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Jon Orr and Kyle Pearce talk about making math moments
116 Plays2 years ago
Click to register for the Make Math Moments Virtual Summit Nov 17-19
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Transcript
Introduction to Learner-Centered Spaces
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces Podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer. In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom.
00:00:22
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This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. The Learner-Centered Spaces podcast is now a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network.
Meet Kyle Pierce and John Orr
00:00:43
Speaker
Kyle Pierce and John Orr are both former high school teachers and K-12 mathematics consultants and coaches. Together, they co-founded Make Math Moments, where they develop professional development and classroom resources for K-12 educators and district leaders to spark curiosity, fuel sense making, and ignite teacher moves so all students can realize their fullest potential in mathematics. Good afternoon, John and Kyle.
00:01:12
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We're so excited to have you on the podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves, your roles, your locations, your journey? Maybe an interesting fact.
00:01:21
Speaker
Hey, absolutely. Thanks so much. We are so excited to be here. We are honored to get a chance to chat with you. And yeah, I guess I'll start. My name's Kyle Pierce. I'm one of the two co-founders of Make Math Moments. I am from Bell River, Ontario, which is a little town outside of Windsor, Ontario, which people probably also don't know.
00:01:44
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But it's right across the river from Detroit, Michigan. So yeah, we're really excited to chat all things
What are Learner-Centered Math Spaces?
00:01:50
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math. And my co-founder here is John. John, take it away. Hey, everybody. Thanks again for having us. Yeah, co-founder of Make Math Moments. I was a high school teacher for 19 years.
00:02:02
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And spent much of that time dabbling in strategies to engage my students, but also help deepen their learning. I spent the first 10 years being a very traditional high school math teacher and started to change what I was doing in the classroom to, as I said, engage and strengthen the learners that I was facing every day. And that blossomed into sharing that with folks and meeting Kyle and kind of us together.
00:02:32
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building Make Math Moments and sharing that with our podcast, with our annual summit every year, which we're excited to talk here with you guys.
Strategies for Student Engagement
00:02:43
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So if you could describe what a learner-centered space looks like in a math class, how does it feel, sound, sound like, what is typical of a learner-centered space for you?
00:02:57
Speaker
Well, for us, it's all about students doing the thinking. Uh, and in order for students to do the thinking, what we really, really try to emphasize is students doing the talking. Um, so in our classroom in a math moments lesson, so if, you know, if you explore any of our 60 plus make math moments units of study, you'll notice that all units start with a problem-based experience for students that we typically
00:03:26
Speaker
leverage, um, all of the best practices that are out there. And we try to essentially build our structure off of those shoulders of giants. So one such, uh, one such person right now that's on everyone's radar is Peter Little Hall in his building thinking
Challenges and Solutions in Assessment
00:03:41
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classroom. So.
00:03:42
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We love getting students into those randomized, visibly randomized groups. We get them up to those vertical surfaces so they can collaborate. And really, a lot of our job as the educator is the observing, the listening, and just allowing students to have those conversations so that we're really learning from them as to what are they bringing to the table because our students
00:04:06
Speaker
Do know so much and you know, it took us a very long time. John had mentioned very traditional teachers, both of us coming out of the box. We had both explored mathematics or learn mathematics in a very traditional sense. And at the end of the day, we didn't know what that actually looked like, what it meant to actually be at the center of the learning.
00:04:28
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And now we recognize that, oh my gosh, we can learn so much from the kids and we have an opportunity if we give them problems that they themselves are able to grapple with and struggle with. And of course, we're being very intentional with these tasks that we're giving students so that we can learn from them and adjust our practice to best suit the needs of those students.
