How to Implement Effective Math Instruction with Kyle Pearce and Jon Orr

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
There was not a focus on understandingthe math the way we're trying, you
know, the way we should bedoing it now, and that's made a
shift to change instruction and because ofthat, all these teachers are underprepared to
teach math at a conceptual level.Welcome to the Leader of Learning podcast.

(00:21):
I'm your host, doctor Dan Crinis, and this is where I help educators
grow their impact as instructional leaders becausemy research and leadership experiences have led me
to understand that someone like you,regardless of your role or your title,
can have a tremendous impact on yourorganization. I chat with inspiring guests who

(00:41):
are truly making an impact as instructionalleaders. Whether this is your first time
listening or you've come back for more, I hope you've subscribed to this show
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topics, or guests. Anyway,I'm so glad you've tuned in. Now
let's get started. Hey, they'rea Leader of Learning. Welcome into episode

(01:11):
one fifty eight. If you likeme and in the field of education,
you may have recently had like Idid, spring break, which means a
couple of things one. It meansthat there's a light at the end of
the tunnel. It means that theend of the school year is approaching.
It also means that you likely hadsome time to rest and relax and hopefully

(01:33):
rejuvenate and kind of get that energythat you might need for that final push
to the school year. That wasme Last week. I had my spring
break, and although it was alittle bit late in the school year,
it was very much appreciated. Andnow I am back and I do have
some renewed energy for the rest ofthe school year. Just before we get

(01:57):
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of all, I have a veryexciting announcement. That is, after five
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really excited to be going back againin twenty twenty three. I hope to

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subscribe, head to Dancrenis dot com. Slash news now onto episode one fifty

(04:15):
eight. When my guests in thisepisode, Kyle Pierce and John Orr reached
out to me to ask me tocome onto the show, I was at
first a little hesitant, but thathesitation ultimately led to the reason why I
wanted to bring them on. Theseguys are the host of Makemath Moments podcast
as well as the co owners ofMake maath Moments as a as a business

(04:42):
as a company, and really they'rein the business of debunking some myths around
math instruction and basically doing the workthat it takes that's necessary to help schools
and districts kind of revitalize and rethinkwhat math instruction should be about. Like
I said, I was kind ofhesitant because math is not really my thing

(05:05):
and my experience as a teacher waspretty much as far away from math as
you could get. But in mycareer I have definitely faced some imposter syndrome,
I guess is the best way tocall it around this idea of being
able to support teachers in subject areasthat I'm not super comfortable with, and

(05:27):
so because of that, I thoughtit would be a great idea to invite
them onto the episode so that theycan give me and you some tips and
tricks and really solid advice for howto ramp up and like I said,
revitalize the efforts behind making the mathinstruction at schools and parts of districts really

(05:48):
impactful and really effective. So Iknow that you're going to get a lot
of value out of this conversation becauseI already have and I can't wait for
you to listen. So coming rightup after these messages is my interview with
Kyle and John all Right, leaderof Learning, Welcome back. I am
very excited to talk. I can'tbelieve I'm saying this. I'm very excited

(06:09):
to talk about math here in thisepisode because I have the guys from Make
Math Moments, Kyle and John,Thank you guys for comment. Let me
just talk about them a little bit. So. Kyle Pierce is the K
to twelve mathematics consultant with the GreaterEssex County District school Board and John Orr

(06:29):
is a high school math teacher atJohn McGregor's Secondary School. And I hope
I'm pronouncing this correctly. The LamptonKent District School Board and Ontary nailed awesome
together. They co founded Make MathMoments, and I know they host the
Make maath Moments podcast, And sowe got a couple of pod fellow podcasters

(06:49):
on here too. Guys, thanksso much for joining me. Let's let's
start with Kyle. I know Ididn't give my audience enough of an introduction
to you. What else can youtell us about who you are, where
you are and what you do?Now that's about it. Just math.
That's all we do. Know.Yeah, I'm I'm, as you mentioned,
math consultant, but formally in thehigh school math classroom. And I

(07:12):
came out did a coaching role fora number of years where I was I
was teaching in the morning and thengoing out and doing a coaching role in
the afternoon for middle grades, andthen now being K through twelve, I've
sort of been stretched in all directions. So you know, I kind of
look at it as as sort ofthe reverse as to how you would you
might want to do things starting inhigh school and working my way all the

(07:34):
way back, and now I canbetter see at a distance, you know,
where some of these struggles and mathematicscome, where they start, and
then ultimately trying to work through waysthat we can help more students understand the
mathematics, but even more so,helping more educators feel confident in teaching the

