November 8, 2024 • 23 mins
Math is math, right? Yes.
However, how we teach it and understand how students learn it is constantly in flux. In this episode, we hear what the day-to-day math class looks like at each level, what the K-12 goals for math education are, and what parents can do, particularly at the elementary level, to build mathematical confidence in their children.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the SMWay podcast.
(00:12):
My name is Christy Guiesky.
I am the Director of Instruction for the School District of South Milwaukee.
And today we are going to talk a little bit about math.
For the last few weeks, or a couple of months over the year, we've talked a lot about literacy
because we had some policy and law changes at the state level.
And we wanted to make sure that the community was well informed about how we were progressing
(00:33):
toward implementation of that law.
However, we do want families and community members to know that all is not lost on the
other subject areas.
We've also talked a little bit about STEM and CTE.
And we will get to eventually social studies.
But today we want to talk a little bit about our math instruction at the K-8 level.
So today I have with me three guests at our math roundtable.
(00:55):
And those three guests are Andrea Velasquez and April Sturbin and Mary Beth Bouchard.
I would like to pause for a moment, allow them to introduce themselves.
Okay, I'm Andrea Velasquez.
I've been in the district for eight years at the middle school.
I taught seventh grade for six years and I've been in a coaching role now for three years.
I'm April Sturbin.
(01:15):
I am in the fourth year at in South Milwaukee and I was at Lakeview as an instructional
coach and now I'm at Blakewood as an instructional coach and this is my second year.
So my name is Mary Beth Bouchard.
I've been teaching in South Milwaukee for 25 years.
First grade for all of that time except a little stint where I was first and second
(01:37):
grade together.
I've been involved in the math leadership team in the school district for many years.
I've also been mentoring.
I've been involved in technology and just a lot of anywhere I can help.
I am awesome.
Thank you so much for being here.
So we just have a few questions that we kind of want to pose and have you chat a little
bit about so that we can kind of inform our community a little bit about how we're handling
(02:01):
math in our school district.
So from your perspective, what are some of the biggest skills that kids need to have
related to math in elementary school or middle school?
So of course, my focus is on the littles and my philosophy on math has changed a lot over
the years.
Maybe we have to memorize all these math facts and get really quick at solving problems.
(02:23):
Now I'm focused more on teaching kids to think flexibly about manipulating numbers.
So for example, instead of just memorizing seven plus five, I want them to break apart
that five into a three and a two and then get to the time.
So we do a lot of work with composing and decomposing numbers.
I also want them to understand the basic operations addition and subtraction at our age, but we
(02:49):
also do things like three plus three plus three plus three.
And that's the foundation for multiplication.
And we do a little bit with fractions and a lot of time solving story problems and working
on place value.
Well math has changed as we've gone along.
And right now we have to think a little bit broader than just adding and subtracting and
(03:14):
counting.
We have to think about students are going to be having, our students and children are
going to be having jobs that we don't even know exist.
So we have to repair them and through the math we can hit the problem solving, collaboration
and communication and embed that with our math because it's going to be more than just
can I add or subtract or can I read the number line or the clock?
(03:38):
I want to be able to know that I can do more and understand math in a deeper level.
In middle school in addition to those skills of communication, collaboration and problem
solving, the students really need to come in with a basic understanding of fractions
in order to be able to access our priority standards.
So middle school we learn about rates and proportional relationships which are actually
(03:59):
ties to better buy of items at the grocery store, increasing and decreasing ingredients
and recipe, sales price, tax, tip and so many other real world applications.
Students who come to middle school with those skills have a higher likelihood of finding
success in middle school.
And then another thing is multiplication fluency.
It's not just about plugging numbers into an algorithm but having flexible strategies
(04:20):
that can work across all number systems.
So for example students who excel at multiplying whole number multiplication sometimes then
struggle when it comes to multiplying with fractions or decimals.
So we want them to have lots of strategies as the math becomes more rigorous.
Elaine, what a typical day or what your class might look like.
What kinds of things do kids learn and do related to the skills and content with math?
(04:47):
Well every math class starts with a warm up.
So it might be counting on the number line back and forth or it might be looking at some
dot cubes and we call it subitizing where they look at a number and they need to learn
how to either group small portions of it together to figure out what that number is but we really
want them to stop counting the dots.
