 I'm Michael Morris. I'm the superintendent of the Amherst Pellum Regional School District, and thank you for watching today. I'm thrilled to talk math today with two math educator experts, so thank you for joining us. Jane from the high school and department chair and curriculum leader Tiffany, and so before we get into the math of it so to speak, could you just introduce yourself a little more than I did and maybe talk a little bit about how you came to be a math educator? I'm sure. So my name is Jane Muti, and I am math department head at the high school. I teach a variety of classes. As a math educator, I really, I think I was born knowing I wanted to be a teacher, but the math piece came much later. My brother had some special needs, and so trying to figure out how to support him in learning in the mathematics was always really interesting to me, so I think that sort of, I didn't quite go into it right away, but and diverted myself a little bit, but I think I came back to it because really that's what I always wanted to do. That's awesome. Yeah, so I didn't think that I would become a teacher when I was younger. I had many different interests, and it was really hard to narrow down on one, but one of the things that I found is that all of my part-time jobs sort of led me back to cheerleading coaching, tutoring, and back into a classroom in some form or another, so it turns out that being in a classroom and working with students and helping others learn is really what I like to do. And just a little introduction of who you are, sorry. Oh, sure. So I am the currently eighth grade teacher for Team Bolt at the middle school. We sort of alternate between seventh and eighth grade, so this year I'm teaching math eight and several sections of that class right now. Previously, before coming to the middle school, I think seven years ago, I was an elementary school teacher, and so I taught elementary, second grade, fourth grade, fifth grade math and science primarily in those areas, and then it was an encouragement of someone in this district that said, maybe you should try the middle school, and I got to the middle school and I fell in love, and so here I am. So I want to note that we're taping this in mid-September, so we are two and a half weeks in, something like that, to the school year, and so as we'll talk about later, there's been some changes in the math curriculum, and we'll talk more about that, but separate from the nuts and bolts of your day-to-day job, what at a vision level would you say math education should look like in 2019? Something that we often hear from families and something that many of us experience who haven't been learning math in a kid of 12 environment in many years is kind of what we learned, the way we learn mathematics perhaps is different than the way our children are learning mathematics, and you know it can lead to a lot of wondering as to why that is or where my math teacher is doing it the wrong way, and all sorts of conversations that go on in many people's homes, particularly in the area of mathematics, and wondered if either of you could shed a little light on what your vision of what high-quality instruction in math looks like at a kid of 12 or 7 through 12 level, and a little bit of why that distinction is of 2019 versus, I won't mention the year, but you're in fire. Yeah, I think this is a really exciting time to be a student in a math class. There are so many bits of research that teachers and just the community in general are aware of now in terms of best ways to learn, you know, of being able to explore and test things out and ask questions and discussion being like the foundation of what we do in our math class, which I think is a little bit different from the traditional way that most people experience math where you just sort of sit there and you do problems and it was about how many you could do rather than the quality of discussion that came out of the problems that you were working on. So I think now we really do have a focus on being able to explore and test and ask questions and be able to justify your thinking more so than just getting an answer right. Yeah, I think that, you know, the world has changed obviously since I was in the math classroom as a student. And just, you know, jobs and careers really are looking for do you understand? Can you apply? Can you problem solve so much that I think in the math classroom those are sort of the skills that we need to foster as well as all the other, you know, procedural fluency, you know, but I would like that to come from conceptual understanding. It's not just a rote memorization that students really understand what they're doing and if they don't quite know they can find a resource to help them move forward. And part of that is, you know, there's a lot, there was a lot of math anxiety and I'm not good at math and so I think we're well aware of the growth mindset and what that can do for a student who doesn't think that they can do math, that you're not there yet but we got to keep trying and that students talking about math is just a wonderful window into learning about their understanding because if they're just taking it all in as a teacher you're not able to really see where their misconceptions are or where they're having challenges. So really that, you know, discovering mathematics and talking about it really helps the teacher help the student learn better. Another thing I've noticed from my vantage point is the level of engagement that math educators in our district are being very intentional about. It feels different than when I was a child. I mean just very bluntly that it was sort of you got it or you didn't and engagement wasn't actually part of the equation and it does feel different in the classrooms you know that we have currently at the 7 through 12 level and I you know some research I've done in a different setting looked at successful countries, countries that have successful math education programs and they weren't doing the just skill and drill work endlessly that didn't seem like it netted future mathematicians or students who felt competent in mathematics and to your point raised earlier that you know avoid the math anxiety piece so I appreciate your leadership on that in our district. What do you enjoy about being a math educator? What's fun for you about your job? Oh it's so fun every day. No it really is. You know I think if you're into math you're a problem solver by nature and so the classroom is just a wealth of problems like you know how can I get this kid to move forward in this area? How can I challenge this student? So it's just it's very exciting every day and kids sort of speak their truth and so it's wonderful to see someone you know change their attitude about math and move forward in it. Yeah and have that in light bulb go on. That's great. I would say the same really similar in that I love it when I can hear the different opinions and thoughts that my students share with me. They share some really unexpected really insightful ideas and questions and strategies and things that you may not have thought of on your own and so it's really nice to just have that discussion and just be able to talk about math. I mean the problem solving aspect is definitely one of the places that I love being able to do math puzzles and and try out different patterns with my students and getting to see sort of the aha moment when they they light up and they're like oh yeah I get that it's exciting. Yeah and I think that the problem solving really reveals for students that there isn't always just one right way and that can be a real you know positive way for students to engage in mathematics because it's like oh I didn't quite get what the teacher was saying but I have my own strategy to get there so it's pretty exciting. One of the neat things that I got to see so I taught fifth and sixth grade as a teacher and I love teaching mathematics for a lot of the reasons that you both cited and one of the neat things last year when we were doing some professional development and Tiffany remember this was more at the sixth grade and then seventh eighth grade level was someone who was coming in working with staff presented a problem and it was an algebraic problem but it was a kind of a picture problem of there were scales