nice.
SPEAKER_05 (27:15):
Well, that sounds amazing.
Yeah, that sounds good.
That was lovely.
What a what a what a like greatnext piece to look forward to.
You know, I look forward to whenI retire.
How about you, Joel?
SPEAKER_03 (27:27):
Um, I I haven't really thought about retirement
yet.
That doesn't seem quite in myscope.
SPEAKER_04 (27:35):
It's still too far away.
Yeah.
unknown (27:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (27:37):
When I left Christian Brothers for this job,
yeah, I would uh go back to thefaculty parties where
significant others were thereand they go, Oh, yeah, you're
retired.
And I said, Oh yeah, I'mretired.
Well, you're just doing thatmath thing that you used to do
in the summer.
Yep, that's part-time thing.
SPEAKER_03 (27:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (28:00):
Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04 (28:02):
It'll be fun to be able to actually say, I'm
retired.
Yeah.
But, you know, I want tovolunteer at a school and tutor
math, you know, right there.
Show them how to usemanipulative sin.
And the beauty of where we liveat both ends of the state is
that, you know, CPM is awell-respected presence.
SPEAKER_03 (28:22):
Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_04 (28:24):
I cannot take my More Math for More People bag
into the grocery store withoutsomebody commenting.
SPEAKER_03 (28:30):
I I have a t-shirt, actually, More Math for More
People, and people comment allthe time.
They love that phrase.
You know?
Well, it sounds like you have uhbuilt a lot of uh great
memories, a lot of greatfriendships.
So moving forward in this, youjust said maybe you'd go into
the schools and tutor orsomething like that.
How how do you kind of seeyourself working with math?
(28:53):
I mean, is that is it ever gonnago away?
SPEAKER_04 (28:55):
Yeah, math won't go away.
Yeah you know, when you've gotlittle kids in the house and the
three-year-old is in the why,why, why?
Yesterday's question, why am Igetting wet?
It's raining.
SPEAKER_06 (29:10):
Yeah.
But I didn't answer it.
SPEAKER_04 (29:13):
I said, you tell me.
Well, because it's raining.
unknown (29:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (29:18):
Um it's a questioning strategy with
three-year-olds.
SPEAKER_04 (29:21):
And math is not going away.
I mean, we do a morning mathproblem with the little boys,
whoever's with them everymorning, and the geometry whip
around is a staple.
You know, I have who has.
And um Calvin is doing two digitby three digit multiplication in
(29:41):
a rectangular array.
SPEAKER_07 (29:44):
Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04 (29:44):
And um I think that if there isn't an easy way to
get into um supporting mathprograms, working with kids, or
finding ways to help adults whohave that math.
Poor relationship who want toget a better relationship with
(30:05):
math for themselves and thosethey love because they see the
importance.
I think it's important to umreally continue to support
literacy because you have to beable to read and you have to
understand data in order tocontribute to society.
But being involved with theCalifornia adoption and they put
(30:27):
out a call for teachers, andteachers are passionate about
high-quality instructionalmaterials.
But I don't think that there'senough of a connection between
the people who care aboutwriting the curriculum and
individual teachers who don'tsee those notices because they
(30:49):
go to the district office andthen they get filtered around
and the average teacher doesn'tthink that's for me.
And I think that we need to sothis is one of the areas I want
to help with.
Yeah.
We need to have a way to takethose informational calls for
review panels, for um give yourinput on changes to standards or
(31:12):
frameworks or pedagogy pedagogyguidelines or what's in the
frameworks so that classroomteachers who know what kids need
and know how kids respondpositively know that their
expertise has a role in the inthe process.
(31:34):
So I want to stay on top of thestate adoption cycle, and I know
that through my career I learnedabout some of the big districts,
but the teachers who would neversay, I want to be on that
committee, or I would like toshare what I know so that more
(31:55):
students can benefit, I want tosee how I can help to facilitate
that communication.
And I think that it may meanspeaking up at affiliate
organizations and continuing tobe present in the math circles.