(07:57):
math. And when we say confidence, like also just get them excited about
it, because obviously, you know, it's contagious, right when you're excited
about something, students are excited.If you're scared of it, if you're
not confident in that subject area,then obviously students are going to take that
whether you say it or not.They see your actions and you know,
really that's the work we've been digginginto. And uh yeah, John,

(08:20):
how about you, buddy. Yeah, that's a that's a great intro for
you. Cal But me also highschool math teacher here in southern Ontario,
Canada, and and I was ateacher you know that you probably remembered in
school. I was very traditional,very make sure that I guess we I

(08:41):
always like to sum it up onour podcast. It was like I always
focused on math content and getting likethe rules out, the procedures out in
helping you know, I thought Iwas helping kids by by giving them everything
up front. I was that teacherthat you imagined a high school teacher.
And it wasn't until you know,a number of years into my teaching career

(09:01):
that I made shifts and changes UHto better serve my students and think about
what really mathematics education is and interms of thinking and content knowledge and pedagogy
knowledge. UM, So that waskind of that's kind of where where I
have have started. UM, Kyleand Kyle and I have been you know,
collaborating for the last number of almostten years now on our teaching practices

(09:24):
in the math class on on sparkingcuriosity, engaging students, UM really deep
diving deep into sense making with kidsso that they understand the mathematics at a
conceptual level. And and that's kindof morphed also into the work that we
do here at make Math Moments andsupporting teachers but also supporting leaders and district

(09:46):
district leaders and math coaches and consultantson how to change their programming and how
to how to how to help UHdistricts change math instruction from the top down.
That's uh a math, but it'sgreat. So I you guys are
former or or you're you're still inin education obviously, but but classroom math

(10:09):
teachers, I was the furthest thingfrom a math teacher. I was in
a classroom LA teacher now turned digitallearning coach because I'm one of those guys
who got good at incorporating instructional technology. So I will admit that math is
not something that it's not. It'snot that I'm bad at it. I'm

(10:30):
okay at it. I don't loveit, and I definitely wouldn't have wanted
to teach it. And I thinkKyle, Um, I'm gonna put words
in your mouth. I don't rememberwhat you said, but just before we
hit record here, you kind ofalluded to the fact that a lot of
people think that math stinks. Again, I forget how you said it,
but and that wasn't it. Butlike, I don't I don't even know

(10:50):
where I'm going with this question,but like, how did we how did
we get here? Yeah, youknow what, It's It's interesting because I'm
guessing that many of your listeners aswell, And this is the part that
I think really is intrigued both Johnand I. You know, we began
working obviously as educators. We allstart working with students, and then you

(11:11):
start to realize, woe, ifwe can start influencing change with educators,
we can actually help more students.And then when you go another level up
and you start looking at people inleadership role, so folks like yourself and
administrators and superintendents and all of theleaders, what you start to see is

(11:31):
you start to see a pattern thatthe story you just said is actually happening
with a lot of other leaders outthere right where they're going. You know,
like I'm I'm okay at the mathI again, you know, similar
to your scenario. I can't rememberexact words you use there, but you
know, you sort of suggested asthough you were like, it wasn't necessarily
the thing that you were getting outof bed excited to teach in the morning.

(11:54):
And if you think about that,and then we extrapolate that and say,
if a large majority of our leadersweren't those educators, it makes it
incredibly difficult for you folks in yourroles to help math educators or teachers who
are teaching math, because that's theother piece is that you know, we
don't have necessarily math specialists in everygrade level, right, And in many

(12:18):
districts there's generalists, and again theyhave a very similar story. So that's
really where our work has sort ofevolved to, is like we need to
help our leaders to better understand whatis effective math instruction, but then also
they also need to be able tonotice a name like where like what is
the mathematics learning? Because the realityis I'm going to guess Dan that one

(12:41):
of the reasons why you feel theway you do is probably because you were
taught in the way that John justdescribed. Right. You were taught to
follow steps and procedures and memorize rules, and you know, whether you understood
the rules or not, you maybesqueaked by right, And I always say
I was a lucky one. Inever understood the mathematics. And until you

(13:05):
understand the mathematics at a deeper conceptuallevel, only then can we actually put
good teaching practice into play that willactually show results in the classroom with our
students. Let me ask you aquestion, as as an ELA teacher in
the classroom, I don't know thatthis impacted me as much as maybe teachers

(13:28):
and other subject areas. But I'veheard throughout my career everyone should be all
teachers should be reading teachers, rightright, I guess I guess what I'm
wondering is like, should we alsothink of ourselves all as math teachers?
Or or a better question is likeare there ways to fit math in to
other subject area? I mean,science is the obvious one, right,

