June 24, 2025 • 32 mins
Mathematics education never stands still. After a decade of classroom implementation, research advances, and teacher feedback, CPM Educational Program has reimagined their middle school curriculum for today's learning environments.
In this enlightening conversation with Tony Jones (Managing Editor) and Karen Wootton (Director of Curriculum Assessment), we explore how the third edition of CPM's Core Connections middle school courses brings cutting-edge teaching practices directly into mathematics classrooms. This isn't merely an update – it's a thoughtful integration of proven strategies that transform how students engage with mathematical concepts.
The new edition incorporates Building Thinking Classrooms principles through vertical non-permanent surfaces where students work collaboratively while standing, making their mathematical thinking visible to everyone. Daily randomized teams ensure students experience diverse perspectives, while streamlined one-day lesson structures maintain coherent mathematical storylines despite changing group dynamics.
Teachers will appreciate the addition of structured "door questions" to immediately engage students, brief "launches" that activate mathematical thinking, and reflection journals that deepen student understanding. Meanwhile, beloved problem contexts like the "jumping frogs of Calaveras County" and "algebra walk" remain intact, preserving what has made CPM distinctive while updating content to ensure all students see themselves reflected in the curriculum.
Beyond pedagogical enhancements, the team carefully analyzed and adjusted content alignment with current standards frameworks, rebalanced major and supporting work clusters, and completely refreshed the physical design with new illustrations, fonts, and spiral-bound teacher materials for improved usability.
Discover how this curriculum evolution honors what works while embracing what's next in mathematics education. Whether you're a current CPM teacher or simply curious about how curriculum can respond to research advances, this conversation offers valuable insights into thoughtful educational design.
Ready to explore how the third edition might transform your mathematics classroom? Visit support.cpm.org or check out the materials at CPM's booth at an upcoming mathematics conference.
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The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprogram Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram Boom.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Here we are.
It's the 24th of June.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It is.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
How are?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
you doing today, joel ?
What's the national day today?
Well, I'm doing okay, I'm doingokay, Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
What's the national day?
Today is International FairyDay.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
International Fairy Day.
Yeah, wow, yes, that'sinteresting.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yep, it is.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
What do you know about?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
fairies.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I don't.
I feel like I don't know asmuch as I should.
I don't know why I should camein there, but I feel like I
could know more, a lot about myfairies.
Like I know there's a lot ofdifferent kinds of fairies.
Like I think that when a lot ofpeople think of fairies, they
think of like Tinkerbell andlike little girls tea parties.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
But, like the fae are , there's some nastiness.
I was going to say there's somenastiness.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I was going to say there's some nasty fairies as
well, yeah there's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Some you know, like imps and brownies and
leprechauns, whatever.
They're all part of the fairykin yeah.
And they're not so great.
Do you think fairies are real?
That's a hard question toanswer, do I would say?
(01:48):
I'm going to say yes, ish.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think that there are many.
I think there are.
This is really really puttingout here on this more math for
people podcast, but.
I think there are many thingsthat we do not completely
understand, and fairies are oneway of explaining things that
are not explained easily inother ways, and I think there
are a lot of energies and thingsin the world that can
contribute to that idea.
(02:13):
That's a really really likevery vague way of answering the
question.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Well, my sources say if you believe in fairies,
they're real.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And if you don't, they're not.
That also follows.
I don't know that that alsofollows exactly.
I think that things could bereal, if you don't believe in
them.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think so.
Samantha, for a long timegrowing up, had a belief in
fairies, so every night inbedtime I would tell a tale of
Tillamook the fiddery, andTillamook would leave notes
under the pillow.
So there's a lot of excitementabout fairies and what they're
(02:59):
doing in the stories and thingslike that.
And then it got a lot for me towrite a note every night hello,
yeah, that is.
That's hard to sustain it wentfor a long time and so tillamook
had left a note saying I needto take a break.
I'll get back to you when I can, and because samantha would
(03:21):
answer the notes and things likethat.
And then it all came crashingdown when we went to the grocery
store when Samantha was olderand Tillamook is the brand of
cheese that we would yes, I wasgoing to say Tillamook.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
you couldn't get away with that in Oregon Because I
was like, where did you come upwith?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
this name of.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Tillamook.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah.
So then we had a discussion andwe both believe that fairies
are still real.
Okay, there is a belief thatthe first ever laugh of a baby
opened the void from where thefairies and demons come to the
land of the humans.
Do you know the date of thefirst baby laugh?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I was like this happened one time.
First baby laugh, the firstbaby laugh.
I was like this happened onetime first baby laugh, the first
, the first baby laugh firstbaby is.
It is on the timeline, it's onthe whole time of all time, oh,
okay this.
We're gonna get a lot of flowback from this whole pod episode
.
I can see first ever baby laugh.
Huh, I'm gonna say it was along, long time ago.
(04:24):
I'm amazed it's within recordedhistory actually.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It says prehistoric times.
Oh wow, that's pretty vague,pretty vague, very vague, very
vague indeed.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, okay, well, good, good, good.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Oh goodness gracious.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, no, I think fairies are interesting.
I like the idea of fairiesbeing more than just little
whimsical sprites that are allglowy and happy.
I'm totally fine withTinkerbell, but I think
Tinkerbell also had a meanstreak.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
She didn't like Wendy she was kind of you know.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Jealous.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Wenchy yeah, totally Jealous, yeah.
So I think that I like thatidea Fairy folk.
I think that I like that idea,mm-hmm, fairy folk.
I think that there isdefinitely some interesting
things.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I remember one time going on a hike it was along
Lake Superior in Minnesota, neartwo harbors, and this hiking
trail the community had builtjust voluntarily, randomly.
I assume it's the community.
It could have been the actualfairies that built these fairy
(05:31):
houses along the trail and itwas very fun to see the
neighborhood of that fairy land.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I liked it.
Yeah, building little fairyhouses is definitely something I
know.
I know several people who dothose kinds of things.
It's fun.
It's cute I know, I knowseveral people who do those
kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's fun, it's cute, it is cute.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
What are you going to do to celebrate International
Fairy Day, Joel?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Maybe read some stories, oh, maybe do some
drawings.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Maybe even research, because I see here some facts
about Fairy Day.