I think a lot of universityprofessors are passionate about
(32:18):
the field of mathematics, butthey don't really know how what
the opportunities are in the TKthrough 12 sphere.
So helping bridge that gap andlet them know that their
interaction with the umgrassroots teachers are very
(32:40):
important.
SPEAKER_03 (32:41):
Absolutely.
Well, that'll be great.
SPEAKER_05 (32:44):
Yeah, and it I it sounds like you're really well
positioned and passionate aboutthat, so I can see that really
working for you.
Well that's about all the timewe have for today.
We really appreciate you comingon and telling us your story and
talking about your passion andyour time at CPM and and and you
(33:06):
know getting getting to know youa little bit better.
I've known you forever.
And I and I have reallyappreciated working with you, so
thank you.
Well, thank you.
For all you've done.
It's really been a honor.
Yeah.
We hope to see you at theteacher conference, right?
You'll you'll be a legacy membernow.
You can come back to the teacherconference anytime, so we hope
(33:27):
to see you there.
SPEAKER_04 (33:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (33:28):
Anna every year.
SPEAKER_04 (33:29):
It's it's a very impressive thing for teachers to
come connect with other teacherswho know the value of the
program.
And if there's a teacher whoremembers that or is listening
to this podcast because mathcame up and they're not a CPM
teacher, they should come checkit out.
SPEAKER_07 (33:51):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (33:52):
I agree.
SPEAKER_05 (33:52):
Absolutely.
It's gonna be great.
Well, enjoy this next enjoy thisnext chapter.
Oh, thank you very much.
I will.
SPEAKER_03 (34:00):
Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_05 (34:20):
One from our teacher researcher, Andy Peterson
Longmore, and one from Chivo,one of our ABP participants.
Enjoy.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
Hi, so I'm Andy Peterson Longmore.
I am a teacher in the Nina JointSchool District, and I'm a part
of TRC 12.0.
So, in case you didn't catch thefirst segment of the podcast, I
am in my third year as a memberof the TRC.
Uh, this year I am doing a studyon joy in the math classroom,
specifically for high schoolstudents.
(34:51):
Since what we find is mostlystudents who are at a high
school level are kind of putinto classes where they don't
get to experience joy or havefun.
We're just looking for ways thatwe can make this so much better
for them and make maybe inincrease learning.
So now that I'm actually into myschool year, my classes this
year, I have actually had achange.
So last year I was in geometryand algebra two.
(35:13):
I had two algebra twos and threegeometries.
We had some retirements andmovement in our department.
So I took on algebra one thisyear for the first time in
probably three or four years,along with algebra two.
So I have two classes of algebraone, 23 and 24 kids
respectively.
And then my algebra two classes,I've got three of those, 27, 31,
and 24 kids.
Um, our population here in Ninais pretty suburban white bred, I
(35:38):
like to say.
We have a mostly uh white middleclass population.
Um, we do have some changes tothat population.
We're seeing a lot more studentsof color move in, which has been
a really nice change for us, anda lot of students with a lower
income.
Um, so we're just kind ofnavigating some of those
changes.
Now, with my study, we'relooking at joy.
(36:00):
And what our team decided on wasour first innovation is going to
be the culture of joy in aclassroom.
So, how do we build that cultureof joy?
And one of the things that Istarted doing during my study is
a little bit of like randomsampling from my classes.
So I choose three students outof each class and I choose them
either at at random using asmany different random ways that
I could come up with.
(36:20):
So one time I did a randomnumber generator by last name.
One time I put cards on thetable, and then the first kid at
that table to pick up the cardwas the one I chose.
Sometimes I go in order byheight and I ask them to stand
up and decide how tall they areto organize each other by
height, and then I pick threerandom kids out of that.
Um, and I use those kids to justanswer my quick survey questions
on different things.
(36:41):
So one of the questions I askedthem about was how are they
seeing, how are they getting joyin their other classes?
So if it's not in this roomspecifically, but maybe a
previous math class or adifferent class that you have or
had in the past, what makesthose classes fun and exciting
and joyful for you?