(13:52):
but are there are there ways offitting math into other subject areas that we
should be exploring more? John?What do you what do you say to
that is that's on the right track? I don't know. Yah, yeah,
well us being a math gurus andalso like just loving uh math geeks.
Jo, Yeah, math geeks.I got the wrong G. You
know, G we're there, butyeah, like I hear exactly what you're

(14:16):
saying. We you know here inOntario. You know, I think if
you walked into any school, theywould say the same thing about literacy,
that we're all literacy teachers. We'reall kind of helping students kind of develop
their literacy skills. But but Ithink we could. I'd like to say
that we would. We were allshould be helping numerous cy skills and building
our our ourn understanding and working withnumber um. I think that's that's so

(14:39):
important that we do that. ButI think I think I think there's like
there's there's a good I get worriedabout it though, right. So it's
like when we start to go,hey, we're teach I'm going to teach
a math lesson, and then someof us who are thinking, like,
there are certain things that we wantto make sure that we bring out so

(15:00):
that students are experiencing math and experiencinga conceptual understanding of math before building procedural
fluency. I think I think usas a mean when I say us,
like us teachers who are probably Iwould say probably almost every every teacher at
this point in their career or orany point in their career, just by
age, didn't go through a systemthat put an emphasis on building conceptual understanding.

(15:26):
And it's no fault. It's nofault of us or are who we
are, or even our teachers.It's just the system that was designed primarily
because of textbooks and the way thatthat content was a focus to go off
to university and there wasn't any focuson any of the other kind of pathways

(15:46):
like that. There was not afocus on understanding the math the way we're
trying, you know, the waywe should be doing it now. And
that's made a shift to change instruction, and and because of that, we've
got to you know, all allthese teachers are underprepared to teach math at
a conceptual level so that they canbuild procedual fluency. Because that procedual fluency,

(16:11):
conceptual understanding gets blurred and people think, oh, I need to like
make sure kids know their math facts. That's so important. We got to
memorize their math facts. And Ithink everybody wants that, right, Like
everybody wants kids to know math factswhen they come out of school. It's
but do we want them to understandhow these concepts are are are interwoven with

(16:32):
each other. Do we want themto understand how how to actually like make
good use of their number sense versusjust straight memorization. So so we we've
got a bunch of teachers who aren'tprobably prepared or equipped yet to teach at
that level and teach that understanding first. So I get worried when we're gonna
be like everybody should teach numbers.But if we're gonna just teach numbers the

(16:56):
way we were all taught numbers andwe're all taught math. I'm gonna say
no, I'm gonna say we don'twant that. We want to educate all
of our teachers to come at itfrom a place of conceptual understanding, to
build procedual fluency. And that's actuallylike in the work that we do,
that's actually just one like that whenwe talk about conceptual understanding building procedural fluency,

(17:17):
which is which is one of theeight effective teaching practices for Men's CTM.
That's kind of just one area ofwhat we know in the work that
we've been doing, of six bigareas to improve math instruction in schools.
I have like a burning question thatI feel like this is a perfect opportunity
for me to ask too math geekslash gurus, but also, John,

(17:40):
you kind of like set me upfor this one. The shift right from
what i'll call old school or moretraditional ways of learning math to this new
sort of conceptual style. I'm guessingyou guys have heard this before too,
But as an educator and a parent, I certainly have seen where other parents

(18:03):
call it common core math. Right, it just seems like such a departure
from the way we learn John,you mentioned some of those math facts,
right, like we grew up havingto either memorize things or learn formulas and
and I'm not saying that that's notbeing taught nowadays, but I do understand

(18:23):
that there has been or or we'retrying desperately maybe to shift toward more of
that conceptual model. Um, Iguess. So, I guess my question
really is like, are you guysseeing that as well? In the math
world, are there is there stillsuch a hesitation especially by parents but also

(18:48):
by teacher even school leaders when itcomes to like okay, but but students
really need to know how to domental math or you know, you know
whatever it is that that's so moreof that traditional model. Well, it's
it's so interesting because you know,and I can totally understand and relate,
and you know, kind of Johnhad already alluded to it. It's like

(19:10):
no fault of their own, right. Even there's some educators out there,
they're going, Okay, I'm goingto try to do this thing that I
was never taught as a student,Right, So I'm going to try to
do this thing which is called understandingwhat's really happening here. And I'm gonna
then do that for students, butI'm not only going to do that,
I'm going to also do it ina way that's going to craft an experience

(19:30):
for them to understand it. ButI still don't understand it yet. So
okay, that's that's a tall task. And then somehow I'm going to also
be able to see far enough downthe road that it actually connects to the
thing that I learned in school.So, you know, I think one
of the easiest ones is, youknow, to think about the standard algorithm,