They're talking about thatnymphs are not fairies, but that
gets me interested in what is anymph and maybe I'll do some
different mythologies perhapsbut there's some similarities
but they're not the same.
That's all it says.
So I need to do someinvestigating.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I think of nymphs as like inhabiting, like being the
spirits within there's, likedifferent kinds of nymphs that
are in like mountains or treesor like the dryads and the
nereads and the oreads, andthat's the Greek pantheon.
So I don't know, there havebeen very many fairies in Greek
pantheon yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I don't know, maybe I don't know how.
About you?
How are you going to celebrate?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I think, learning some more about all this.
You know how we've categorizedand organized fairies that we
know about.
You know how we've categorizedand organized fairies that we
know about?
It sounds interesting.
Yeah, I also.
I know someone who has a fairyoracle card deck, which is very
interesting and not somethingyou mess around with yeah,
Because fairies you know Seriousbusiness Fairies.
(06:58):
Yeah, Fairies are seriousbusiness.
But yeah, maybe doing somethingwith that that would be good,
so it's fun, all right.
Well, it's International FairyDay.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Enjoy, go and celebrate so Joel do you know
(07:27):
that CPM has some new curriculum.
New curriculum you meanInspiring Connections.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
No, no.
Well, we have InspiringConnections, but we have more
new curriculum oh, some new ones.
Yeah, even newer than that.
We have a third edition of ourmiddle school core connections
courses, and so we brought twopeople who we think hopefully
know a lot about this here tothe podcast today to talk to us
(07:51):
about it.
So we have Tony Jones, who isthe managing editor for these
courses, and then Karen Wooten,who's the director of curriculum
assessment, to come and talk tous about this third edition.
So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Thank you, nice to be here.
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Awesome.
So, as we were just saying, wedid a lot of prep.
We have questions ready.
That's a lie.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
The first two, I mean the only question I say like
well, so tell us about thirdedition.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
What would we need to know, like what would be the
things to know for someone?
Maybe we we need to know, likewhat would be the things to know
for someone.
Maybe maybe we start with whydid we?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
do a third edition any of?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
those questions.
I think there are a couplereasons and karen can help me
out on this.
But our we first printed secondedition in 2011.
We've had subsequent copyrightand updates and expanded since
then, but with new learning, newunderstanding, new research in
(08:49):
our own department and just inthe education world in general,
we saw a need to upgrade and addsome things in to help students
and teachers learn better.
So the third edition brings thelatest research and educational
practices to bear as we improvean already great curriculum.
(09:11):
So it's not like there wassomething wrong with second
edition, but the third editionjust kind of takes it to the
next level.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah, in particular and Tony will probably get to
this but we've learned a lotthrough building thinking
classrooms and having studentsengaged at the whiteboards or
just doing having the teacherpresent instructions verbally
rather than just always relyingon things in writing, and
different ways we can encourageteachers to engage their
students to engage theirstudents and we added routines
(09:42):
for reasoning, sometranslanguaging things that help
students communicate better andcollaborate better.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
We've included a lot of things from our teacher
research core, our TRC groups.
We've looked at what they'vedone in classrooms, so it's
action research that has beenshown to work with CPM
curriculum but also, like Karenwas saying, with Lilijal, with
Kelomaniak and Grace and others,we really saw a need to add and
(10:12):
incorporate more things.
And, speaking of buildingthinking classrooms with
vertical, non-permanent servicesand the ability to actually
just get up and move around anddo work, your learning becomes
visible, all the knowledge inthe room becomes visible, so you
really don't have to have aneye spy or an ambassador or you
(10:32):
can look around the room use theresources that are there and it
really does transform becausenow you're not only
collaborating in your team,you're collaborating with other
teams, because you can see thework they're doing and you can
gather ideas.
We used to call Huddle and sharesome of that information.
Now you don't have to callHuddle, look around, see what
others are doing.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
We still call Huddle Well we do.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We still do a Huddle.
Yeah, for different reasons.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
We can do, ambassador .
We can do, but some of that ismore built in that it's more
organic than it happens, ratherthan the teacher directing it,
telling students to do it,because they're up and their
work is visible and thenon-terminate surface part
allows them, in that growthmindset, to take risks and to do
(11:21):
something that's notnecessarily correct, and then
they can erase it and keep going, and go again.
And so I think the non-terminatepart with the markers and the
erasers and the whiteboards, orI guess I should just say
(11:42):
vertical non-terminate surfaces,you can easily attempt several
different things and try thingsand keep just kind of rough
draft thinking as you go along.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And to that point, one of the things that we really
tried to do was get away fromthose problems that had parts A
through G you know, the onesthat seem to kind of go on
forever and thought of ways tocan we set this up, ways to can
we set this up, and then in somecases some of those parts just
(12:08):
naturally could fall into theteacher notes as support if you
need it, become pocket questionsin a sense.
But let's try to get to theheart of this stuff and let the
students get there in their ownway, rather than do this now, do
this, now do this.
We tried to open it up andallow for the students to take
whatever approach they want withthe guide that's still there
for the teacher.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So it sounds like not so much of like rewriting
problems or updating problems,but rather using current
practices or helping teacher usebest practices.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I would agree with that, and a lot of that is
embedded within the way we wrote.
The teacher notes, the way thelesson flows, and one of the
building thinking classroomsthat I originally was like I'm
not so sure about is dailyrandomizing of tea.
It's visibly random so thatstudents know it's random and
(13:04):
they get in a different team,and so we tried to take two day.
There were a lot of two-daylessons and we wanted them to be
one day lessons, because ifyou're going to randomize your
team and change them the nextday, then there's a whole
different set of conversationsthat have to happen to catch
kids up, who they were taught,having different discussions in
different groups.
And so we did that, whichallowed us then, as Karen said,
(13:25):
to shorten some of the lessons.
I know when I taught secondedition, sometimes it was a rush
to get through a lesson and alot of times closure got left
off or something else.
And to that point we've addedsome other new elements, like a
door question to connect andmake that connection.