00:04:53
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So if I, that book has been such a lifeline as a humanity of my background is humanities. And I taught English and social studies. I work mostly with English and social studies, but occasionally I work with math and science folks. And that book has been a lifeline for me. Not only is it super practical and research based, it's stuff you could implement right away. And
00:05:20
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I get so much buy-in from math teachers when I make recommendations from it and the follow-up book that he did for All Subject Matters is also super useful. So I appreciate that you mentioned that book because I think it's a really important read for all educators regardless of what you teach.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think we hear it all the time with the districts that we work with, with teachers who reach out to us that it has been a game changer for classrooms. It's one of the most, I think, implementable
00:05:58
Speaker
quick start actions, you know, that can basically be a gateway change for many teachers who weren't sure exactly how to change their math instruction from, you know, that traditional, you know, the I do we do you do model to something that was had students more, you know, more engaged, more, you know, taking action in their own learning and
00:06:21
Speaker
And being the thinkers first in the classroom, I think there was an army of teachers who were like me in my early years, that very traditional teacher who want the best for the students. And I think all teachers, I think, want the best for their students. But that group of teachers who are trying to
00:06:42
Speaker
you know, teach the best way they can and following the I do, we do model, but just wasn't sure of like, how do I change that and still kind of meet my expectations and meet the standards and help teachers, you know, help students reach those standards. And I think that Peter's work with, you know, vertical non-permanent services, but also, you know, structuring tasks so that it keeps kids in flow has been such a,
00:07:09
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I think it's that first step, that's something that a teacher who's traditional can go down that pathway and see it working in their existing classrooms. This is Crystal here and I have to say I am such a huge fan of your podcast and I am so proud to present at your virtual summit coming up in the middle of November and I am also a
00:07:33
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a fan girl of building thinking classrooms as well. And can I just tell you a quick story about how proud I am of my seventh graders? So we do non-permanent vertical spaces where we're writing, we do randomized, visually random groups. And I was running late to class, which is a bad habit of mine. And the students see me every day go to random.org. I randomize and they know where to sit. And I don't do playing cards, I just do random.org.
00:08:03
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When I got in there about two minutes late, one kid had already taken the initiative to go on his computer to go to random.org, randomize the class. They all set down. They all started working. I have these paths for them to work on, which I learned at the building thinking classrooms.
00:08:22
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conference this summer in Indiana. And I
Blending Traditional and Formative Assessments
00:08:25
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was so proud of them, that they just got started, even though Miss Romart was late, they just got started on their task, and they got started in their random groups. And so I'm here to say it worked. And I'm so proud of those kids and, and what you said about who's doing the thinking. And that's my focus. I want my kids doing the thinking. And ever since I've been doing building thinking classrooms, I'm less tired as a teacher because
00:08:50
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The thinking has been delegated to the students where it should be. But here's where I struggle. And here's where my next question lies. I am really struggling with the assessment piece of building thinking classrooms. And yes, my kids are doing the thinking, but I'm not really sure how to assess that. So what advice do you have for a teacher who's just struggling with the assessment part?
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, this is a great question and one that we love having conversations about. And, you know, actually you had mentioned the virtual summit. We are so excited to have you at the virtual summit. We're also excited to have Peter joining us at the summit on the Friday night. Actually, John and I are going to be doing a session with Peter. We're going to be talking about the closing, as he likes to call it, of a lesson. And with that comes a lot of the work that needs to happen in the assessment
00:09:40
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piece which is those observations and the conversations and seeing student product which you know in that environment might be on a vertical non-permanent surface but ultimately at the end of the day trying to figure out who knows what who heard what and where do we go next so my wonder for you would be and this is something that we would ask you know most of our our
00:10:02
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um you know our our colleagues that we have either on the podcast that we we host or some of our district leaders that we're working with and I guess my wonder would be is like so where do you feel that that struggle like where do where are you running into that little hiccup where's that pebble in the shoe sort of you know revealing itself to you is it that you're feeling like you know you're sort of like
00:10:25
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away from having that physical copy in your hands or is there something else there that's sort of making you feel like you're a little bit out of your element when it comes to the whole assessment piece? How do you feel or at what point in the lesson do you feel where you're sort of going, I'm not sure what the next step would be?
00:10:49
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So you're asking me where my pebble in the shoe is? Yeah. Yeah. So talking about assessment, like where, where is it revealing itself to you? Like, where does it sort of hit you and you go, Oh, shoot. Ah, what, what do I do now for my assessment piece? Yeah. I mean, I, I work at a traditional grade school where we have pencil paper quizzes and tests. And I think it's a culture thing that I'm afraid to veer away from that, where our kids sit down and take a quiz and they take a test every three weeks.
00:11:17
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I feel like if I veer away from that and do a verbal interview or observable formative assessment that actually results in some sort of grade, that I'm not sure that I'm on solid footing to be able to defend that, right? If somebody were to question that. Super common. Yeah. Yeah, that is super common. And I think, you know,
00:11:41
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resorting to that traditional assessment technique, there's nothing wrong with that. And there's completely nothing wrong with that. So many teachers who are building thinking classrooms or using building thinking classrooms in their schools are still doing that. And I think what you want to remember is that that method of assessment is one approach. It's one piece of evidence
00:12:08
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that goes in the, if you think about it, your like minds portfolio, your portfolio of like what kids know and what kids can do and what kids understand. And when you get that say quiz or that test result on say those standards, it's just a snapshot of what they know on those standards at that time. And that goes into that bank that kind of should either confirm
00:12:37
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Or maybe it doesn't confirm what you already have witnessed, observed, had conversations with students along the way on those standards. And I think that's what having that learner-centered space and using building thinking classrooms
00:12:56
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allows you to do more than the i do we do model like when i taught you know that my model that traditional model is i wouldn't know until the paper and pencil test whether kids could do or not do or you know are i checked homework but then i was like well how reliable was the homework.
