S12 E6: Bridging Gaps in Math Education: Crafting Asset-Based IEP Goals

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In this episode of Practical Access, hosts Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines welcome Joleigh Honey, a seasoned math educator and advocate for IEP (Individualized Education Program) goals in mathematics. Joleigh, with over 30 years of experience, shares insights into creating meaningful, grade-level math goals for students with disabilities. She emphasizes the importance of providing students with multiple, varied opportunities to access and demonstrate grade-level content, while also leveraging their unique strengths and experiences.

Joleigh discusses strategies for teachers working with students at varying levels of academic ability, offering guidance on developing IEP goals that are neither too narrow nor too vague. She encourages a shift from focusing on students' deficiencies to building on their assets, enabling a deeper and more confident understanding of math. She also addresses parents, advising them on how to engage with IEP goals and support their children at home.

The episode concludes with Joleigh’s recommendation of asset-based resources, including her co-authored book, Transforming Your Math Classroom Using Asset-Based Perspectives. This episode is a valuable listen for educators and parents alike, filled with practical advice on fostering success and confidence in math for all learners.

We love to hear from our listeners! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We look forward to receiving your questions on our Twitter (@Accesspractical) or Instagram (@Practical_Access).

Joleigh's Bio: https://www.nctm.org/About/President,-Board-and-Committees/Nominations-and-Elections/2023-Candidates/Joleigh-Honey/

Transforming Your Math Classroom Using Asset-Based Perspectives: https://us.corwin.com/books/assets-based-teaching-288055 

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Music.

Lisa Dieker (00:07):
Welcome to Practical Access. I'm Lisa
Dieker.

Rebecca Hines (00:10):
And I'm Rebecca Hines and Lisa. Today's topic is
one that so many teachers aregoing to be interested in,
because everyone needs support.
It seems like with those IEPs.
Who do we have today?

Lisa Dieker (00:23):
Yeah, so we're excited to have with us, Joleigh
Honey and Joleigh, thank you somuch for joining us.

Joleigh Honey (00:29):
Yeah, you guys, thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.

Lisa Dieker (00:33):
Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about your background
and your interest in thesewonderful IEP goals,
specifically the seasons on mathand science, and I know you're
really a person who thinksdeeply about IEP goals and
mathematics, which I think is areally rare trait. So, give us a
little bit of your backgroundand your interest in that area.

Joleigh Honey (00:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I actually am a matheducator with 30 plus years
experience. I started as asecondary math high school
teacher, and then over time,became a an academic coach who
supported other teachers, a mathsupervisor and an administrator.
And then I found myself at theUtah State Department of

(01:15):
Education, and while I had beenworking with my colleagues to
support students withdisabilities. Prior to that
time, I fell in love with andbecame just super passionate
about the work in supportingstudents with having access to
high quality grade levelcontent. And that's where it

(01:36):
started. And then from there, Ijust learned so much about IEP
goals, took courses, became morefamiliar. We actually had a
cross departmentalimplementation team that worked
on the National State SystemicImprovement Plan, and our focus
was to support students withdisabilities in not just having

(01:58):
access to grade level content,but also like being successful
with it and and having a lotmore confidence in the work that
they do.

Rebecca Hines (02:09):
You know, when you when you mentioned Joleigh
this idea, I love it, becauseI'm always trying to get people
to understand that everyonedeserves access to the same
level. And we have to understandalso that they're not
necessarily all going to leavewith exactly the same level of
knowledge at the conclusion of agreat lesson, but they deserve

(02:31):
access to it. You know, that'sreally the bottom line of
inclusion. So, what would yousay for those teachers who are
trying, you know, they're tryingto teach a classroom that has
multiple levels? You know, of ofof academic knowledge,
background knowledge, and forsome reason, you know disability

(02:51):
or otherwise, you know maybethey're not performing at the
same level. Where does, wheredoes a teacher get started
writing a really sophisticated,a really quality IEP goal for
someone who needs remediation,but you're not, you're not
wanting them to get pulled outto get the remediation. I know
that's a specific question, butwhere do we start thinking about
that?