(13:46):
Every time it's right there andso teachers don't have to look
for it, don't have to thinkabout it, it's part of the
lesson at a glance.
When teachers first preparetheir lesson, they can stand at
the door.
Here's the question.
For that day.
We've added a specific closurewith specific activities to be
more really kind ofconsolidating learning.
(14:06):
We took learning logs and wemade them reflection journals,
where it's a little bit deeperthan just what did you do today,
write it down.
It's more of a reflection ofwhat did I learn, what did I
understand, what did I notunderstand.
What do I need to write down toremind my future self when I
forget later, like?
(14:26):
So I think some of those thingshave really strengthened, like
I said, an already greatcurriculum by making it even
better.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So all of those things a teacher could take
second edition and could pull inand add in building thinking,
classrooms could do these pieces, could do the door questions,
could all those pieces theycould do.
But having it actuallyintegrated into the lesson and
(15:06):
more explicit and like drawingout those opportunities for
those things, just makes iteasier, right.
I feel it's like just what wedid back when we integrated
state team and teachingstrategies and team roles and
all those things at thebeginning to help teachers do
collaborative learning.
Because you could docollaborative learning, but it
was hard, right.
You could do a mixed-basedpractice, but it's hard unless
it's in the course.
So here we're just puttinganother layer of that into the
curriculum.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
And I don't know if you want to get there, if you
have questions about it.
But we also looked at like edreports.
Cc1 and CC2 didn't pass thesecond gateway in CC1 and CC2.
Third gateway would have been aslam dunk but that second
gateway stopped us.
(15:44):
So we weren't officiallyapproved or didn't meet the
requirement by ed reports.
Part of that was we hadnon-grade level material.
I love the mascot problem inCC1.
Love it.
Scale factor is a seventh gradestandard so we needed to move
that to CC2 from CC1.
(16:04):
There were some things, therewere equations in CC2 that had
variables on both sides of theequation.
That's clearly an eighth gradestandard.
So we moved those out.
So we had to do some shufflinglike moving lessons between
courses to hit the grade levelstandard and then we had to then
either fill in or edit someother lessons to make sure we
(16:27):
hit all the standards correctly.
And then we also made sure thatEd Reports has a percentage of
major work and non-major work,what they call supporting
clusters or additional clusters,and so we did not quite hit
those percentages that EdReports wanted in second edition
.
We did in third edition.
So we were very attentive tothose details as well.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And some of those things, just as a historical
note.
Like those pieces didn't existExactly, Exactly All the
standards were equal.
There was no major, you knowsupporting clusters.
So, like some of those thingsdidn't exist, we didn't have.
We've had that opportunity atthis point right I love that's
awesome right, it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
And I mean on a personal, I don't want to get
too deep into it, but itfrustrates me to say like in
sixth and seventh grade, statsand probability are not major
work at all.
Yeah, but in in CC2, we did alot of our fraction, decimal
percent work with probability,because it's so engaging to
students.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It is.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
And it works.
But if you listed a stats andprobability now our percentage
is off.
So we tweaked those lessons sothat we could also include some
of those other standards thatare considered major work and
the percentages worked out.
So we did an audit to make sureof what those percentages were.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, so much interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about that history now.
I don't know if I knew aboutall that history stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, we were written and then Ed Reports came out.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Okay, and then we wrote this, and now Ed Reports
has a new rubric.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Of course we're hoping we hit it.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So fourth edition comes out.
No, I'm kidding.
So fourth edition comes out.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
No, I'm kidding the most interesting piece of this
because it's so true and I wantto give a shout out to Leslie
Dietiker but the storyline, theidea of storyline, and when you
(18:38):
start looking at adding lessons,moving lessons, changing
lessons, you can mess up thewhole show.
So we were very careful andvery attentive to not lose that.
So when somebody looks at thirdedition, there's still a
plethora, a deep intentionalityto what we put together.
Yeah, that honors the threepillars, that honors the
(18:59):
historical pieces from makingconnections.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but it started with Foundations
for Algebra Foundations Right.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Foundations for.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Algebra, year one and two.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
We pulled that into making connections, which was
two years and lasted all of ayear, and then moved that into
the three courses For coreconnections Right and lasted all
of a year and then moved thatinto the three courses For core
connections Right.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And we tried through all those, I mean the idea of
storyline really came in withmaking connections.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
That's where Leslie entered, yeah, and something
about in terms of the storylinethat you know.
I hope teachers realize thisand think about this, Because
you might think, oh, I could sitdown and write a lesson about
some topics, a scale factor Icould sit down and write a
lesson and it'll be engaging.
And I can sit down and write alesson about probability, and
(19:45):
it'll be engaging.
But to really make a wholecourse coherent and to build on
students making connectionsthemselves and seeing how things
go, you have to be veryintentional and so just, oh,
I'll write this lesson and plopit in here.
I mean, I know there are somepublishing companies that if
they don't meet some standards,they'll just say, oh, we'll
(20:08):
write it in and drop it in here,and okay.
But we really try to thinkabout making sure everything
stays connected and that itstill flows.
And it's not always easy.
I think we've done a great job,but yeah, it's not always easy.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Well, and another shout out to Judy Kish.
Dr Kish, she said to me when wewere in at the National
Conference in San Diego.
She said when they firststarted the project they brought
30 teachers together and shesaid what we realized very
quickly was they knew how towrite lessons, to tell teachers
(20:41):
what to teach, but it was askill to develop, how to write
lessons that really engagestudents.
And that just hit me because,like we are really working
really hard, even though thelessons most of those lessons
stayed the same, we still wantedto edit, revise, tweak them
(21:03):
enough that really would engagestudents.
And we did a lot more question,asking questions and create a
graph, create a table, write anequation, do this we?
We ask more questions.
That would get students tothink deeper about something
rather than just following theinstructions that are there.
I'm creating a graph because itsays create a graph Instead of
(21:24):
would you create a graph?
That would help you?
That's a different question.
It makes them think differently.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, yeah, sort of the directive versus the
thoughtful.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And kind of getting back to what you said, joel,
earlier.