(05:09):
It might be something like that.
We could be looking at a calendar, we could be looking at money, some little warm up.
Then we have kind of like a mini lesson where we talk about our new learning for the day.
We work together on how we're going to solve or do whatever it is we're doing and then
the kids work on their own with me kind of walking around and then at the end we'll come
(05:33):
back and talk about how we did at the new skill that we're learning.
At the elementary level it's really important for our students to be able to have manipulatives
because they understand a whole lot more when they see it, they touch it, they feel it,
they can maneuver it.
Then we can go into teaching them representation and then abstract and sometimes we as adults
(05:58):
we want to get into the abstract but students need time to be able to explore and to really
think through things and understand and it's amazing when you start listening or watching
students how they think through problems.
The other day I had a student that I said put these in groups of 10 and tell me how
(06:19):
many you have and she put you know she counted up five and then five more grouped them together
and pushed them aside and then five more five more.
It was just very interesting other students would go one two three four five six seven
eight nine ten push it aside.
So just seeing how they think and being able to look at their strengths and work with them
(06:40):
in that regard because they have so much to offer.
I learned so much from students listening to them understanding where they're coming
from it's just fun.
Math is my passion and so just seeing what students can give me and the learning I just
get so excited about.
And then in middle school when students have these wonderful ideas we want to make sure
(07:01):
that they're making connections to each other's ideas and being able to share their different
representations.
So April mentioned like the number line in middle school we get to double number lines
and ratio tables and graphs and we want them to be able to compare all those things because
we're going to start getting into some algebra skills where they can relate all of that then
into an equation.
So being able to have really deep discussions with each other to talk about the different
(07:23):
ways that their problem solving is going to help them move through those progressions.
Another thing that we're utilizing at the middle school is using ST Math time.
So ST Math is a program that the kids can use on their computer to help reinforce the
skills that they're learning in class but it also can address some of the skill gaps
that they come to middle school with.
So the teachers you really are utilizing ST Math time as a way to hone in on what skills
(07:48):
individual students need to be working on and then pulling small groups to be able to
work on moving them forward in those progressions of skills.
When we've talked about literacy we've always kind of grounded our conversation on the standards
and we talk a lot about the standards with our staff and interestingly there's always
been this like in the last I don't know decade when we switched to Common Core people thought
(08:11):
new math, Common Core math and that really was kind of a myth.
So can you talk a little bit about the standards and how you use the standards to like guide
instruction and what to develop criteria so kids know they're successful.
What kinds of things do you do and if I was a parent visiting the classroom what might
I see?
(08:31):
Okay so any math lesson will have probably several standards attached to it but I tried
to get the students to focus on one or two of them and I put them in student friendly
language.
For example we're in a geometry unit so I will say to them we are learning to compose
and decompose shapes and then they'll repeat it to me and then we'll talk about what do
(08:53):
these words mean and then as the lesson is going on I might see kids getting off track
I don't know maybe just playing with the shapes I'm like okay everybody let's stop let's talk
again about what are we doing here and then as I mentioned before when we come back to
the end of our lesson and we're looking at our work I want to see how did are we successful
(09:14):
did we did we do this and as I'm planning my lesson I'm taking into consideration the
standards and how I can help the kids get to mastery of that standard in that lesson
or maybe not till the end of the year it kind of depends.