Joleigh Honey (03:12):
Yeah, no, I love that question so and in fact,
I'm going to answer it, I think,kind of twofold, because one is,
you're so right. Students comeinto lessons with different
experiences, differentbackgrounds, different talents,
and I think it's one of thereasons that we really talk
about the fact that we need tomake sure that students are

(03:32):
provided multiple opportunitiesover time, and that it's not a
here we are. I've taught this,and now all students are here,
right? Like there's this wholeprocess of over time, we want
students to have a deep,conceptual and procedural
understanding of the mostimportant concepts within a

(03:54):
grade, band within a grade. Andso that's one aspect. Is like
trying not to think of it as alesson, but as multiple
opportunities in different waysover time to make sense of it.
And then the other thing is, iswe do all have different
experiences. And so, trying tothink about, how can we use our

(04:14):
the present levels of academicachievement and functional
performance, the plat to talkabout what are students
strengths and thinking about,what are the talents that they
bring, what are the ways thatthey are better, best able to
communicate, and whatever thecommunication situation happens
to be is to be able to expresstheir understanding and giving

(04:38):
students that choice, and thenfocusing on like, the wonderful
thing about the way that we workin math these days is that there
are these big ideas in gradebands that students you know,
like the multiplication, therelationship between
multiplication, division,addition of subtraction, that
happens throughout third throughfifth grade. It is so beautiful

(05:01):
that it's like students developstrategies and ideas and they
can show different ways. And Ithink it's really important that
we provide studentsopportunities to express how
they are understanding theconcepts based on their way of
thinking, and that we leveragethat instead of trying to always

(05:23):
redirect them to here's theprocedure of this, and then the
goal is that students becomefluent and knowledgeable over
time by having thoseexperiences.

Rebecca Hines (05:34):
Yes, love it.

Lisa Dieker (05:35):
So I think, you know, yes, I think you know, I'm
getting excited, because I dothink that this is one of the
hardest areas in our field.
Sometimes for teachers, eitherthey don't have the background,
or they have, as you said, thebackground be for the big ideal
world where you taught thechapter and you moved to the
next chapter instead of thinkingdeeply. But because you've had

(05:57):
so much experience in seeing somany IEPs, I would love to hear
you tell me, as a new teacher,you've been an academic coach,
what would you tell me not toput on the IEP in mathematics?
Like? What would be like, "Yeah,Lisa, don't go here." I see you
ready for that.

Joleigh Honey (06:16):
We have these conversations. I know we have
these conversations, and as anew teacher, this is exactly
what I would have done is. Andin fact, I I thought this when I
was first getting involved withthis is it's like, okay, you
look at the plaque up, you'relike, here's what the student
skill level says. And it's like,oh, they don't know how to tell
time, and they're in thirdgrade. So, what I will see is

(06:39):
either very specific IEP goalsthat are something that is
either below grade level or onlycovered in class for a short,
very short period of time. Andthen it feels like the special
education teacher is not inalignment with the gen ed
teacher, because they're like,specifically focusing on this

(07:00):
minute skill, or the IEP goal isso vague that, like that they
don't change from year to year.
So, so in the in the space ofwhat I learned over time is you
want IEP goals that focus on themajor work of what's happening
in that grade level, so thatstudents have access to it time

(07:20):
and time again, and that theyhave opportunities to make
connections. Like, it's kind oflike the Goldilocks, right? Like
too narrow, and like, it's like,it doesn't make sense, or too
vague, and it's like, you're notreally hitting a goal.

Lisa Dieker (07:41):
I love that answer.
Thank you.

Rebecca Hines (07:43):
And you know now I will be the first to admit
that I am not the math person,and I have a really simple
question, is there, is there anopportunity for teachers, in

(08:04):
your opinion? You know, is it,would you consider it a good
opportunity to think about theoutput more than the as you
said, discrete skills? So, isthere an opportunity in writing
these IEP goals to say that Lisawill verbally express how to,

(08:24):
you know, solve X, Y or Z. Typeof problem. Is that something
that teachers do or can do?

Joleigh Honey (08:32):
Yeah, we actually do some work with groups that
really talk about like studentswill solve problems using the
relationship betweenmultiplication and division
using strategies of theirchoice. And then we kind of say
something like, you know, within100 which is a third grade
standard in most states, is, andso that makes it so that it's

(08:55):
like, you know that what you'redoing is you have, you know,
situations that exist that are abig part of that, but it's but
it's not. It's not sayingspecifically multiplication,
it's not saying specificallydivision, but students can
create array models. They canmake sense of number of groups

(09:18):
and size of groups, that sort ofthing. You said it was a very
simple question. I have to tellyou, my heart kind of stopped
for a moment. You know how thatgoes. And yes, you're most
definitely a math person, so Ithat was a great question.