But I want to make sure, likethe jumping frogs at calaveras
county, the trail mix from tilefor toothpicks and tiles or
thesel, the acrobat, watch mynumber, like those kind of
things, newton's reverence, thealgebra walk on the silent board
(21:56):
game, things like that, we keptthose because those are those
problems that are memorable,problems that that for years
have really engaged students,work with students, and so we
didn't throw those out at alland I want to make sure, like
that, the favorites.
So a teacher transitions fromsecond to third edition.
Oh, I love this, it's myfavorite.
(22:17):
Well, it's there.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And if they don't think it's their life, the
mascot problem, it is just maybenot in the course you're
teaching now, because we neededto move it for the standards and
and, and you and I had someconversation about this also,
tony, like some of you, alsotook advantage of the time.
The the sort of the opportunity, let's say, to change some
contexts or change some problems, like moving them is one thing,
(22:41):
but like actually to rewrite it, as Karen was saying, maybe not
as many parts, or to change thecontext when that opportunity
presented itself.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yes, it's similar to what we did in IC.
That and I fall back on PamSater, the book Choosing to See,
and we always have her Academyof Best Practices and one of the
things that she says which Ithought was I always knew like
the mirror students can seethemselves in that context, the
window they can see into anothercontext, another culture,
(23:11):
another, you know.
But she said the third one is asliding glass door where you
can open it and enter into thatother context, that other world.
And I just we tried to do thatand I think that's really
important that students seethemselves, see other people and
can even then enter into thatcontext, so they become a part.
(23:33):
And you can't do that perfectlybecause we're a national
Christian, we're not writingwhich we don't know necessarily.
I mean, demographics indifferent parts of the country
and different cities anddifferent districts change.
But we tried to do enough ofthat so that every student could
see themselves in it and becomea part of that story, that
(23:54):
content, that those problems areworking story that content that
those problems are workingRight.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Right.
What do you guys think about?
So you brought up the fact thatsecond edition you kept a lot
of those great problems.
But if I was a teachercurrently teaching second
edition and wanted to adopt thisthird edition, would that, do
you think, feel like it would bea smooth transition?
What are some of the things youmight say about that?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'd say yes, If you embrace CPM philosophy,
methodology and you're familiarwith it, yes, it'll be a smooth
transition.
It looks different.
We wanted it to look different.
So all new illustrations, newfont, new layout.
We just wanted it to lookdifferent too.
And there is one piece I don'tthink we've mentioned yet, which
(24:41):
is a launch.
I know Tony mentioned the doorquestions, but every lesson also
has a launch and that's new.
That's something where you knowthere's.
We start the lesson off tospark thinking, to spark
curiosity in some way, when wecan.
It's from the lesson, it'srelated to the lesson, but
sometimes it's just like a,which one is unique, or a, a
(25:02):
math chat number, talk sort ofthing, to get kids started
thinking as we go into thelesson.
So that is different.
So if you're not used to doingsomething like that, this will
be something new to you.
But generally I would say it'dbe a smooth transition.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, and that is similar to what I see is where
we had the launch and we havewhat we call data chats.
We have several different typesof launches.
One's a data chat to get someof that data in there.
Since Ed Report says that isn'tthat important, we wanted that
and what I want teachers to knowis it's meant to be an opener
(25:40):
Like it's not meant to be acomplete lesson.
So after, if the launch hasfour minutes, five minutes,
that's it, like greatdiscussions.
But now we're moving on.
We can come back to that maybelater.
Several teachers when we firstintroduced it, they were taking
10, 15 minutes because they weregreat discussions happening,
but then you're losing the corepart of the lesson and so, but I
(26:04):
yeah the launch, I love thelaunch and that was go ahead.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Go ahead, no, go ahead.
Finish what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Well, when I did TRC two years in a row I did number
talk, math chats and I watchedjust basic skills with the four
operations even fractions,decimals, negative numbers.
I saw the increase in theirskill by doing those as launches
.
That helped them find waysmentally to work with the
(26:35):
numbers and decompose andrecompose numbers and the
flexibility with numbers thatreally does grow your number
sense.
It was amazing to watch whathappened and so we've added a
lot of that Again.
That's where that research thatwe did is informing Right Nice.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And it's on a different platform, right Like?
It's not in the old e-booksplatform, it's in our other
platform.
It's a different platform,right Like?
It's not in the old e-booksplatform, it's in our other
platform.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
It's a digital platform, so the third edition
online will look much differentthan the old e-book.
And the pre-edition doesn'tlook that much different, but
it's very much.
It's cleaned up.
It's just crisper nicer itlooks.
Not that the other one wasn'tprofessional, this looks even
(27:23):
more so, I think to say and whenwe, when we had it out at the
national conference and peoplewere looking at it, they raved
about just how clean yeah, clean.
How nice and simple and easy itis to yeah navigate it totally,
totally well I can.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I can say I can say from I was kidding at the
beginning, I knew, I knew thirdedition existed, but I I've done
some work with it already and Ican attest to that I think it
does look cleaner.
It's different's different andas we move forward currently
it's only sixth, seventh andeighth grade.
Is that correct?
(28:03):
Correct, that is correct, andit will be coming in high school
sometime soon, usually.
And how would I think I knowthe answer too, but You're going
to answer your own question Iknow.
So if somebody was interested inlearning about 3rd Edition, we
have some information out thereon our website, things like that
(28:24):
.
Do you have any suggestions forsomebody who might be looking
for some information on 3rdEdition?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Besides contact Tony no we don't want to.
Contact.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Tony Okay.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
The email no, not Tony, not Tony.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
And I'm not supposed to say just contact your RPLC
anymore, no Right.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think mostly they go to supportcpmorg and start
there Right.
There's a place there wherethey can get more information
about.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And certainly the books will be at our booths at
our conferences.
So if you're attending any mathconference that has an
exhibition center, sure you goby the cpm booth and take a look
and you could hold it in yourhand and see what it feels like
and and all um.
The teacher editions now arenot binders but spiral bound
volumes and yeah, which lay flat, which is really nice with the
(29:14):
hard back so you could write onit like a clipboard and all yeah
.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
And that is true.
I didn't say this earlier, butit was primarily a print edition
with a digital component, asopposed to IC, which is a
digital, primarily digital, witha consumable component.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And so those who still I'm old school, I love the
book.