(19:51):
right, two digit by two digitmultiplications probably the best example of it.
You know, kids I remembers asa kid. You know, you
start with the ones, and youknow, you multiply the ones, and
then you multiply this way, andthen you have to carry and then you
drop a zero, and all ofthese things that you did, All of
those things are happening for a veryspecific reason. And the model that we
try to build through, and we'llsay common Core. Common Core is a

(20:15):
curriculum, So it's just you know, a series of expectations or standards that
they've put together along a developmental trajectory. The problem is is that the educators
weren't given the training to actually dothis well. So you can only imagine,
you know, if all of asudden they say, hey, you
know, we're coming up to theend of this school year and they say,

(20:37):
hey, Kyle, you know nextyear we're going to have you teach
chemistry. And I'm I'm not ascience guy, right, So I mean,
you can only imagine how well that'sgoing to go. When I think
I took one science course in school, I memorized it all, I never
understood it, and now I haveto go do it and they're telling me

(21:00):
that I have to teach it throughthe common court, which means you need
to help students understand what's actually happeninghere. So you can imagine that that's
not a great move, you know, when we sort of rush into those
things. So I think, ingeneral, to paint a picture, if
we do this well, then parentsare going to love it because kids are

(21:22):
going to be telling them why it'sworking, and they're going to be showing
them why that algorithm actually works.But the part that's really tough is when
you're a parent and you only knowhow to stack two digit numbers and you
only know the algorithm and the studentstrying to do multiplication using an area model
or an array or any of theother developmental pieces that we weren't exposed to.

(21:47):
So a parents sitting there going thisis like a lot of parents to
say, this is silly, thisis a waste of time. This look
at my kids frustrated. I'm frustrated. We're all frustrated here, like,
let's just do this. And thenthey they show them how to stack it.
The student mimics it, and thenwe think they understand how to multiply
two digit by two digit multiplication.But in reality, all they've done is

(22:10):
they've memorized a series of steps whichin two three weeks maybe two three months,
students will then start to fall falterand forget steps, and all of
a sudden it's like they never learnedit in the first place. So the
reality is is that while it willtake more time, it will take more
effort as well. The result isso much richer, it's so much deeper

(22:33):
that students actually understand what's happening.And really the goal is is that if
I'm doing that algorithm, because againthis isn't a conceptual versus procedural fluency,
This is conceptual to help students understandand build procedural fluency. So if they
falter here, they should be ableto rewind and go, you know what
this algorithm, I can't remember it, like I can't remember the step,

(22:56):
and then they go, well,if I was to draw the array or
the area model, I could thenreconvince myself why that actually works. Like
that's what we do in all aspectsof life. When something doesn't go right,
you stop and you start to thinkof like what could not be working
here, like the car's not starting, what isn't working here? And in
mathematics, we've never really been setup with those tools. It's just it

(23:18):
doesn't work. So I guess we'renot starting the card today. Well,
and I just want to add addsomething about I think you had talked about
it's not an either or with conceptualunderstanding Kyle into procedural fluency, and I
didn't I didn't elaborate too much onthis on the idea of procedural fluency,
but I think I think that's kindof where I where I was going a
little bit with this idea that thatpeople think procedural fluency is just knowing the

(23:44):
facts, like knowing the algorithm knowingyou know, these these these set of
procedures that we all you all kindof remember from school or partly remember from
school. But I mean, likewhen we talk real fluency and fluency just
is that comfort level. But there'sactually like three components of fluency, and
that's being efficient, and that's beingflexible and accurate. And I think when

(24:07):
we when most people think about fluency, they think accurate, they think,
let me just get there, likeit's right, like I got the right
answer. That's being fluent, butit's not. It's it flexible and efficient
is thinking about when I'm solving thisproblem and I'm working with these numbers and
maybe I'm using some mental math strategies, could I be flexible and try to

(24:30):
choose a strategy that works in thissituation? And am I am I working
with the most efficient strategy to solvethis problem? Kyle, I think you
always use an example of like whenyou're doing subtraction and it's like if I'm
going to subtract, what is itlike like nine hundred and ninety nine,
and or it's like there's like ataking you know this now it's like it's
like one thousand and one subtract ninehundred and ninety nine with the whole bunch

(24:55):
of borrowing with zeros happening right there. And if you're following the algorithm,
like you're thinking, I'm ac,You're I'm fluent, but it's like,
well, you weren't very efficient,because really, what is the difference between
those two numbers is another thing,another way to think about a strategy that's
different than the algorith that is morefluent than say, someone who's just kind
of trying to be accurate with it, with an accurate with with the the