One of the things I want to clarify is that standards are just the set of skills that
(09:35):
is expected for students to learn each year and it's a scaffold so by the time they graduate
from high school they have reached mastery of all the skills so sometimes the common
core kind of hit it wrong in people's minds and also new math is I hear that come up as
(09:59):
new math it's not really new math because two plus two always is going to equal four
it's a matter of the new math more of like it we want to look at it as more of a deeper
understanding of the math it's not you do it because I told you these are the skills
but I want you to know why and how to be flexible with numbers and all the deeper understandings
(10:24):
rather than just I did it because the teacher told me to do it this way there's more than
one way to get to an answer and students just have incredible thinking when they start thinking
outside the box and get they have fun with numbers and different things you know just
math can be a lot of fun. In addition to the common core standards where we're using that
(10:46):
to create learning goals for students and help them progress to that mastery like April talked
about we also have the standards for mathematical practice and that can be used across any content
in math where it's really more about that problem-solving piece where students have to
make sense of the problem reason abstractly create arguments and critique the reasoning
of others model use appropriate tools attend to precision look for structure and come up
(11:11):
with patterns that they're seeing in the math and ST math that like we talked about before
it hits all of those things because the students have to figure out how to solve the problem
and they have to come up with tools to solve and it's a great way to help them build those
skills so sometimes we hear students say well when am I ever going to use this in life well
(11:34):
maybe you won't do that specific equation in your life but it's going to help you be
a problem solver. So what advice would you give to families that might be concerned about
their math skills and the need for improvement? So in my opinion the best way to learn math
(11:55):
is to do math so find ways to do math as a family whether it's board games card games
have your kids help you with cooking money management shopping at the grocery store all
those real-life applications where they are doing the math part for you and with you it's
going to help them become stronger in mathematics and then when it comes to the homework piece
(12:18):
feel like teachers are there to answer questions like reach out to the teachers we want the
questions it have the kids circle the problems that they're confused on bring it back the
next day so it can be a really rich discussion as a group. Well please please please play
board games with your kids play Monopoly play anything with dice anything where they're
(12:39):
counting on a board that counting is so important if it's a rainy afternoon and you're looking
for something to do pull out a jar of dried beans and have them count ask them what would
be a more efficient way to count this could I group them in tons and as they get throughout
the year maybe they can start grouping in 50s or what if they're a little older you
(13:00):
could find things like boxes of band-aids and see how they're grouped and just just
counting counting is the most important thing to do with them also recipes talking about
the weather talking about the calendar just daily life where is math if you're grocery
shopping with them kids don't really see money anymore so it's great to talk to them about
(13:21):
hey we're gonna buy this and this and we have ten dollars how's it going to work and
obviously you know you're putting it at their language and their skill but math is everywhere
and they really need to start seeing that. I think the first thing you can do with your
student or your child when they come home is to have them explain to that to you what
(13:42):
they're thinking and I think once they start thinking then you can go oh that's the way
that you know okay we're coming at it this way we don't expect everybody to be very
having a math major however we do want to give students the opportunities to to be able
to think through things in a little deeper level using their problem-solving and that
(14:06):
the communication is is really really important because if you sit back and listen you learn
like I said I listen to kids and I learn from them it's like oh that makes sense I never
thought of it that way and I'm still learning new things. Some of the other things that
you can do at home the old-fashioned board games those are so strong in strategies problem-solving
(14:32):
probability and statistics I think with our technology that has become so evident every
place you turn that we were forgetting about some of those things that we used to enjoy
as students as kids and so having a chance to work with board games I know that I taught
my son how to add large digit numbers like six digit numbers with six digit numbers playing
(14:58):
the game of life I kind of tweaked it a little bit and teaching him how to you know add these
numbers together and so there's a lot of things you can do with board games playing cards
you've got the algebraic symbols you have counting on different kinds of things that
you can do with dice probability and statistics that's a huge one also teaching them concentration
(15:22):
patience discipline we've rolled a whole lot into that. I also have some of the things
that we forget about our puzzles jigsaw puzzles that is problem-solving that's geometry when
you're talking about rotating it logical thinking analog clocks I was left at in the in Target
(15:43):
when I was by the clocks and I was teaching my niece about Roman numerals with an analog
clock and showing that you know it's like Ava can you see that this is you know this
is a one this is two and buying a clock and sitting right next to my son that way he always
saw those Roman numerals and then he could relate it to it to the numbers and get curiosity
(16:07):
built up for him money like Andrea said having them figure out tips having them count change
at the elementary school giving them just a few coins let them identify what the coins
are these are all huge things that can be helpful that you can do right at home baking
is another thing fractions huge thing on fractions but even knowing temperatures and 9 by 13
(16:34):
pans I used to give projects to my students of during Christmas time I want you to bake