Lisa Dieker (09:35):
Well, and my question is, is kind of
following on that at a simplelevel, and, and I think it's
something that you really are anexpert in, is now I'm a parent,
so let me put on the parent hatfor a moment. And I get this big
page, the paperwork, and I getto the page on math, and it's
like, what, what does that mean?
How, as a parent, do you suggestI try to not only interpret the

(09:57):
IEP? But, and maybe, what aresome things I could be doing at
home to support my child basedon reading that IEP? Like, what
are some things that you mightsay to families when they get
that IEP and it has math goals,because we see reading goals a
lot, and we see a lot of toolsout there in reading the math
buckets a little bit smaller.
What are some your go-to thingsthat might help parents?

Joleigh Honey (10:20):
Yes, so I will share that when we have
conversations in the groups thatI work with, one of the things
that we do is teachers arebecoming huge in advocating for
parents to contribute and andhave have different aspects. So
let me, let me just share this.
One I'm going to, I think I'mgoing to make this threefold.

(10:40):
One is having parents advocatefor students to have IEP goals
that are grade level studentscan absolutely make sense of
grade level content. So, thatbeing the first thing is like,
and then the second thing isworking with teachers, and that
both gen ed, special ed, theadministration, everyone to kind

(11:04):
of be like, how can I supportthe strengths that I know that
my child has, and contributethat to the conversation, so
that the parent the teachers aremore aware of those strengths of
this child, but then also thatcan be something that they work
on together throughout the year,so that students see themselves

(11:24):
as being mathematicians, if youwill, that they see themselves
as stewards of mathematics, andthat they see they see
themselves as being confident inthe mathematics that they're
doing. And I said threefold, butI think that the second and
third one like in the end, wewant students to not only be
successful, but we also wantthem to see themselves, and we

(11:46):
want others to see them as as aspeople who are capable of doing
mathematics. And I think thatwhen our IEP goals are below
grade level, we start talkingabout interventions before we
talk about instruction, and wereally need to start with
instruction and providingsupports for students to be
successful and and I think thatparents, you know, we just want

(12:07):
to do what's best for our child,but starting with, what is the
big idea in this grade level,and how can I support my child?
And then second, how do Isupport them with their
strengths? And then third,making sure that my child feels
like that they are confident andcapable of doing mathematics.

Rebecca Hines (12:32):
So, I will ask my final question, which is, you've
used the word support? Lisa'sused the word support. It's, you
know, parents need opportunitysupport. Do you have one
favorite tool or one favoriteresource that you could give to
teachers or parents who arelooking for a way to support
kids might find its way into theIEP at some point as a tool. But

(12:55):
do you have something you couldrecommend?

Joleigh Honey (13:00):
Yeah, I I don't have these multi answers, but

I'm going to give 2 (13:03):
1 support is, how are we collecting
student data, often over time,and showing how students are
flexible, accurate andefficient, and the work that
they're doing. So, what is atool that makes it so that
teachers are able to collectthat data, so that students have

(13:27):
all kinds of different problems,and that they can see that, like
they can draw bottles, or thatthey can create a raise, or that
they can use partial products,and I'm using those examples
because we gave third throughfifth grade earlier, but that's
one kind of support is like, howare we making sense of how
students are making sense of thework? But then the other support

(13:50):
that I think is universal foreveryone to provide is focusing
on students assets. So, Ihaven't mentioned this yet, but
a book that I just co authoredwith Mike Steele that has
transformed your math classroomusing asset based perspectives.
It is really that conversationof starting with what students
know and supporting them to goto the next level based on what

(14:16):
it is that they already know, asopposed to honing in on what
they don't know and fixing theirmistakes.

Rebecca Hines (14:22):
Love it.

Joleigh Honey (14:23):
Like instead of redirecting them to your way of
thinking, how are we listeningto what the student is saying
and hearing their thoughts sothat we are building on what
they are saying.

Lisa Dieker (14:34):
Well, that was wonderful advice. I love that
you ended with that greatcomment of asset based, because
I think that's what we believe.
And actually Becky stole my lastquestion, so that will be the
last question I was going to askher. What were your two favorite
things you would recommend forteachers? So we really
appreciate you being with us,and we would look forward to
highlighting that book and thatwork and learning more from you

(14:57):
online. So, if you havequestions, please send us a
Tweet at Access Practical, oryou can post a question for us
on our Facebook page. Thank youagain, Joleigh, for joining us,
and thanks for that wonderfuladvice.

Rebecca Hines (15:10):
Thank you, Joleigh.

Joleigh Honey (15:10):
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you both so much forhaving me. Have a wonderful
thanks. This is great. Bye.