And what kind of came out in ourschool was most of our students
(37:02):
really love their social studiesclasses.
So I started to dig into that alittle bit and see if I could
come up with what is it that isreally making them love those
classes and how can we harnessthat in a math classroom?
So is it like the things thatthey're doing?
Is it the things they're talkingabout?
Whatever we could come up withto see what's what's bringing
this joy for them.
And one of the things thatstarted to come out as I started
(37:24):
to dig into this a little bitmore and ask more questions
about it and speak to theteachers even students really
loved the performance taskaspect of social studies classes
or the simulation part of thosesocial studies classes.
Our social studies departmenthere really leverages a lot of
different ways of makingstudents get involved in the in
(37:45):
the history.
So they do a simulation of aparticular battle, I believe,
where they have the students inthe classroom and they use like
dice to represent what'shappening and stuff like that.
So it almost becomes like agiant DD battle, which is kind
of fun.
They have things where they'llhave the students uh represent
different classes of peoplethroughout history and talk
(38:05):
about like, well, now thatyou're in this class, these are
the things that are happening toyou, these people are in this
class, this is what's happeningto them, and then have the
students have a discussion asthough it was their own life.
And students really, really seemto enjoy being forced into that
like immersive situation.
So I was trying to come up withways to bring that into our
classroom.
But the other thing thatstudents talked a lot about was
(38:27):
just that culture that exists inthose social studies classes.
So there's a lot of discussion,there's a lot of movement,
there's a lot of play on wordsand like intelligent jokes that
are happening in those classesthat they really seem to love.
So when I was thinking about theculture of joy as our first
innovation in the mathclassroom, I was trying to build
on those same ideas.
So, how can we bring in thatdiscussion type atmosphere that
happens in a social studiesclassroom?
(38:49):
How can we harness the movementidea that happens in a social
studies classroom?
Those jokes and things likethat.
So, for discussion, some of thethings that the students really
liked was this idea of more freediscussion that happens in
social studies than it does inmath.
So, what they meant by that as Istarted to dig into it a little
bit more is that the teacherisn't necessarily calling on
(39:12):
students in the class.
A lot of times they present thediscussion and then let the
students talk and interjectperiodically.
So there isn't really any handraising.
So I thought I would give that atry in my classes and just see
how that went this time and seehow students perceived it.
So far it's going really well.
Students really seem to likethat model because they don't
feel quite as scared to raisetheir hand or to be to like int
(39:36):
interject in the conversation.
But I have had a few surveyresponses from my students when
I'm asking them about it.
It seems to be hit or miss.
So what I'm noticing in myresearch is that the girls in my
class tend to not like it asmuch as the boys do, which I
thought was a really interestingkind of trend.
So that's going to be somethingI'm digging into over the next
(39:57):
couple of weeks and figuring outwhat is it about this particular
model that works really well forthe male students in my class
and doesn't work as well for thefemale students of my class.
And is there a way for us tomitigate that?
They really like the movement.
And as we all know, buildingthinking classrooms is a huge
idea in the math world rightnow, particularly within CPM as
well.
So obviously we have thevertical non-permanent white
(40:18):
spaces that we're using andstuff like that, but we're
trying to go even further withthis movement idea since that's
what they're doing in thesesocial studies classes that
these students really seem tolove.
So I'm working on building inmovement in different ways
that's purposeful.
So not just getting up andstretching because we're getting
up and stretching, but is therea way for us to move while we're
doing math that allows for, thatallows for better learning?
(40:40):
And I haven't come up withanything that's worked really,
really well yet.
We've just been trying out somedifferent things like word
association.
So if we're talking about slope,students are always doing the
same motion with their hand torepresent slope.
When we're talking aboutparabolas, they're always
showing that motion with theirhand to kind of represent a
parabola.
And that seems to be workingokay, but I still want to do a
(41:02):
little bit more with this.
And then the jokes, that's beensomething that I mean, we all
love our math dad jokes andstuff like that.
So that's been kind of a funpart to try and bring into this.