I do too.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
That's a good distinction to make, though.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah Well, thank you so much for coming on the
podcast and talking about ourmiddle school.
So far it's Core Connections3rd Edition and we'll leave some
things in the show description.
So if people want to get somemore information, there'll be
some ways to contact and getmore information there.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Super, that'd be great, thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
All right.
Thanks for joining.
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thank you All right.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
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 podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
(30:39):
More People.
What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It'll be July 15th, national Pet Fire Safety Day, so
we'll talk about what it meansto be aware if you have a fire
at your home and how to takecare of your pets.
It's an awareness day, so wewill have some actionable items
that you can take to make surethat your pets are safe during a
(31:04):
fire.
We'll share some links in thedescription and talk about our
own pets and how we would act onthat if there were an emergency
.
So we look forward to seeingyou again on July 15th.
See you then, thank you.
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprogram Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram Boom.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Here we are.
It's the 24th of June.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It is.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
How are?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
you doing today, joel ?
What's the national day today?
Well, I'm doing okay, I'm doingokay, Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
What's the national day?
Today is International FairyDay.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
International Fairy Day.
Yeah, wow, yes, that'sinteresting.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yep, it is.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
What do you know about?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
fairies.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I don't.
I feel like I don't know asmuch as I should.
I don't know why I should camein there, but I feel like I
could know more, a lot about myfairies.
Like I know there's a lot ofdifferent kinds of fairies.
Like I think that when a lot ofpeople think of fairies, they
think of like Tinkerbell andlike little girls tea parties.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
But, like the fae are , there's some nastiness.
I was going to say there's somenastiness.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I was going to say there's some nasty fairies as
well, yeah there's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Some you know, like imps and brownies and
leprechauns, whatever.
They're all part of the fairykin yeah.
And they're not so great.
Do you think fairies are real?
That's a hard question toanswer, do I would say?
(01:48):
I'm going to say yes, ish.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think that there are many.
I think there are.
This is really really puttingout here on this more math for
people podcast, but.
I think there are many thingsthat we do not completely
understand, and fairies are oneway of explaining things that
are not explained easily inother ways, and I think there
are a lot of energies and thingsin the world that can
contribute to that idea.
(02:13):
That's a really really likevery vague way of answering the
question.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Well, my sources say if you believe in fairies,
they're real.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And if you don't, they're not.
That also follows.
I don't know that that alsofollows exactly.
I think that things could bereal, if you don't believe in
them.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think so.
Samantha, for a long timegrowing up, had a belief in
fairies, so every night inbedtime I would tell a tale of
Tillamook the fiddery, andTillamook would leave notes
under the pillow.
So there's a lot of excitementabout fairies and what they're
(02:59):
doing in the stories and thingslike that.
And then it got a lot for me towrite a note every night hello,
yeah, that is.
That's hard to sustain it wentfor a long time and so tillamook
had left a note saying I needto take a break.
I'll get back to you when I can, and because samantha would
(03:21):
answer the notes and things likethat.
And then it all came crashingdown when we went to the grocery
store when Samantha was olderand Tillamook is the brand of
cheese that we would yes, I wasgoing to say Tillamook.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
you couldn't get away with that in Oregon Because I
was like, where did you come upwith?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
this name of.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Tillamook.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah.
So then we had a discussion andwe both believe that fairies
are still real.
Okay, there is a belief thatthe first ever laugh of a baby
opened the void from where thefairies and demons come to the
land of the humans.
Do you know the date of thefirst baby laugh?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I was like this happened one time.
First baby laugh, the firstbaby laugh.
I was like this happened onetime first baby laugh, the first
, the first baby laugh firstbaby is.
It is on the timeline, it's onthe whole time of all time, oh,
okay this.
We're gonna get a lot of flowback from this whole pod episode
.
I can see first ever baby laugh.
Huh, I'm gonna say it was along, long time ago.
(04:24):
I'm amazed it's within recordedhistory actually.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It says prehistoric times.
Oh wow, that's pretty vague,pretty vague, very vague, very
vague indeed.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, okay, well, good, good, good.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Oh goodness gracious.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, no, I think fairies are interesting.
I like the idea of fairiesbeing more than just little
whimsical sprites that are allglowy and happy.
I'm totally fine withTinkerbell, but I think
Tinkerbell also had a meanstreak.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
She didn't like Wendy she was kind of you know.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Jealous.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Wenchy yeah, totally Jealous, yeah.
So I think that I like thatidea Fairy folk.
I think that I like that idea,mm-hmm, fairy folk.
I think that there isdefinitely some interesting
things.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I remember one time going on a hike it was along
Lake Superior in Minnesota, neartwo harbors, and this hiking
trail the community had builtjust voluntarily, randomly.
I assume it's the community.
It could have been the actualfairies that built these fairy
(05:31):
houses along the trail and itwas very fun to see the
neighborhood of that fairy land.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I liked it.
Yeah, building little fairyhouses is definitely something I
know.
I know several people who dothose kinds of things.
It's fun.
It's cute I know, I knowseveral people who do those
kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's fun, it's cute, it is cute.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
What are you going to do to celebrate International
Fairy Day, Joel?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Maybe read some stories, oh, maybe do some
drawings.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Maybe even research, because I see here some facts
about Fairy Day.
They're talking about thatnymphs are not fairies, but that
gets me interested in what is anymph and maybe I'll do some
different mythologies perhapsbut there's some similarities
but they're not the same.
That's all it says.
So I need to do someinvestigating.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I think of nymphs as like inhabiting, like being the
spirits within there's, likedifferent kinds of nymphs that
are in like mountains or treesor like the dryads and the
nereads and the oreads, andthat's the Greek pantheon.
So I don't know, there havebeen very many fairies in Greek
pantheon yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I don't know, maybe I don't know how.
About you?
How are you going to celebrate?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I think, learning some more about all this.
You know how we've categorizedand organized fairies that we
know about.
You know how we've categorizedand organized fairies that we
know about?
It sounds interesting.
Yeah, I also.
I know someone who has a fairyoracle card deck, which is very
interesting and not somethingyou mess around with yeah,
Because fairies you know Seriousbusiness Fairies.