(25:18):
the the algorithm, the I'll helpyou out there, John, There you
go. Thanks. This podcast isa proud member of the Teach Better Podcast
Network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there.
Explore more podcasts at www dot TeachBetter podcast Network dot com. Now
let's get back to the episode.So I really appreciate the way that both

(25:42):
of you guys explained that the conceptualcompliments the procedural and vice versa. You
kind of nowadays sort of can't haveone without the other. Well, you
can, but maybe that wouldn't bethe best way to do it. And
and and that sort of leads meto my next point, I guess,

(26:03):
like, when teachers, when systemsare still stuck more in that traditional or
as you call it, more proceduralmodel, how can we improve, right,
how can we make math catch upwith the times? I guess right?
And I know, like we've alreadytalked about, there's some discomfort on

(26:29):
the part of everyone, but especiallyI'm gonna just say again, especially parents.
I think, right, it's justso different, and even some more
veteran teachers who may have gotten intoeducation at a time where teaching math looked
very different. So um, Alot of a large part of my audience,
of course, are educators. Manyof them are classroom teachers. I
don't know for sure how many ourmath teachers, but I would love if

(26:55):
we could sort of kind of breakthis question down into three parts. My
question really is like, how canwe improve and how can we find that
happy place in terms of marrying theconceptual with the procedural as classroom teachers,
as sort of those intermediate level leaders, like people in my position as coaches.

(27:18):
Now in my district, we're fortunateenough to have math coaches, literacy
coaches, and digital learning coaches.So there are content and based coaches but
I know that a lot of districtsaren't fortunate enough to have them. Maybe
they have a department chair, maybetheir administrators are still really the ones who

(27:40):
are the instructional leaders, So howthen can the administrators support that? So
really it's the same question, butif you if you could tackle it from
like how to teachers help, howto coaches and other sort of middle level
leaders help, and then administrators.Yeah, well, let's start with classroom
teachers, and you know, we'llkind of work our way up the up

(28:00):
the chain there. But with classroomteachers, I think one of the best
things that you possibly can do isthat before you teach a concept, when
you think about this. You know, some people, as we're recording this,
are going into the weekend, andyou know, they are thinking about
what am I teaching next week?And when I think about what I'm teaching
next week, am I planning totell students exactly how to do something?

(28:22):
And if that's the case, I'messentially trying to teach the students how to
mimic or how to memorize steps andprocedures, right, which really means we're
not really focusing too much on theconceptual understanding Rather, what we could do
is we could say, hm,what is it that I'm trying to teach?
I think about the intentionality of mylesson, and then I start to
think about, like why does itwork? What is it that I'm doing

(28:47):
that helps to make this thing work? And if you were to google that
thing and say why does this work? Or conceptually might be a good word
to put in there as well,you will find that stuff is out there,
right, like the content is outthere. So if you actually are
looking for it and you actually thinkabout it and you say, you know

(29:07):
what, I want to actually helpyou understand why. So if I think
about integers, like why when Iadd or multiplying integers is probably a really
good one, Like why when youmultiply two negative numbers, is it a
positive? Like when you ask middleschool teachers, they typically say it's just
a rule. Like I just tellthem, this is what it is.
But the reality is there's a reasonwhy. And the part that's really tough,

(29:32):
and I think this is the hardestpart of all is being okay to
say, wow, I actually don'tknow why. I'm the teacher and I
don't know why that actually happened,And this is happening to John and I
all the time. Like when wehave a concept and we're going in to
help a teacher or help in aschool, we think about that concept.
There's times where we're like, Ihave no idea why that works, and

(29:53):
we've always done it, but ifwe want to teach kids to actually understand
this, then we need a betterunderstanding of it. So it really ultimately
comes down to us doing more math. And the more people you can do
that math with, the better offyou'll be. So if we can do
that with a partner like another colleague, if we can do that with a

(30:14):
large grade band of educators where we'reall trying to tackle it in different ways,
what you start to see is whatreally happens in a math classroom when
kids are given the opportunity to problemsolve, Because Dan, you're going to
solve it, likely in a differentway than the way I'm going to.
What we're going to notice is theresearch will show there will be a majority
that are going to solve it ina particular way, and then there's going

(30:37):
to be smaller pockets solving it indifferent ways, and those give us clues
as to where students are along thattrajectory. So my big takeaway there is
figuring out what is it that I'mgoing to teach and why it works and
then actually doing the math and thatwill give you such a huge payoff even
if you aren't blessed to have saya coaching model or a lot of MATHPD