Uh, we have one interventionistin our department that really
loves the dad joke.
So I've been asking him to kindof offer up some suggestions if
he can.
So he leaves them on the boardand stuff for me.
(41:23):
And the students seem to reallyenjoy that.
I'm a little worried about thatin the long term just because I
don't want it to become a boringthing or something that students
don't really enjoy over the longterm.
So we're trying to figure outwhat the sweet spot is in terms
of how many of those should webe having a week, a month, or
how many times we should kind ofput it off to the side.
(41:46):
Thinking about what's comingnext for our project, we're
gonna be talking a lot aboutperformance tasks and projects.
So, like I said, thoseperformance tasks that exist in
the social studies world arethings that the students really,
really love and that they learna lot about and that they talk a
lot about.
I happen to coach debate.
So I have communication with allof my students who graduated
over the last several years, andI asked them, you know, what are
(42:08):
the things that you remembermost about your high school
experience?
Not just like being in the highschool, but specific classes
that you remember and you reallyenjoyed.
And almost every single one ofthem referenced at least one
social studies class period thatthey enjoyed.
So then we talked about what arethose things and how did those
lessons happen and how can we dothat?
So then I also started to thinkback.
(42:28):
I happened to be one of thoselucky people who is a math
teacher who also had CPM as astudent when I was in high
school at Ashwabanan highschool.
So I was thinking back to my ownexperience.
And when I was at Ashwabanan, weused to do certain big problems
as kind of a performance task.
So what we know is the screamernow in Algebra II used to be
called the circle of terror abajillion years ago when I was
(42:49):
in high school.
And I remember doing aperformance task around that.
So I was thinking about tryingto go back into what existed at
that time and maybe evenreaching out to my previous
teacher who still teaches atAshwavanan and see if I could
find out if they know what thatperformance task looked like and
how did they adjust the problemso that it was still the things
that we are doing, but make itmore of a performance task
(43:11):
situation than just a singularproblem in class.
Same thing could be true for Zoethe Goat in Geometry, the Blood
Lab in Algebra Two, or theBicycle Race in Algebra One.
So I'm kind of looking at howcan I take those problems that
already exist in our book thatare just really wonderful
problems that kids really enjoyand turn it into a performance
task.
That's something kids talk aboutlater on because they really
(43:32):
remember how exciting and howinteresting that was for them.
So that's kind of the route thatI'm planning to go with a lot of
our next portion of ourresearch.
And then the last piece of ourresearch that I haven't really
started to dig into yet is thisidea of like aesthetic
appreciation.
So when you look at math andpeople enjoying math, a lot of
(43:54):
what they really love to look atis the patterns and the pretty
side of math.
So we want to find a way toreally bring that into our
classroom and allow students toexperience that as man and
understand that those thingsthat they really enjoy exist or
are really essentially justmaths.
And that's just kind of where wewant to go with this.
(44:14):
So that isn't really a fleshedout idea yet, but that's
somewhere where we're planningto go.
Um, something else that I spenda lot of my time on, especially
with my research, is doing a lotof reading.
So I've been reading math-ish,as well as The Joy of X.
And let's see, what's the otherones?
Infinite powers is on my listfor next.
And then Deer Data, we've been,we used it last year, and I've
(44:35):
just been kind of re-lookingthrough all the pictures again,
trying to come up with someideas of different aesthetic
ideas that might be interestingfor us to use with our students
as we move forward.
I'm thinking that that might endup being a project that we work
on or a performance task wherestudents are given a few of the
dear data pages and that we wetalk about how you could use
that in your real life or whatthat could look like.
(44:56):
And then there was also thiskind of tangent idea that I had
about uh bullet journal, whichused to be a really huge popular
thing, I don't know, two, threeyears ago.
So that students could see likehow does that play into this
idea of aesthetic appreciation.
So those are kind of the bigpieces that we're looking at
right now.
When teachers hear that I dothis research, a lot of times
(45:16):
the question comes like, how doyou have time for that?
And how do you really, you know,how do you make time for this?