(06:58):
Yeah, Fairies are seriousbusiness.
But yeah, maybe doing somethingwith that that would be good,
so it's fun, all right.
Well, it's International FairyDay.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Enjoy, go and celebrate so Joel do you know
(07:27):
that CPM has some new curriculum.
New curriculum you meanInspiring Connections.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
No, no.
Well, we have InspiringConnections, but we have more
new curriculum oh, some new ones.
Yeah, even newer than that.
We have a third edition of ourmiddle school core connections
courses, and so we brought twopeople who we think hopefully
know a lot about this here tothe podcast today to talk to us
(07:51):
about it.
So we have Tony Jones, who isthe managing editor for these
courses, and then Karen Wooten,who's the director of curriculum
assessment, to come and talk tous about this third edition.
So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Thank you, nice to be here.
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Awesome.
So, as we were just saying, wedid a lot of prep.
We have questions ready.
That's a lie.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
The first two, I mean the only question I say like
well, so tell us about thirdedition.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
What would we need to know, like what would be the
things to know for someone?
Maybe we we need to know, likewhat would be the things to know
for someone.
Maybe maybe we start with whydid we?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
do a third edition any of?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
those questions.
I think there are a couplereasons and karen can help me
out on this.
But our we first printed secondedition in 2011.
We've had subsequent copyrightand updates and expanded since
then, but with new learning, newunderstanding, new research in
(08:49):
our own department and just inthe education world in general,
we saw a need to upgrade and addsome things in to help students
and teachers learn better.
So the third edition brings thelatest research and educational
practices to bear as we improvean already great curriculum.
(09:11):
So it's not like there wassomething wrong with second
edition, but the third editionjust kind of takes it to the
next level.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah, in particular and Tony will probably get to
this but we've learned a lotthrough building thinking
classrooms and having studentsengaged at the whiteboards or
just doing having the teacherpresent instructions verbally
rather than just always relyingon things in writing, and
different ways we can encourageteachers to engage their
students to engage theirstudents and we added routines
(09:42):
for reasoning, sometranslanguaging things that help
students communicate better andcollaborate better.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
We've included a lot of things from our teacher
research core, our TRC groups.
We've looked at what they'vedone in classrooms, so it's
action research that has beenshown to work with CPM
curriculum but also, like Karenwas saying, with Lilijal, with
Kelomaniak and Grace and others,we really saw a need to add and
(10:12):
incorporate more things.
And, speaking of buildingthinking classrooms with
vertical, non-permanent servicesand the ability to actually
just get up and move around anddo work, your learning becomes
visible, all the knowledge inthe room becomes visible, so you
really don't have to have aneye spy or an ambassador or you
(10:32):
can look around the room use theresources that are there and it
really does transform becausenow you're not only
collaborating in your team,you're collaborating with other
teams, because you can see thework they're doing and you can
gather ideas.
We used to call Huddle and sharesome of that information.
Now you don't have to callHuddle, look around, see what
others are doing.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
We still call Huddle Well we do.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We still do a Huddle.
Yeah, for different reasons.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
We can do, ambassador .
We can do, but some of that ismore built in that it's more
organic than it happens, ratherthan the teacher directing it,
telling students to do it,because they're up and their
work is visible and thenon-terminate surface part
allows them, in that growthmindset, to take risks and to do
(11:21):
something that's notnecessarily correct, and then
they can erase it and keep going, and go again.
And so I think the non-terminatepart with the markers and the
erasers and the whiteboards, orI guess I should just say
(11:42):
vertical non-terminate surfaces,you can easily attempt several
different things and try thingsand keep just kind of rough
draft thinking as you go along.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And to that point, one of the things that we really
tried to do was get away fromthose problems that had parts A
through G you know, the onesthat seem to kind of go on
forever and thought of ways tocan we set this up, ways to can
we set this up, and then in somecases some of those parts just
(12:08):
naturally could fall into theteacher notes as support if you
need it, become pocket questionsin a sense.
But let's try to get to theheart of this stuff and let the
students get there in their ownway, rather than do this now, do
this, now do this.
We tried to open it up andallow for the students to take
whatever approach they want withthe guide that's still there
for the teacher.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So it sounds like not so much of like rewriting
problems or updating problems,but rather using current
practices or helping teacher usebest practices.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I would agree with that, and a lot of that is
embedded within the way we wrote.
The teacher notes, the way thelesson flows, and one of the
building thinking classroomsthat I originally was like I'm
not so sure about is dailyrandomizing of tea.
It's visibly random so thatstudents know it's random and
(13:04):
they get in a different team,and so we tried to take two day.
There were a lot of two-daylessons and we wanted them to be
one day lessons, because ifyou're going to randomize your
team and change them the nextday, then there's a whole
different set of conversationsthat have to happen to catch
kids up, who they were taught,having different discussions in
different groups.
And so we did that, whichallowed us then, as Karen said,
(13:25):
to shorten some of the lessons.
I know when I taught secondedition, sometimes it was a rush
to get through a lesson and alot of times closure got left
off or something else.
And to that point we've addedsome other new elements, like a
door question to connect andmake that connection.
(13:46):
Every time it's right there andso teachers don't have to look
for it, don't have to thinkabout it, it's part of the
lesson at a glance.
When teachers first preparetheir lesson, they can stand at
the door.
Here's the question.
For that day.
We've added a specific closurewith specific activities to be
more really kind ofconsolidating learning.
(14:06):
We took learning logs and wemade them reflection journals,
where it's a little bit deeperthan just what did you do today,
write it down.
It's more of a reflection ofwhat did I learn, what did I
understand, what did I notunderstand.
What do I need to write down toremind my future self when I
forget later, like?
(14:26):
So I think some of those thingshave really strengthened, like
I said, an already greatcurriculum by making it even
better.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So all of those things a teacher could take
second edition and could pull inand add in building thinking,
classrooms could do these pieces, could do the door questions,
could all those pieces theycould do.
But having it actuallyintegrated into the lesson and
(15:06):
more explicit and like drawingout those opportunities for
those things, just makes iteasier, right.