(31:00):
going on in your district at thecurrent time, John, why don't you
take the next class? Well,I was just going to add add to
like the next step onto that.Like you you alluded to it by having
you know, part part of theteacher prep that they're doing is is doing
what you said. But then inthe classroom and you also you also mention
this, but it is worth saymentioning again is that you're giving the students

(31:23):
or crafting experience for the students toexperience a situation before you're telling them that
situation. So so I think liketo make sure that we are very clear
you can build you you can tellconceptual understanding to a student, it doesn't
mean they're going to like grasp itand understand it or experience say why that
works. And I think that's that'sa bigger piece for us, is we

(31:47):
want to make sure that our studentsare are the ones doing the thinking in
the classroom. It's too often thatI thought, you know, thinking back
to my you know, my firstten years of teaching, and I was
doing all of the thinking in theclassroom by giving everybody they needed instead of
instead of holding that back until itwas until it was really needed and sometimes
just not needed. For you tobe the one that's the gatekeeper of knowledge.

(32:08):
A lot of times you can buildon what students are showing you,
Like Kyle said, is there youmay be showing you and maybe your job
is to make sure it is yourjob to make sure that you're tying some
of these thought processes together to getat the intentionality that you've you've decided on
in uh in the forefront of thatof that lesson. And that's that's an

(32:30):
art that's that takes practice because we'rewe've come from a system that didn't see,
that didn't try, that didn't weren'ttrained on being flexible in the classroom
for say, seeing this student's solutionon that problem, this student's got that
different solution. How do I blendthose together so that everybody makes sense of
both and how does that tie tomy my actual learning goal for the day

(32:52):
that as I said that that takestime, debts takes effort, that takes
training. We've got to we've gotto bring our our our teachers comfort level
with mathematics up first and that andthen we can kind of layer in the
pedagogy piece after. And I think, I think, what's happening in MATHPD
right now with with you know,if you've got you know, your leaders

(33:13):
listening, going like we're going tomake sure we have MATHPD happening over here,
and we've got our math coaches doingthis here. I think a lot
of I think social media helped withthis this issue. Kyle and I are
experiencing with all the districts we're workingwith that we actually have to take a
step back and help our teachers understandthe mathematics first and then bring in pedagogy

(33:34):
next. Whereas there's a lot offlashiness with pedagogy happening right now, and
they're like layering on this pedagogy andthen realizing afterwards that it's not making a
difference because teachers still are trying newstrategies in the classroom for engagement or for
understanding, but they themselves are notunderstanding that math. So We've got to
take that step back first and inbuild those those those teachers understanding of math

(34:00):
at all levels, because you know, I have, like I said before,
I have a degree in mathematics,but still needed to learn conceptually how
mathematics can be represented with different models, different strategies. I was always that
I knew this the one way andthat was it. And once you see
that there are different ways of modelingthings and using different strategies, mathematics is

(34:22):
such a beautiful subject to kind ofteach in that case, to address to
adjust dan the the the next piecewhich is which is thinking about going up
up the chain a little bit inhelping say leaders think about think about the
math program itself. And that's that'sactually a lot of the work that Kyle

(34:42):
and I are doing now, UM, is that we are helping school districts,
schools themselves strengthen their math program UM. And a lot of the time
we focus on six areas. UM. We've talked about a few even here
today that we haven't really named.We kind of we we said, um,
we we talked about pedagogy. That'sone of the areas that we want
to be strong in with our withour teachers. We talked about content knowledge

(35:07):
itself uh UM and the the UHthe the understanding of the mathematics. That's
a second area, but a butan area I think that we need to
make sure we focus on, especiallywith the leadership side, the the administration
side, or even higher than thatUM and also even the coaching side is
UH one that I think is oftenoverlooked, which which we call we call

(35:30):
like a like a vision side likeUM. And this is about setting the
vision for the math district or themath program that the entire district wants to
implement. And oftentimes when you youask someone to read their math vision for
or their math school or district improvementprogram or improvement plan UH that that statement

(35:54):
is very lofty and and very vagueUM and and they'll they'll state, we're
gonna, you know, we're gonnabring up students understanding through this. But
then it's it's kind of like,well, hours, we'll go up by
ten percent or whatever, not evenit's not even number base usually you know,
it's it's kind of like it's justit's just kind of very very kind

(36:14):
of flowery language. And what wewhat we find when we kind of dig
deep with districts that we work withis is that they need like a more
streamlined, a more specific goal Uset of goals to to follow in a
and setting that vision is so importantbecause you know, if if if we're

(36:36):
not all working towards the same goal, then everybody's all over the place,
and if we're all focusing on allthese things, then we're really not focusing
on any of them and no one'sgetting the actual professional development that it's as
important as as what the district isdecided. So at the leadership level,
one of those areas, uh thatthat we should focus on is is really
setting clear goals that are measurable andactionable in developing those out and then communicating

(37:02):
those down the line. And that'slike every time we have a staff meeting,
the goals get stated about mathematics.Every time we have just you know,
maybe it's a math mathe meeting ofall the math teachers, it's like
a PD day, the math thevision gets stated. If there's an email
that goes out related to mathematics,the visions are right right at the top.