something with your parent then come back and write about it and they had to kind of
write what they made and one of my students was an ML students multilingual and he said
I made a turkey and I'm thinking okay well what did he use for fractions and I'm thinking
my head like what was what math did you do he says I had to make sure the pan was big
(16:59):
enough and so he described the dimensions but then he went on to talk about the temperature
and making sure he had the right amount of stuffing to put in the turkey so it was just
really neat the broader perspective he brought to me measurement when you're hanging pictures
when you're looking at different things when you are painting shopping even looking at
(17:21):
coupons percentages off all those kind of things that we just kind of forget they're
all math we can do those simple things in life every day bring math in and before you
know it students are our students and children are going wow I do like math because math
can be a lot of yeah for sure yeah and I think you know like there are so many real life
(17:44):
things that we just naturally do that do involve math like you guys both shared and I think
also like I know if the panicky homework thing is a thing that people Andrea like you said
you reach out to the child's teacher sometimes our teachers will even put recordings up on
Google classroom or you know will record quickly how to solve the problem if they're really
stuck I know I have crowd sourced my educator friends on Facebook and said my child has
(18:08):
this problem I do not know how to solve this and I have not been able to find the right
Google video on YouTube to help me solve this with my child so you know there is kind of
some crowd sourcing you can do in other fun ways to it also that that also teaches your
child I'm stuck what are my resources who do I go to right so try to also build some
(18:30):
independent so there's a lot of fun ways that I think that we can continue to help support
and build math skills at home and then kind of the last thing too is that you know as
we're trying as we've talked about in other and other podcasts we really are trying to
make learning like not just about being bucketed into one category like you only learn science
(18:52):
and science and you only learn math and math and so I think most of the community knows
that as the referendum passed we have been able to expand our stem program and stem and
again stands for science technology engineering and math and really that class is designed
to help bring all of some of these concepts together so kids learn well like this is why
(19:14):
math is important this is why science is important and I get to be creative in building things
in these classes and so we were able to add three new teachers at the elementary level
and an additional teacher at the middle school level to really kind of expand this and help
kids think more like school isn't just for learning reading and math separately so what
(19:38):
kinds of things have you seen so far I know it's only been a little while since we've
had the program in place at elementary and that we've expanded at the middle school what
kinds of things have you seen that are you know maybe helping to kids to make connections
or are you hoping for in the future to see more connections?
I know at middle school they have been doing a lot of like coding programs which directly
(20:01):
relates back to some math skills and in the past they've done like some scale models and
they've used laser printers and some other tools and so I'm excited to see what else
they're going to come up with this year.
I've been in the elementary school watching the students do the coding and then having
them record how they do these things and I was like okay of course my math brain is going
(20:23):
okay what are they doing that's math wise but just the coding and getting this object
to go from here to here how many times do they turn how often do they turn do they rotate
is it right left I mean and then it's just the repeat and the patterns and it's just
amazing how much it's embedded in and the students are just loving it asking me to go
(20:45):
back and listen to the recording and watching what they're doing and showing me what they
are doing in there making the beeping sounds or whatever it is that they're doing or the
light turn on and it's fun for them to have that added bonus of the STEM lab.
Definitely and I think it'll just increase as the more and more you know we kind of started
(21:09):
with shifting some of our you know family engagement night to a STEAM program which
just adds the arts into that because there is definitely art when you get into engineering
and graphic design and things like that you have to use math but you also have to be creative
in some of those spaces for people and so that was really our launch into trying to
engage kids more in some of those subject areas and now we've actually got the program
(21:33):
starting to be embedded in all five six of our schools because once they go from middle
school STEM they get to actually go into specific courses in high school like engineering and
graphic design and you know all those areas plus their same math, science, English, ELA
classes all that stuff.
So I think we really do have an opportunity to continue to build on our math and our math
(21:58):
in a creative way that is not just you know being bucketed and siloed as we may have experienced.
Well thank you ladies for joining me today.
Is there any last final words of wisdom that you would like to leave with our audience?
I think one of the biggest transitions that we're making right now in mathematics is that
you know when we were in school it was about getting to a correct answer and that's not
(22:21):
what math is.
Math is all about that problem solving process and when something doesn't work let's try
a different strategy and go back to it and the kids getting like that growth mindset
and knowing that they can do and be successful at math.
Thank you so much.
Well that wraps up our conversation for today.
So again if you have any questions about what's going on in your child's classroom never hesitate
(22:44):
to reach out to your child's teacher.
We'll always be willing to show you what's going on with math, science, social studies
and ELA and as all of our guests have said math is everywhere so let's make it fun.
Kids can have a math brain.
We don't want kids to develop this idea that by the time they get to middle school like
they don't they're not good at math.
(23:06):
We can all be good at math.