I feel it's like just what wedid back when we integrated
state team and teachingstrategies and team roles and
all those things at thebeginning to help teachers do
collaborative learning.
Because you could docollaborative learning, but it
was hard, right.
You could do a mixed-basedpractice, but it's hard unless
it's in the course.
So here we're just puttinganother layer of that into the
curriculum.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
And I don't know if you want to get there, if you
have questions about it.
But we also looked at like edreports.
Cc1 and CC2 didn't pass thesecond gateway in CC1 and CC2.
Third gateway would have been aslam dunk but that second
gateway stopped us.
(15:44):
So we weren't officiallyapproved or didn't meet the
requirement by ed reports.
Part of that was we hadnon-grade level material.
I love the mascot problem inCC1.
Love it.
Scale factor is a seventh gradestandard so we needed to move
that to CC2 from CC1.
(16:04):
There were some things, therewere equations in CC2 that had
variables on both sides of theequation.
That's clearly an eighth gradestandard.
So we moved those out.
So we had to do some shufflinglike moving lessons between
courses to hit the grade levelstandard and then we had to then
either fill in or edit someother lessons to make sure we
(16:27):
hit all the standards correctly.
And then we also made sure thatEd Reports has a percentage of
major work and non-major work,what they call supporting
clusters or additional clusters,and so we did not quite hit
those percentages that EdReports wanted in second edition
.
We did in third edition.
So we were very attentive tothose details as well.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
And some of those things, just as a historical
note.
Like those pieces didn't existExactly, Exactly All the
standards were equal.
There was no major, you knowsupporting clusters.
So, like some of those thingsdidn't exist, we didn't have.
We've had that opportunity atthis point right I love that's
awesome right, it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
And I mean on a personal, I don't want to get
too deep into it, but itfrustrates me to say like in
sixth and seventh grade, statsand probability are not major
work at all.
Yeah, but in in CC2, we did alot of our fraction, decimal
percent work with probability,because it's so engaging to
students.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It is.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
And it works.
But if you listed a stats andprobability now our percentage
is off.
So we tweaked those lessons sothat we could also include some
of those other standards thatare considered major work and
the percentages worked out.
So we did an audit to make sureof what those percentages were.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, so much interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about that history now.
I don't know if I knew aboutall that history stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, we were written and then Ed Reports came out.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Okay, and then we wrote this, and now Ed Reports
has a new rubric.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Of course we're hoping we hit it.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So fourth edition comes out.
No, I'm kidding.
So fourth edition comes out.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
No, I'm kidding the most interesting piece of this
because it's so true and I wantto give a shout out to Leslie
Dietiker but the storyline, theidea of storyline, and when you
(18:38):
start looking at adding lessons,moving lessons, changing
lessons, you can mess up thewhole show.
So we were very careful andvery attentive to not lose that.
So when somebody looks at thirdedition, there's still a
plethora, a deep intentionalityto what we put together.
Yeah, that honors the threepillars, that honors the
(18:59):
historical pieces from makingconnections.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but it started with Foundations
for Algebra Foundations Right.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Foundations for.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Algebra, year one and two.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
We pulled that into making connections, which was
two years and lasted all of ayear, and then moved that into
the three courses For coreconnections Right and lasted all
of a year and then moved thatinto the three courses For core
connections Right.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And we tried through all those, I mean the idea of
storyline really came in withmaking connections.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
That's where Leslie entered, yeah, and something
about in terms of the storylinethat you know.
I hope teachers realize thisand think about this, Because
you might think, oh, I could sitdown and write a lesson about
some topics, a scale factor Icould sit down and write a
lesson and it'll be engaging.
And I can sit down and write alesson about probability, and
(19:45):
it'll be engaging.
But to really make a wholecourse coherent and to build on
students making connectionsthemselves and seeing how things
go, you have to be veryintentional and so just, oh,
I'll write this lesson and plopit in here.
I mean, I know there are somepublishing companies that if
they don't meet some standards,they'll just say, oh, we'll
(20:08):
write it in and drop it in here,and okay.
But we really try to thinkabout making sure everything
stays connected and that itstill flows.
And it's not always easy.
I think we've done a great job,but yeah, it's not always easy.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Well, and another shout out to Judy Kish.
Dr Kish, she said to me when wewere in at the National
Conference in San Diego.
She said when they firststarted the project they brought
30 teachers together and shesaid what we realized very
quickly was they knew how towrite lessons, to tell teachers
(20:41):
what to teach, but it was askill to develop, how to write
lessons that really engagestudents.
And that just hit me because,like we are really working
really hard, even though thelessons most of those lessons
stayed the same, we still wantedto edit, revise, tweak them
(21:03):
enough that really would engagestudents.
And we did a lot more question,asking questions and create a
graph, create a table, write anequation, do this we?
We ask more questions.
That would get students tothink deeper about something
rather than just following theinstructions that are there.
I'm creating a graph because itsays create a graph Instead of
(21:24):
would you create a graph?
That would help you?
That's a different question.
It makes them think differently.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, yeah, sort of the directive versus the
thoughtful.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And kind of getting back to what you said, joel,
earlier.
But I want to make sure, likethe jumping frogs at calaveras
county, the trail mix from tilefor toothpicks and tiles or
thesel, the acrobat, watch mynumber, like those kind of
things, newton's reverence, thealgebra walk on the silent board
(21:56):
game, things like that, we keptthose because those are those
problems that are memorable,problems that that for years
have really engaged students,work with students, and so we
didn't throw those out at alland I want to make sure, like
that, the favorites.
So a teacher transitions fromsecond to third edition.
Oh, I love this, it's myfavorite.
(22:17):
Well, it's there.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And if they don't think it's their life, the
mascot problem, it is just maybenot in the course you're
teaching now, because we neededto move it for the standards and
and, and you and I had someconversation about this also,
tony, like some of you, alsotook advantage of the time.
The the sort of the opportunity, let's say, to change some
contexts or change some problems, like moving them is one thing,
(22:41):
but like actually to rewrite it, as Karen was saying, maybe not
as many parts, or to change thecontext when that opportunity
presented itself.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yes, it's similar to what we did in IC.