(37:23):
It's it's something that we need tobond our teachers together so that we're
all working towards the same goal andit just doesn't happen in districts I like
to. I don't know, thisis just something about me. I like
to kind of boil things down,like bottom line it right, and I
think in doing so it helps mekind of create takeaways. I think some

(37:44):
of my takeaways, based on whatboth of you guys have been saying,
are things like, first and foremost, growth mindset comes to mind. I
don't know if you guys know this, my listeners probably do. Much of
my doctoral research was in the areaof how leaders can support growth mindset and
teachers, and I think that,especially in the area of math education,

(38:06):
there's still a lot of room forgrowth in terms of that mindset shift out
of the traditional and more toward thatconceptual based model that I'm going to call
it the real world relevancy aspect ofmath that may have been missing when people
like us old guys went to schoolway back when. And then the other

(38:30):
thing, as you're saying, youguys both kind of mentioned this too,
like where sometimes maybe teachers might betoo quick, let's say, to go
more toward I just want to tryall these pedagogical type strategies. It's like,
well, we really need to makesure that we're I don't want to

(38:50):
say mastered, but we're confident enoughwith the actual math content in order to
kind of proceed from there. Andthen I love, John, what you
were just saying about establishing that vision. I talk a lot about transformational leadership,
and so much of that is thatthat mission driven organization where you,
as the leader, are trying toget and this is maybe where you were

(39:15):
talking about how it might even belike further up the line than just school
based administrators. It's like we needeverybody to buy in, right. We
want to empower the school administrators tothen empower their staff. Your point was
great, it was really well taken. Like if you're if math is a
real focus, right and you wantto get more specific and more strategic about

(39:37):
it, you're talking about it atgatherings, faculty meetings, PLC meetings,
like whenever you can, you gottayou gotta name it, and you gotta
focus on it, and it can'tbe so vague. I can't believe how
quickly time passes when we're talking aboutmath. I really didn't expect this.
We're like thirty four minutes. Then, what haven't I asked you, I

(39:59):
really appreciate it, and you kindof you were able to do this without
me asking about what you guys dowith you know, make math moments,
and it sounds like you guys aredoing some really great work with districts.
But as we start to wrap up, what haven't I asked you that you
really want to make sure you getin here. Kyle will go to you
next. Well, I was justgoing to say, like, first of

(40:20):
all, like I think you nailedit. You're you're actually really helped us
out by talking about growth mindset becausethat's one of the other areas, and
you know, we haven't articulated itin this way, but when folks come
to our website and they start todig into these six areas we're talking about,
we've actually sort of made this analogyof a tree. If you envision
a tree, this is your mathprogram and you can think of it as

(40:42):
a classroom teacher, or you canthink of it as a district leader.
They very slightly depending on which versionyou're looking at. If you're a classroom
teacher, it's going to be morespecific to your world and your environment.
If you're a district leader, it'sgoing to be focused in your world and
leading all the educators in the system. But that educator mindset and beliefs is
where we nestle growth mindset, andthat's one of these other big pieces.

(41:07):
And you know, so we've talkedabout a number of parts of this tree,
and ultimately what we do with districtsis we introduce them to the idea
of the tree, the trunk beingthe leadership portion. This is the mission
is this is what will like standtall in a storm, right like,
you need that to be so strong, you need to be balanced, you

(41:27):
need it to be sturdy. Andthen underneath the ground, what's holding that
trunk together is that content knowledge.That's the roots of the tree. So
we've sort of talked about those twopieces. And then we've got pd structure
in there, which is our limbs, and then we've got branches with which
is pedagogy, and we've got leaveswhich is the resources in your classroom.

