Room to Grow - a Math Podcast

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis reflect on their personal and professional experiences of 2024 and what they learned. Reflect – conferences, books, podcast guests. Thinking differently about teaching and learning math. Hope you’ll take the time to reflect and capture your own learning.

Curtis and Joanie reference these episodes of Room to Grow which aired in 2024:

·       Teaching and Learning Math: Students’ Persp...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis speak with leaders of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) about their recent publication, High School Mathematics Reimagined, Revitalized and Relevant.  Latrenda Knighten, NCTM President and Kevin Dykema, NCTM Past-President share a great overview of how rethinking how and what we teach in high school math can be improved so that more students leave high school p...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis speak with Mike Steele and Joleigh Honey, authors of the recently released book transform your math class using asset-based teaching for grades 6-12. The book and the conversation explore what is meant by “asset-based,” and why shifting to more asset-based approaches supports a broader range of learners. 

Mike and Joleigh unpack ideas around asset-based language, including, the lan...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue their conversations with middle and high school students to gain their perspectives on learning math. Our hosts interviewed six students from grades 7-12 in three different sessions. Because all of these conversations were rich with great comments, this is the second of two episodes of Room to Grow devoted to these students’ perspectives; if you haven’t already listened to...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis have conversations with middle and high school students to gain their perspectives on learning math. They interviewed six students from grades 7-12 in three different sessions. Because all of these conversations were rich with great comments, the next two episodes of Room to Grow will be devoted to these students’ perspectives. 

Part 1 focuses on what the students said their teache...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue their conversation from the Wisconsin Math Council’s annual conference. 

Wisconsin mathematics education leaders Mary Mooney and Lisa Hennessey share additional thoughts on the remaining pillars of their conference theme, A  C.A.L.L. to Action, embracing the roles of Community, Advocacy, Leadership, and Learning. Additionally, we hear some questions from the sessi...

In this episode of Room to Grow, we join our hosts at the Wisconsin Math Council’s annual conference. Wisconsin mathematics education leaders Mary Mooney and Lisa Hennessey join Curtis and Joanie for a discussion focused on the conference theme, A  C.A.L.L. to Action, embracing the roles of Community, Advocacy, Leadership, and Learning. 

Due to the extended nature of this great conversation, this month’s episode features C...

In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts discuss ways to support student sense-making in teaching and learning mathematics. Building out on the ideas shared in Episode 3 of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie dive more deeply into what it means for students to “make sense of mathematics.”

They discuss what it looks and sounds like when students are making sense, as opposed to just repeating back learned ideas, and consider ...

In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts look for the balance between instruction that is teacher-driven, traditional lecture-style, and inquiry-based, discovery-style lessons. They recognize the value of both types of teaching, understanding that there is a time in learning for both exploration and for direct and explicit teaching. 

The conversation offers explanation of what conditions may require different teaching st...

In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts share conversation with Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year (NTOY). Rebecka is a high school math teacher at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on leave for the 2023-24 school year to fulfill her NTOY responsibilities. She views the NTOY not as an award, but rather a job, that of spokesperson and ambassador for the teaching profession.

In this conversation, we learn a...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie consider ways to uncover how students are actually thinking about the mathematics they are learning. Using a real-life, recent incident between Curtis and his sixth grade son, our hosts consider the challenging fact that many students think that success in math class means figuring out what answer the teacher (or the computer program/app, or the back of the book) is looking for. 

In this episode of Room to Grow, special guests Sandra Lightman and John Staley help Joanie and Curtis understand the Math Milestones. These one-page resources include 12-14 math tasks that provide a visualization of and engagement with the math standards of each grade. The Math Milestones tasks present grade level math, not as a list of standards or learning outcomes, but as a groups of math tasks, a language understood by teacher...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie continue their conversation with Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta. In follow-up to our previous episode, this conversation shifts to a focus on teachers and how the Reason Routines help them to be more effective with more students. 

We begin by talking about what makes teaching hard – including the fact that teachers make a million decisions every day in response to the stu...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta join Curtis and Joanie to talk about how routines can provide the “opportunity and support for each and every student develop mathematical thinking and reasoning.” Although routines are used by most educators for a variety of reasons, Grace and Amy focus on “Routines for Reasoning,” which are specifically designed and structured to surface the ways that students are t...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis host special guest Dr. Katey Arrington to discuss the importance of teacher content knowledge. 

Dr. Arrington is the Associate Director of the UTeach Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also serving in the Presidential line for NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education from 2022-2026. Previously, she led the K-12 system services work at the Charles A. Da...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis talk about an important role of math education: preparing students for the life they want to pursue after high school. Whether it’s college, trade school, the military, or directly into the work force, a student’s goals and desires should drive their learning experiences throughout their PK-12 years, and the course offerings, counseling and advising, and school system overall shoul...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis explore ideas around the emotional side of learning and how it impacts students in their academic growth. Because we and our students are humans - and humans have emotions - it is impossible to learn without a connection to our emotions, whether those emotions are positive or negative. As educators reflect over the summer and begin to plan for the upcoming school year, we hope you’...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis talk about teaching strategies for remembering in mathematics, such as mnemonic devices, tricks, and gimmicks. 

They challenge the notion that teaching with tricks is inherently bad, and discuss how to determine when a strategy intended to help students learn might actually work against their understanding of the underlying mathematics. For instance, “FOIL” and “SOH-CAH-TO...

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis share a friendly debate about which math topic is the most important for students to learn.

There are many math topics that could be argued as the most important, and we’d love to hear your hot take, too!

Take a listen to Curtis explaining why the meaning of the equals sign is crucial and Joanie arguing that proportional relationships are especially important. T...