It just might be in different ways and that's part of the reason that we're exploring things
like STEM and in our schools as well.
So thank you again and please reach out if you have any questions.
Welcome to the SMWay podcast.
(00:12):
My name is Christy Guiesky.
I am the Director of Instruction for the School District of South Milwaukee.
And today we are going to talk a little bit about math.
For the last few weeks, or a couple of months over the year, we've talked a lot about literacy
because we had some policy and law changes at the state level.
And we wanted to make sure that the community was well informed about how we were progressing
(00:33):
toward implementation of that law.
However, we do want families and community members to know that all is not lost on the
other subject areas.
We've also talked a little bit about STEM and CTE.
And we will get to eventually social studies.
But today we want to talk a little bit about our math instruction at the K-8 level.
So today I have with me three guests at our math roundtable.
(00:55):
And those three guests are Andrea Velasquez and April Sturbin and Mary Beth Bouchard.
I would like to pause for a moment, allow them to introduce themselves.
Okay, I'm Andrea Velasquez.
I've been in the district for eight years at the middle school.
I taught seventh grade for six years and I've been in a coaching role now for three years.
I'm April Sturbin.
(01:15):
I am in the fourth year at in South Milwaukee and I was at Lakeview as an instructional
coach and now I'm at Blakewood as an instructional coach and this is my second year.
So my name is Mary Beth Bouchard.
I've been teaching in South Milwaukee for 25 years.
First grade for all of that time except a little stint where I was first and second
(01:37):
grade together.
I've been involved in the math leadership team in the school district for many years.
I've also been mentoring.
I've been involved in technology and just a lot of anywhere I can help.
I am awesome.
Thank you so much for being here.
So we just have a few questions that we kind of want to pose and have you chat a little
bit about so that we can kind of inform our community a little bit about how we're handling
(02:01):
math in our school district.
So from your perspective, what are some of the biggest skills that kids need to have
related to math in elementary school or middle school?
So of course, my focus is on the littles and my philosophy on math has changed a lot over
the years.
Maybe we have to memorize all these math facts and get really quick at solving problems.
(02:23):
Now I'm focused more on teaching kids to think flexibly about manipulating numbers.
So for example, instead of just memorizing seven plus five, I want them to break apart
that five into a three and a two and then get to the time.
So we do a lot of work with composing and decomposing numbers.
I also want them to understand the basic operations addition and subtraction at our age, but we
(02:49):
also do things like three plus three plus three plus three.
And that's the foundation for multiplication.
And we do a little bit with fractions and a lot of time solving story problems and working
on place value.
Well math has changed as we've gone along.
And right now we have to think a little bit broader than just adding and subtracting and
(03:14):
counting.
We have to think about students are going to be having, our students and children are
going to be having jobs that we don't even know exist.
So we have to repair them and through the math we can hit the problem solving, collaboration
and communication and embed that with our math because it's going to be more than just
can I add or subtract or can I read the number line or the clock?
(03:38):
I want to be able to know that I can do more and understand math in a deeper level.
In middle school in addition to those skills of communication, collaboration and problem
solving, the students really need to come in with a basic understanding of fractions
in order to be able to access our priority standards.
So middle school we learn about rates and proportional relationships which are actually
(03:59):
ties to better buy of items at the grocery store, increasing and decreasing ingredients
and recipe, sales price, tax, tip and so many other real world applications.
Students who come to middle school with those skills have a higher likelihood of finding
success in middle school.
And then another thing is multiplication fluency.
It's not just about plugging numbers into an algorithm but having flexible strategies
(04:20):
that can work across all number systems.
So for example students who excel at multiplying whole number multiplication sometimes then
struggle when it comes to multiplying with fractions or decimals.
So we want them to have lots of strategies as the math becomes more rigorous.
Elaine, what a typical day or what your class might look like.
What kinds of things do kids learn and do related to the skills and content with math?
(04:47):
Well every math class starts with a warm up.
So it might be counting on the number line back and forth or it might be looking at some
dot cubes and we call it subitizing where they look at a number and they need to learn
how to either group small portions of it together to figure out what that number is but we really
want them to stop counting the dots.
(05:09):
It might be something like that.
We could be looking at a calendar, we could be looking at money, some little warm up.
Then we have kind of like a mini lesson where we talk about our new learning for the day.