(41:49):
And then finally the sun, soil, water, which is that mindset Piecet
you articulated. So ultimately, whatwe do with districts as we actually usually
start them, and you're friends herelistening on the podcasts are more than welcome
if they want to try this themselves. We have a screener and we give
it to our district leaders, butwe also give it to the educators we
work with, where it'll actually askthem some questions on a Likekard scale and

(42:14):
it will take them through all sixparts of the tree so that they can
get a sense of where their programis flourishing and where maybe their program they
might want to focus some of theirenergy. The reality is is that we
can strengthen all the parts of ourtree at every time. Right we know
that growth mindset, we will neverget there. The tree is never going

(42:34):
to stop growing. We want tocontinually grow it. But what will happen
is as they go through, we'regoing to ask them some questions and some
of them are challenging questions, likethey're gonna go huh, I never like
I never thought about that before,and they might go closer to a zero
on that question because they were unawareof it. And what will happen at
the end is will actually get areport generated that will give them some actionable

(42:58):
steps. So you had to youknow, what do we do in the
classroom? What do we do ifwe're a district leader, Like what do
we do in these cases, Well, this report's actually designed so that you
know, when John does this screener, out will pop a personalized report that
focuses on the area that he mightwant to focus his attention on. And
maybe it is the trunk and it'sthat leadership piece, or if you're in

(43:19):
the classroom, we call that likeyour pillars, your classroom pillars, the
leadership piece of your classroom. Andthen we have some next steps that they
can engage in through a lot ofthe resources we provide freely on our website.
So I would say that would bea great next step for all of
your listeners if they're intrigued here andthey're going, wow, there's a lot
to this. The one thing Ican say is that this is a journey.

(43:43):
And by all means all the districtswe work with, we try to
tell them like you cannot like peoplewant to set these lofty goals, like
John said, but then at theend of the year, monitoring usually doesn't
really happen very well, and thenall of a sudden goal shifts and now
next year we're doing something, andwe just we keep on chasing our tail.
So what we try to do iswe want to set up districts and

(44:05):
also classroom teachers with actionable next stepsso that they can actually start making some
gains and start strengthening different areas oftheir tree. And then we always encourage
them, Hey, after a littlewhile, come back and try that screener
again, and like, let's seewhere you are now, Like does it
say continue working down that path ormaybe you want to change your attention a

(44:27):
little bit and start going down anotherpath to start strengthening that area of the
tree. So hopefully that will besomething that's useful for your team, because
I know we could talk here allnight about math, but I know you
already told us you try to keepthese episodes short, and I think we're
stretching it pretty far here today.It really has been a great conversation.
And all right, John, I'lllet you. I was just gonna say,

(44:52):
Kyle talked all about the screener butdidn't tell anybody where to go and
try. They just have to findit aimless. So head on over to
make maathmoments dot com forward slash grow, makemathmoments dot com forard slash grow,
and you could take the screener andthen, like Kyle said, it gives
you a full report on how tomake improvements in your district or in the
classroom after your classroom teacher. Youguys are pros. I was just going

(45:15):
to ask you where they can findthat, but you gotta covered. So
I appreciate that. I appreciate theconversation. This has been great. I
really didn't know what to expect.I'm being honest, you know, I
started the conversation saying, like,I'm not a math guy. I was,
you know, an e LA classroomteacher. I'm also certified in music,
Like math is just it's not somethingI really have to think about that

(45:36):
much, but I do have towere you know, I support math teachers
and and my leader listeners, whetherthey're administrators, school administrators, district administrators,
they support math teachers. So,um, this is some great stuff.
And like I said, some ofmy bigger takeaways out of this conversation
or are things that I know thatI can look to him prove about myself

(46:00):
in the way that I support mathteachers and the math system you know at
my school. So I really appreciateit. I do hope my listeners check
out the tools and the resources thereat Makemath moments or make Yeah, makemath
moments dot com or makemath moments dotcom slash grow. That is really hard

(46:20):
to say. I admire you guysjust for saying yeah, it's very literati
anyway, Kyle John, thank youguys so much. Thanks time and congratulations
on all the success and with youknow, everything you guys are doing,
including your own podcast as well.Yeah, thanks, thanks very much.
Dan. Hey, hopefully it'll helpsome people, uh you know, get
over that sort of displeasure for teachingmath and get them excited about it.

(46:45):
So if we can help, hopefullypeople will come say hi, thanks Dan.
Well, that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
If you haven't done so yet,don't forget to subscribe to this show
on your favorite podcast app. Ifyou enjoy the content covered on this show,

(47:06):
I want to ask you to dothis one thing for me. Please
share it. The biggest favor youcould ever do for me is to please
let others know about what I'm doingand how I'm helping educators grow their impact
as instructional leaders. I hope youcan share this podcast with other educators,
leaders, friends, or anyone youthink would love listening and learning If you're

(47:29):
interested in leaving a positive rating andreview of this show, links to do
so or always in the show notesfor every episode. For more information about
me or this show, and toaccess the great content that I share,
please visit my website at Leader ofLearning dot com. That's where you can
find my online courses, YouTube channel, blog, how to connect with me

(47:50):
on social media, and even waysthat you can support the show like donating
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