That and I fall back on PamSater, the book Choosing to See,
and we always have her Academyof Best Practices and one of the
things that she says which Ithought was I always knew like
the mirror students can seethemselves in that context, the
window they can see into anothercontext, another culture,
(23:11):
another, you know.
But she said the third one is asliding glass door where you
can open it and enter into thatother context, that other world.
And I just we tried to do thatand I think that's really
important that students seethemselves, see other people and
can even then enter into thatcontext, so they become a part.
(23:33):
And you can't do that perfectlybecause we're a national
Christian, we're not writingwhich we don't know necessarily.
I mean, demographics indifferent parts of the country
and different cities anddifferent districts change.
But we tried to do enough ofthat so that every student could
see themselves in it and becomea part of that story, that
(23:54):
content, that those problems areworking story that content that
those problems are workingRight.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Right.
What do you guys think about?
So you brought up the fact thatsecond edition you kept a lot
of those great problems.
But if I was a teachercurrently teaching second
edition and wanted to adopt thisthird edition, would that, do
you think, feel like it would bea smooth transition?
What are some of the things youmight say about that?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'd say yes, If you embrace CPM philosophy,
methodology and you're familiarwith it, yes, it'll be a smooth
transition.
It looks different.
We wanted it to look different.
So all new illustrations, newfont, new layout.
We just wanted it to lookdifferent too.
And there is one piece I don'tthink we've mentioned yet, which
(24:41):
is a launch.
I know Tony mentioned the doorquestions, but every lesson also
has a launch and that's new.
That's something where you knowthere's.
We start the lesson off tospark thinking, to spark
curiosity in some way, when wecan.
It's from the lesson, it'srelated to the lesson, but
sometimes it's just like a,which one is unique, or a, a
(25:02):
math chat number, talk sort ofthing, to get kids started
thinking as we go into thelesson.
So that is different.
So if you're not used to doingsomething like that, this will
be something new to you.
But generally I would say it'dbe a smooth transition.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, and that is similar to what I see is where
we had the launch and we havewhat we call data chats.
We have several different typesof launches.
One's a data chat to get someof that data in there.
Since Ed Report says that isn'tthat important, we wanted that
and what I want teachers to knowis it's meant to be an opener
(25:40):
Like it's not meant to be acomplete lesson.
So after, if the launch hasfour minutes, five minutes,
that's it, like greatdiscussions.
But now we're moving on.
We can come back to that maybelater.
Several teachers when we firstintroduced it, they were taking
10, 15 minutes because they weregreat discussions happening,
but then you're losing the corepart of the lesson and so, but I
(26:04):
yeah the launch, I love thelaunch and that was go ahead.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Go ahead, no, go ahead.
Finish what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Well, when I did TRC two years in a row I did number
talk, math chats and I watchedjust basic skills with the four
operations even fractions,decimals, negative numbers.
I saw the increase in theirskill by doing those as launches
.
That helped them find waysmentally to work with the
(26:35):
numbers and decompose andrecompose numbers and the
flexibility with numbers thatreally does grow your number
sense.
It was amazing to watch whathappened and so we've added a
lot of that Again.
That's where that research thatwe did is informing Right Nice.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And it's on a different platform, right Like?
It's not in the old e-booksplatform, it's in our other
platform.
It's a different platform,right Like?
It's not in the old e-booksplatform, it's in our other
platform.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
It's a digital platform, so the third edition
online will look much differentthan the old e-book.
And the pre-edition doesn'tlook that much different, but
it's very much.
It's cleaned up.
It's just crisper nicer itlooks.
Not that the other one wasn'tprofessional, this looks even
(27:23):
more so, I think to say and whenwe, when we had it out at the
national conference and peoplewere looking at it, they raved
about just how clean yeah, clean.
How nice and simple and easy itis to yeah navigate it totally,
totally well I can.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I can say I can say from I was kidding at the
beginning, I knew, I knew thirdedition existed, but I I've done
some work with it already and Ican attest to that I think it
does look cleaner.
It's different's different andas we move forward currently
it's only sixth, seventh andeighth grade.
Is that correct?
(28:03):
Correct, that is correct, andit will be coming in high school
sometime soon, usually.
And how would I think I knowthe answer too, but You're going
to answer your own question Iknow.
So if somebody was interested inlearning about 3rd Edition, we
have some information out thereon our website, things like that
(28:24):
.
Do you have any suggestions forsomebody who might be looking
for some information on 3rdEdition?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Besides contact Tony no we don't want to.
Contact.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Tony Okay.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
The email no, not Tony, not Tony.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
And I'm not supposed to say just contact your RPLC
anymore, no Right.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think mostly they go to supportcpmorg and start
there Right.
There's a place there wherethey can get more information
about.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And certainly the books will be at our booths at
our conferences.
So if you're attending any mathconference that has an
exhibition center, sure you goby the cpm booth and take a look
and you could hold it in yourhand and see what it feels like
and and all um.
The teacher editions now arenot binders but spiral bound
volumes and yeah, which lay flat, which is really nice with the
(29:14):
hard back so you could write onit like a clipboard and all yeah
.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
And that is true.
I didn't say this earlier, butit was primarily a print edition
with a digital component, asopposed to IC, which is a
digital, primarily digital, witha consumable component.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And so those who still I'm old school, I love the
book.
I do too.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
That's a good distinction to make, though.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah Well, thank you so much for coming on the
podcast and talking about ourmiddle school.
So far it's Core Connections3rd Edition and we'll leave some
things in the show description.
So if people want to get somemore information, there'll be
some ways to contact and getmore information there.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Super, that'd be great, thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
All right.
Thanks for joining.
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thank you All right.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
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 podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
(30:39):
More People.
What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It'll be July 15th, national Pet Fire Safety Day, so
we'll talk about what it meansto be aware if you have a fire
at your home and how to takecare of your pets.
It's an awareness day, so wewill have some actionable items
that you can take to make surethat your pets are safe during a
(31:04):
fire.
We'll share some links in thedescription and talk about our
own pets and how we would act onthat if there were an emergency
.
So we look forward to seeingyou again on July 15th.
See you then, thank you.
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