00:13:11
Speaker
So when you're engaging students in that thinking first, that's productive struggle activity first, you can't just sit back and watch and do nothing. That would still put me in the same position of not knowing what my students know or what they don't know come the paper and pencil test. So getting in there and listening and observing and having those conversations and thinking about
00:13:35
Speaker
How is what a student telling me, which is a piece of formative assessment, you are listening to their thinking on a standard and you get to decide on how do I proceed, how do I give that student the next step, or how do I steer the whole conversation of the classroom into, say, the next step. All of that is a form of assessment.
00:13:56
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And that goes into thinking about how do I use that to make judgments or recommendations to students on where they need to go next. For me, that's how I'm thinking about that assessment. Using building thinking classrooms just allows you to gather as much information as you can.
00:14:16
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use that to go, hey, do we need a paper and pencil assessment? Can I feel confident that this student knows this set of expectations or this set of standards, you know, proficiently, you know, not so proficiently, maybe need some next steps. And then the paper and pencil can still be there and it just confirms, it confirms, you know, what you know or maybe still what you don't know about what a student knows.
00:14:46
Speaker
Well, you just really described like formative versus summative. And I think that so many of us as educators, we're so focused on the summative that results in a grade that actually goes into a grade book, but there's so much more to assessment. So I'm so glad that you opened that wide open for us. My next question I have for both of you is, if there's a teacher who does work at a more traditional type school and wants to become more learner centered in their classroom, what advice do you have for them to get started?
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, I would say, you know what, you can, you can start with baby steps, the wrong word, because it sounds, you know, it sounds like you're not doing the whole, the whole, you know, process. And the reality is, is that what really matters when it comes to say, getting your students thinking is really starting with a task that elicits thinking and
00:15:42
Speaker
One thing that we ask educators to do right away is just simply hold off. There's a book called The Coaching Habit and this book is such a fantastic book. It's not intended for educators, but in this book, the quote that we love so much and it applies to math class and it really applies to any sort of situation where we're trying to help teach someone something.
00:16:04
Speaker
is to stay curious a little longer and hold off on action and advice giving just a little bit longer. And they leave it so open because all they're saying is it doesn't mean that you never have an opportunity to have any sort of explicit instruction.
00:16:21
Speaker
You know, in actuality, we have to have explicit instruction in mathematics. Otherwise there will be strings, loose ends that are not tied together. And some students may not understand what had happened in that particular activity. So we do need.
00:16:39
Speaker
However, this idea is just to hold off on it. Let students do the thinking. So select a task that's going to be open enough that students are able to enter and they're able to leverage some of the tools that are in their tool belt.
00:16:55
Speaker
And usually this means picking a task that has some sort of context, something that students can use, understand, and build
Moving Beyond Rote Learning
00:17:04
Speaker
on. And if you allow them to do that, you're then able to do this observation and incorporate conversations into the learning. And you can still do some of that traditional assessment and evaluation process. That doesn't have to be thrown out with the baby in the bathwater.
00:17:23
Speaker
just do one step at a time and start to rethink when we tell students, because when we tell students how to do mathematics before they're given the opportunity to think themselves, then all they start to do is, as Peter would say, is mimic, right? They follow the steps. They follow the procedures. And guess what? The kids who are able to memorize, like me, like John, we were the lucky ones in the traditional classroom. I didn't enjoy the math that I was doing.
00:17:53
Speaker
I was just told that I was good at it because I had that ability to be able to mimic what was happening enough pattern recognition that I could blindly follow and the reality is that that isn't going to work for all students and that actually it's not helpful for any students to just be blindly following along
00:18:13
Speaker
We want students to all have the opportunity to think and whether that's standing up at vertical non-permanent surfaces or working collaboratively in their seats, you can do this work regardless of the structure that's taking place in the world around you, be it in a school that might be traditional or that expects certain things
Cross-Disciplinary Connections in Education
00:18:34
Speaker
to happen. We can still shift our practices so that students are doing more of the thinking and once again,
00:18:41
Speaker
to allow those learners to be at the center of the learning.