We work together on how we're going to solve or do whatever it is we're doing and then
the kids work on their own with me kind of walking around and then at the end we'll come
(05:33):
back and talk about how we did at the new skill that we're learning.
At the elementary level it's really important for our students to be able to have manipulatives
because they understand a whole lot more when they see it, they touch it, they feel it,
they can maneuver it.
Then we can go into teaching them representation and then abstract and sometimes we as adults
(05:58):
we want to get into the abstract but students need time to be able to explore and to really
think through things and understand and it's amazing when you start listening or watching
students how they think through problems.
The other day I had a student that I said put these in groups of 10 and tell me how
(06:19):
many you have and she put you know she counted up five and then five more grouped them together
and pushed them aside and then five more five more.
It was just very interesting other students would go one two three four five six seven
eight nine ten push it aside.
So just seeing how they think and being able to look at their strengths and work with them
(06:40):
in that regard because they have so much to offer.
I learned so much from students listening to them understanding where they're coming
from it's just fun.
Math is my passion and so just seeing what students can give me and the learning I just
get so excited about.
And then in middle school when students have these wonderful ideas we want to make sure
(07:01):
that they're making connections to each other's ideas and being able to share their different
representations.
So April mentioned like the number line in middle school we get to double number lines
and ratio tables and graphs and we want them to be able to compare all those things because
we're going to start getting into some algebra skills where they can relate all of that then
into an equation.
So being able to have really deep discussions with each other to talk about the different
(07:23):
ways that their problem solving is going to help them move through those progressions.
Another thing that we're utilizing at the middle school is using ST Math time.
So ST Math is a program that the kids can use on their computer to help reinforce the
skills that they're learning in class but it also can address some of the skill gaps
that they come to middle school with.
So the teachers you really are utilizing ST Math time as a way to hone in on what skills
(07:48):
individual students need to be working on and then pulling small groups to be able to
work on moving them forward in those progressions of skills.
When we've talked about literacy we've always kind of grounded our conversation on the standards
and we talk a lot about the standards with our staff and interestingly there's always
been this like in the last I don't know decade when we switched to Common Core people thought
(08:11):
new math, Common Core math and that really was kind of a myth.
So can you talk a little bit about the standards and how you use the standards to like guide
instruction and what to develop criteria so kids know they're successful.
What kinds of things do you do and if I was a parent visiting the classroom what might
I see?
(08:31):
Okay so any math lesson will have probably several standards attached to it but I tried
to get the students to focus on one or two of them and I put them in student friendly
language.
For example we're in a geometry unit so I will say to them we are learning to compose
and decompose shapes and then they'll repeat it to me and then we'll talk about what do
(08:53):
these words mean and then as the lesson is going on I might see kids getting off track
I don't know maybe just playing with the shapes I'm like okay everybody let's stop let's talk
again about what are we doing here and then as I mentioned before when we come back to
the end of our lesson and we're looking at our work I want to see how did are we successful
(09:14):
did we did we do this and as I'm planning my lesson I'm taking into consideration the
standards and how I can help the kids get to mastery of that standard in that lesson
or maybe not till the end of the year it kind of depends.