Because if you didn't know, Ihave a four-month-old son at
home who is, you know, taking upa lot of my time.
I've got a husband and a familyand things that I'm doing.
But one of the things that Ijust keep bringing it back to is
I truly believe that if you arenot learning as a teacher, that
you probably need to retire,that you're you're no longer
(45:39):
getting better.
So for me, this is just mebecoming or me being a teacher.
In order to be a good teacher, Ineed to continue learning.
And my district does a wonderfuljob of doing PLDs as much as
they can and giving us as manyopportunities to learn things as
we can.
But with a district as large asours, it's very hard to get
specific targeted professionaldevelopment, especially for just
(46:00):
one department at a high schoolwhen we have 600 teachers in our
district.
So they give us professionaldevelopment that tends to be a
lot more generic and basedaround everybody as opposed to
just one department.
So, this is my way of gettingthat learning that I crave and
that I seek, but on a moretargeted, specific level of
something that I'm reallyinterested in.
(46:22):
Mike is one of the people that Iwork with as part of our
research team.
And we were talking last timethat I met with the uh
leadership about what I can doto be better about making sure
I'm like actually doing this anddoing it well.
And one of the things we talkedabout was just recording down
your own thoughts, almost likeum in your phone or something
(46:42):
like that.
So just on your drive home, justrecording everything that you're
thinking about for your researchso that when you get home, you
can just AI your notes out ofthat and then add it into our
reflection document that we useeach week to record our data.
And that's been something I'vebeen trying to leverage a little
bit more as a way of using mytime effectively.
So I've only got about a15-minute drive from school to
(47:04):
home.
And if I use that twice a weekto just record my thoughts, it's
a really nice way to get areally clear picture of what's
going on in my classroom.
What are the things I could begetting data on, all of those
kinds of things.
And I've tested out a coupledifferent ways to transcribe
those notes, and not all of themhave been great.
So I'm working on coming up withsomething that works a little
bit better for me.
I don't know if it's because Italk too fast or what.
(47:26):
Um, but getting those notes torecord hasn't been awesome.
And but saying the things outloud and then being able to
listen back to it as Itranscribe myself has been
super, super helpful.
It offers kind of like a thirdwave reflection on the whole
week that I really enjoy.
I cannot stress enough how muchI think it has improved my
teaching practice over the lastthree years as a way to really
(47:50):
become better at what I'm doing,more thoughtful about what I'm
doing, and more research focusedabout what I'm doing.
So looking ahead, um, I thinkI'm gonna spend a lot of the
next probably month or so justthinking about those projects
and performance tasks, andhopefully I'll be able to update
you in October on what thoseperformance tasks are looking
(48:14):
like.
SPEAKER_00 (48:15):
Good evening.
Is Chi checking in Salmida,California?
It's a pretty tough day todaybecause I stay up late to trying
to get our grades in for ourpowers report last night.
And um and also our internetwent out this morning with the
Google workspace outage, Iguess, across the nation.
(48:37):
So we had to do some adjustingbecause this was one of the few
days that we planned to usedeath math as a way for our
students to practice, but thatdid not happen.
So we had to kinda call Audibleand scramble a little bit to
figure out what to do for the 84minutes bock that we have.
We originally had a scavengerhunt plan for the second half,
(48:58):
so we really just needed toaccount for maybe forty, thirty
thirty to forty minutes ofactivity that would have been
top of the math.
And we ended up just practicingon a package that we got at the
beginning of the week that wouldshow up on the quiz that they
were taking today or tomorrow.
So, you know, this whole act oftrying to beat the grades, just
(49:21):
trying to beat the deadline,trying to get all the grades in,
got me thinking about, you know,give me another chance to
reflecting on what my grade bookis about and what is that
communicating to students.
I think by and large, you know,students kinda interpret grades
as their progress if they'redoing well and they're not doing
(49:41):
well.
Parents also most parents alsoare looking at, you know, these
grades as a barometer of howtheir kids is doing in class.
So, you know, it's a verypowerful tool.