00:18:47
Speaker
I, part of my job here is I'm a teacher, but I'm also an administrator. And part of my role is to observe other teachers as part of our evaluation process. And like I said, we are a traditional grade school, but what you just described is what like every science lab is doing. And I think science teachers have been doing this for decades and decades. So I would add to what you're saying, because the kids are in the driver's seat and they're doing the thinking in a science lab and
00:19:14
Speaker
I would say, you know, if you're not sure of how to turn your classroom into a thinking classroom, go see your science lab down the hall and see what they're doing. And I think we have so much to learn from our colleagues. So thank you for doing all of that. And you're right. It just takes, just start with something. Just one thing. I think that that's also true in non-math classes. Um, when I heard you talking about the holding off on giving feedback or advice,
00:19:43
Speaker
I was thinking about times where I was reading student papers and like my inclination as I'm reading an introductory paragraph, for example, is to start marking up if I didn't see what I thought I should see in that first paragraph, like already. And then three paragraphs later, I actually got to the point where they answered the questions I had at the beginning. So I trained myself to read the whole thing first and then go back and give feedback after. And I think.
00:20:13
Speaker
A lot of times teachers are so focused on the task at hand, but it almost becomes robotic and we're not, we don't spend the time necessarily reading the information in a way that could be most user friendly.
Acknowledgments and Future Events
00:20:28
Speaker
So I appreciate that you said that. And I think that it's totally applicable in every single classroom in a lot of different situations.
00:20:39
Speaker
And to that end, as we think about wrapping up now and other people that should be on our radars, are there specific folks you'd like to shout out as people we should recognize for promoting more learner-centered spaces?
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. So we've mentioned Peter a little. I think that goes hand in hand. But at the summit that we have coming up, we've highlighted so many great speakers who I think at almost all of them, I can't think of one that wouldn't be in this space and thinking about learner centered spaces as an important
00:21:21
Speaker
aspect to learning math. So for example, in our in our Friday evening on November 17, at our free free summit, we have Pamela Seda, who wrote the book choosing to see and in she's, we've interviewed her on the podcast as well, but a huge advocate for understanding, you know, what is it that
00:21:44
Speaker
We need to recognize about student brilliance and their identities in mathematics. And she's going to be speaking at the summit. And right after that, or right parallel to that, we have Phan Nguyen, who we just ran into at the NCTM conference. She's been doing a great job over her entire career of putting students into that thinking space, first and foremost.
00:22:07
Speaker
Sunil Singh, as it comes to mind, he will also be speaking at the summit. Sunil does a great job about what it means to, you know, what is it about storytelling in math and how can we celebrate students' stories but use storytelling to uncover the math and bring out the mathematics that students will engage with.
00:22:27
Speaker
Another one is Nicky Newton. We've had Nicky Newton, Dr. Nicky Newton on the podcast in past years in the summit. I think Nicky has been at every single one of our summits maybe other than one because this year is the fifth year we've been hosting this. She's done a great job in elementary mathematics of putting younger students in the forefront of thinking in the classroom and what it means to do mathematics.
00:22:56
Speaker
Um, that's, that's a, that's a bunch. Um, but, uh, there are so many, we've got only 30, uh, 30 speakers, uh, speaking at the summit in November. So, uh, we're excited to share all of them. If, uh, if, if your listeners are looking to say, register in this free event, um, you can go ahead on over to summit dot make bath moments.com. Um, you can.
00:23:17
Speaker
You can engage in all of these speakers and more throughout the weekend completely open. Kyle and I have made that sure. One of our goals at Make Math Moments is to provide high quality professional development for as many teachers as we can. We want to make it as accessible as we can. So that's why we make this weekend completely free.
00:23:38
Speaker
And listeners can check the show notes to see the link to that registration. And please tell every math teacher you know to look into signing up for that, because I think it's going to be so helpful for all of us. So I want to thank you both for the work that you do to make math just so much more enjoyable, because it's a beautiful subject. And I think that we're just enjoying it more. And we're seeing its beauty as teachers. And we're passing that on to the kids. And thank you so much for all the work that you're doing toward that.
00:24:08
Speaker
Thank you both. We really appreciate you having us. Excited to have you, Crystal, there. And we thank you as well, Star, for taking some time here to chat with us. So hopefully we'll see you folks and so many more at the summit, November 17th to 19th. Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did.
Conclusion and Call for Feedback
00:24:33
Speaker
If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes.
00:24:38
Speaker
Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio.com. You can follow us on Twitter at masteryforall and on LinkedIn on the Mastery Portfolio page. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.