One of the things I want to clarify is that standards are just the set of skills that
(09:35):
is expected for students to learn each year and it's a scaffold so by the time they graduate
from high school they have reached mastery of all the skills so sometimes the common
core kind of hit it wrong in people's minds and also new math is I hear that come up as
(09:59):
new math it's not really new math because two plus two always is going to equal four
it's a matter of the new math more of like it we want to look at it as more of a deeper
understanding of the math it's not you do it because I told you these are the skills
but I want you to know why and how to be flexible with numbers and all the deeper understandings
(10:24):
rather than just I did it because the teacher told me to do it this way there's more than
one way to get to an answer and students just have incredible thinking when they start thinking
outside the box and get they have fun with numbers and different things you know just
math can be a lot of fun. In addition to the common core standards where we're using that
(10:46):
to create learning goals for students and help them progress to that mastery like April talked
about we also have the standards for mathematical practice and that can be used across any content
in math where it's really more about that problem-solving piece where students have to
make sense of the problem reason abstractly create arguments and critique the reasoning
of others model use appropriate tools attend to precision look for structure and come up
(11:11):
with patterns that they're seeing in the math and ST math that like we talked about before
it hits all of those things because the students have to figure out how to solve the problem
and they have to come up with tools to solve and it's a great way to help them build those
skills so sometimes we hear students say well when am I ever going to use this in life well
(11:34):
maybe you won't do that specific equation in your life but it's going to help you be
a problem solver. So what advice would you give to families that might be concerned about
their math skills and the need for improvement? So in my opinion the best way to learn math
(11:55):
is to do math so find ways to do math as a family whether it's board games card games
have your kids help you with cooking money management shopping at the grocery store all
those real-life applications where they are doing the math part for you and with you it's
going to help them become stronger in mathematics and then when it comes to the homework piece
(12:18):
feel like teachers are there to answer questions like reach out to the teachers we want the
questions it have the kids circle the problems that they're confused on bring it back the
next day so it can be a really rich discussion as a group. Well please please please play
board games with your kids play Monopoly play anything with dice anything where they're
(12:39):
counting on a board that counting is so important if it's a rainy afternoon and you're looking
for something to do pull out a jar of dried beans and have them count ask them what would
be a more efficient way to count this could I group them in tons and as they get throughout
the year maybe they can start grouping in 50s or what if they're a little older you
(13:00):
could find things like boxes of band-aids and see how they're grouped and just just
counting counting is the most important thing to do with them also recipes talking about
the weather talking about the calendar just daily life where is math if you're grocery
shopping with them kids don't really see money anymore so it's great to talk to them about
(13:21):
hey we're gonna buy this and this and we have ten dollars how's it going to work and
obviously you know you're putting it at their language and their skill but math is everywhere
and they really need to start seeing that. I think the first thing you can do with your
student or your child when they come home is to have them explain to that to you what
(13:42):
they're thinking and I think once they start thinking then you can go oh that's the way
that you know okay we're coming at it this way we don't expect everybody to be very
having a math major however we do want to give students the opportunities to to be able
to think through things in a little deeper level using their problem-solving and that
(14:06):
the communication is is really really important because if you sit back and listen you learn
like I said I listen to kids and I learn from them it's like oh that makes sense I never
thought of it that way and I'm still learning new things. Some of the other things that
you can do at home the old-fashioned board games those are so strong in strategies problem-solving
(14:32):
probability and statistics I think with our technology that has become so evident every
place you turn that we were forgetting about some of those things that we used to enjoy
as students as kids and so having a chance to work with board games I know that I taught
my son how to add large digit numbers like six digit numbers with six digit numbers playing
(14:58):
the game of life I kind of tweaked it a little bit and teaching him how to you know add these
numbers together and so there's a lot of things you can do with board games playing cards
you've got the algebraic symbols you have counting on different kinds of things that
you can do with dice probability and statistics that's a huge one also teaching them concentration
(15:22):
patience discipline we've rolled a whole lot into that. I also have some of the things
that we forget about our puzzles jigsaw puzzles that is problem-solving that's geometry when
you're talking about rotating it logical thinking analog clocks I was left at in the in Target
(15:43):
when I was by the clocks and I was teaching my niece about Roman numerals with an analog
clock and showing that you know it's like Ava can you see that this is you know this
is a one this is two and buying a clock and sitting right next to my son that way he always
saw those Roman numerals and then he could relate it to it to the numbers and get curiosity
(16:07):
built up for him money like Andrea said having them figure out tips having them count change
at the elementary school giving them just a few coins let them identify what the coins
are these are all huge things that can be helpful that you can do right at home baking
is another thing fractions huge thing on fractions but even knowing temperatures and 9 by 13
(16:34):
pans I used to give projects to my students of during Christmas time I want you to bake
something with your parent then come back and write about it and they had to kind of