But at the same time, it haslike great importance in terms
of like, you know, the future ofa tr of a student.
(50:03):
Because, you know, like if theyfeel that if they got a aid
somehow because they did all thehomework and they turned in
everything, but they don'tmaster the standards, then we
don't really set 'em up for setthem up for success in the next
class.
And also, what are we reallyteaching in um math education
then?
Are we teaching compliance orare we teaching mastery?
(50:25):
So, you know, those are thingsthat kind of come up and as I
look at my grade book, I feelthat there might be some room
for revisiting at the end of theyear, uh or even just at the end
of the semester.
Because currently my gradebookbreakdowns broken down into
summative and formativeassessments.
Uh summative assessments are of85% of the final grade, and
(50:46):
formative is 15.
And I was putting in a lot ofhomework grades, and I had
students who were strugglingthat came up to me and asked me
if I'm gonna put in those gradesfor the Povers Award and if
that's gonna bring the grade up.
And I try to explain to themthat yes, it will bring a grade
up, but having the piece ofpaper and having the 10 out of
10 on the homework, which isformative assessment, would not
(51:09):
help that much, right?
The best way to do better in theclass is to perform better on
quizzes that we have had so far.
Section weekly quizzes, whichare summative assessments for
us.
I had the debate with um Michaelteacher about, you know, should
it be summative or could it beor should it be formative?
(51:30):
And what we stand on was that,you know, the the value for us
is that yes, it gives us uhinsight about what our students
know and what we need to spendmore time on.
But also it we want to give thema little wince here and there so
that, you know, if they had agood week and they can perform
well on this quiz, then for themto see a tangible like raise in
(51:55):
their grades instead of waittill the chapel tests which
would make or break theirgrades.
Um so that was the intentionbehind using that as a summative
assessment.
And also we let them use theirnotes, their classwork as part
of the to to to use it on thequiz.
So, you know, there there'sthere's enough there for us to
(52:16):
feel justified about it beingsummative assessment.
What happened a lot this pastweek was up until Wednesday was
these conversations about, hey,you know, are you gonna put
these grades in?
Is that gonna bring my grade up?
And the question is yes, andyes.
But the thing is, how much arewe bringing these grades up?
Right?
I try to have conversations withindividual students who are
(52:39):
maybe failing the class rightnow because they have done very
badly on the quizzes.
But the reason why they performso badly is because during class
time they're not participatingor they're being distracted by
the friends or whoever else, andyou know, therefore perform
really badly on the quizzes.
And hopefully we're early on inthe semester where that can be a
(52:59):
lesson for us that you know weneed to do better during class
time.
But I don't know.
I don't know how much of thatcome across at 14 year old that
you tell them like what you dotoday or what you do at the
beginning of the week would beimportant for us on the at the
end of the week kind of thing.
(53:20):
So anyways, that's somethingwe're trying this semester, me
and my co-teacher partner, andum we'll report back about the
usefulness of these quizzes.
I think that's it for today.
I gotta go to our ABP share out.
So I'll catch you guys nextweek.
SPEAKER_05 (53:46):
So that is all we have time for on this episode of
the More Math for More Peoplepodcast.
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
media, find our links in thepodcast description.
And the music for the podcastwas created by Julius H.
It can be found on pixabay.com.
So thank you very much, Julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
(54:09):
More People.
What day will that be, Joel?
SPEAKER_03 (54:12):
It'll be October 14th.
And we will be celebrating AdaLovelace Day.
We celebrate on this day.
It's a celebration of women inscience and STEM careers.
And Ada was the daughter of LordByron Loveless and is known as
(54:34):
the first person to recognizethe potential of early computers
and published what is knowntoday as an algorithm.
Before most others, Loveless hadrecognized that computers could
do more than simple numbercrunching, opening the door to
complex functions and usheringthe modern era of computing, and
bringing in that computer age.
(54:55):
And so it reminds me too of thisAI discussion we're having,
calculators, of course, and wewill discuss it all.
October 14th for 80 LovelessDay.
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