write what they made and one of my students was an ML students multilingual and he said
I made a turkey and I'm thinking okay well what did he use for fractions and I'm thinking
my head like what was what math did you do he says I had to make sure the pan was big
(16:59):
enough and so he described the dimensions but then he went on to talk about the temperature
and making sure he had the right amount of stuffing to put in the turkey so it was just
really neat the broader perspective he brought to me measurement when you're hanging pictures
when you're looking at different things when you are painting shopping even looking at
(17:21):
coupons percentages off all those kind of things that we just kind of forget they're
all math we can do those simple things in life every day bring math in and before you
know it students are our students and children are going wow I do like math because math
can be a lot of yeah for sure yeah and I think you know like there are so many real life
(17:44):
things that we just naturally do that do involve math like you guys both shared and I think
also like I know if the panicky homework thing is a thing that people Andrea like you said
you reach out to the child's teacher sometimes our teachers will even put recordings up on
Google classroom or you know will record quickly how to solve the problem if they're really
stuck I know I have crowd sourced my educator friends on Facebook and said my child has
(18:08):
this problem I do not know how to solve this and I have not been able to find the right
Google video on YouTube to help me solve this with my child so you know there is kind of
some crowd sourcing you can do in other fun ways to it also that that also teaches your
child I'm stuck what are my resources who do I go to right so try to also build some
(18:30):
independent so there's a lot of fun ways that I think that we can continue to help support
and build math skills at home and then kind of the last thing too is that you know as
we're trying as we've talked about in other and other podcasts we really are trying to
make learning like not just about being bucketed into one category like you only learn science
(18:52):
and science and you only learn math and math and so I think most of the community knows
that as the referendum passed we have been able to expand our stem program and stem and
again stands for science technology engineering and math and really that class is designed
to help bring all of some of these concepts together so kids learn well like this is why
(19:14):
math is important this is why science is important and I get to be creative in building things
in these classes and so we were able to add three new teachers at the elementary level
and an additional teacher at the middle school level to really kind of expand this and help
kids think more like school isn't just for learning reading and math separately so what
(19:38):
kinds of things have you seen so far I know it's only been a little while since we've
had the program in place at elementary and that we've expanded at the middle school what
kinds of things have you seen that are you know maybe helping to kids to make connections
or are you hoping for in the future to see more connections?
I know at middle school they have been doing a lot of like coding programs which directly
(20:01):
relates back to some math skills and in the past they've done like some scale models and
they've used laser printers and some other tools and so I'm excited to see what else
they're going to come up with this year.
I've been in the elementary school watching the students do the coding and then having
them record how they do these things and I was like okay of course my math brain is going
(20:23):
okay what are they doing that's math wise but just the coding and getting this object
to go from here to here how many times do they turn how often do they turn do they rotate
is it right left I mean and then it's just the repeat and the patterns and it's just
amazing how much it's embedded in and the students are just loving it asking me to go
(20:45):
back and listen to the recording and watching what they're doing and showing me what they
are doing in there making the beeping sounds or whatever it is that they're doing or the
light turn on and it's fun for them to have that added bonus of the STEM lab.
Definitely and I think it'll just increase as the more and more you know we kind of started
(21:09):
with shifting some of our you know family engagement night to a STEAM program which
just adds the arts into that because there is definitely art when you get into engineering
and graphic design and things like that you have to use math but you also have to be creative
in some of those spaces for people and so that was really our launch into trying to
engage kids more in some of those subject areas and now we've actually got the program
(21:33):
starting to be embedded in all five six of our schools because once they go from middle
school STEM they get to actually go into specific courses in high school like engineering and
graphic design and you know all those areas plus their same math, science, English, ELA
classes all that stuff.
So I think we really do have an opportunity to continue to build on our math and our math
(21:58):
in a creative way that is not just you know being bucketed and siloed as we may have experienced.
Well thank you ladies for joining me today.
Is there any last final words of wisdom that you would like to leave with our audience?
I think one of the biggest transitions that we're making right now in mathematics is that
you know when we were in school it was about getting to a correct answer and that's not
(22:21):
what math is.
Math is all about that problem solving process and when something doesn't work let's try
a different strategy and go back to it and the kids getting like that growth mindset
and knowing that they can do and be successful at math.
Thank you so much.
Well that wraps up our conversation for today.
So again if you have any questions about what's going on in your child's classroom never hesitate
(22:44):
to reach out to your child's teacher.
We'll always be willing to show you what's going on with math, science, social studies
and ELA and as all of our guests have said math is everywhere so let's make it fun.
Kids can have a math brain.
We don't want kids to develop this idea that by the time they get to middle school like
they don't they're not good at math.
(23:06):
We can all be good at math.
It just might be in different ways and that's part of the reason that we're exploring things
like STEM and in our schools as well.
So thank you again and please reach out if you have any questions.
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