and there were multiple balls on each scale and the question was you know how would you go about solving this and how would you go about teaching your students to solve this and I got to see it twice I got to see it with seventh eighth grade teachers as well as the sixth grade teachers and position with that problem the level of excitement and enthusiasm in the room to not only solve the problem which was fairly easy for the teachers but to talk about how you would approach it it was just it was really exciting and what came through so clearly was our teachers both dedication to the craft but also thinking about well they were thinking of specific kids and for this child I would approach it this way and they you know so I was so impressed with how much the math educators knew their children and knew the content and were trying to marry the two of how do we get it but you know that was supposed to be a warm-up activity that the presenter had to say okay we got to move on really things to do today but just the level of enthusiasm of our staff was was fantastic to see what are some of the challenges that you find when students you know come to the secondary level and teaching mathematics that you have to work through. Um do you want me to go? Sure. Well it's such a variety of students that enter at the high school level um so that is a challenge trying to meet all the students needs in in the high school within our resources and trying to um make sure that they can move through to their highest level by the 12th grade so that they are ready for their career or to go to college um and beyond so I would say that's the biggest challenge so intervention throughout is really really important because if a student gets stuck on something and it never recovers from that that can impact their um algebraic learning just because if they don't have number sense then it makes it almost impossible to learn algebra so just the variety of it um we have students that come enter our school district at all levels so we didn't have a lot of control before they got here and so trying to um teach them the way we want want them to learn mathematics is always a challenge. Yeah students come to us at the secondary level with a variety of different backgrounds and experiences with math and so some of those experiences are really positive and others are not so positive and um sometimes trying to counteract those negative experiences and making them see that they can have a more positive experience can be a bit of a challenge and I think the other thing that can be really challenging is just making sure that each student can see themselves as a math student and being able to recognize that even if their love is art that there is still um value and being able to um think through a math problem or think through a math situation and being able to connect it to what they love you know both of you touch on something that I think a lot about and I think it hits acutely at the middle school level but I think there's applications throughout is that what some don't know is that you know our students who enter at seventh grade are coming from multiple districts not just multiple schools but multiple districts not all of them share the same math curriculum and then we have students who come to us just because their family moves here or they may have been in a different school before they hit seventh grade and the nature of math is so cumulative um not that other subjects aren't but I think it's it's more more so perhaps in math than some other subjects taught at the elementary level it creates a real challenge for you all of how to approach incoming students um and I know that hits you at ninth grade too with students coming from different schools as well right and it's really hard to get students to go back into their math education as ninth graders because they don't want to be working on that you know that it feels funny to them to have to go back and relearn something in a different way so that they have a more solid foundation so that's very very challenging yeah for sure it's also really valuable for them to do so and so when they recognize that it's something that really benefits them it's definitely worth it yeah great so there's been significant curricular changes uh this year and so before we get into how's it going um not everyone may have been perhaps attuned to those changes last year so maybe I could start with Tiffany and then and go to Jane just you know what curriculum was being used what curriculum is being used just so people get a sense of that I think it'll help contextualize the next one of their conversations I'll talk primarily about seventh and eighth grade and I know that the sixth grade is also using the open up curriculum um but prior to this year the seventh and eighth grade curriculum was primarily um sort of a whole resource of teacher created materials and the big ideas textbook it really all of our materials were related to the math curriculum frameworks for Massachusetts and um this year we're using the open up curriculum which is a really highly rated program that is available um we have the workbooks but it's also a free um access curriculum for students and families online and uh the foundation of that program is really just to get students to be able to access the curriculum from wherever their background is and think about ways in which they can apply what they already know to a new situation and use rich discussions to promote their thinking so really focuses on those practice standards that we um really want to the math habits that we want students to be able to engage in each day great thank you Jay similar for those yeah so we moved from um an integrated program interactive mathematics program and moved to a more traditional sequence algebra one geometry algebra two and we're using the college preparatory um mathematics program and it's based on the um standards for mathematical practice as well as integrated the content standards from Massachusetts it's been around for a long time and it is um run by teachers there's a lot of teacher input into the changes that are made within the curriculum so and there's been great training with it so that's that's where we are two and a half weeks in yeah and I think it's a challenge to say overall how's it going but I think to the last point you mentioned I was just curious if you could share a little bit of the training and the professional work you know not only with external people but with internal people that we that has been supporting the shift so I think one of the goals of changing the curriculum was that our um teaching practices would be similar through six through twelve so that students would have a common experience moving through um that support the practice standards and the content standards so last spring we had a joint middle school high school math meeting and we shared we had just adopted the program so we shared what we knew about them at that time and we talked a lot about the teaching practices and I know that um people had piloted the open up resources in the middle school and so they were able to talk about their experience and we could tell them how their experience sort of matches what our students will be doing in our program and then um this summer we had the high school met with the curriculum professional development person from the cpm resources and we had four meetings and they will have four more this school year so there's a lot of support professionally for this and they will come in and they'll observe a class and they'll give feedback so it's it's pretty rich resource for professional development and the same at the middle school in terms of receiving professional development in the months leading up through last spring and then over the summer being able to meet as a department both with the high school and with the elementary school sixth grade teachers so that we are as the middle school um ensuring that our curriculum is aligned so that students coming into our school and the students leaving our school feel like their math experiences it's it's more I guess consistent or aligned with what um they will expect to see and what they've already experienced oh and I wanted to add that we have a um six through twelve curriculum coordinator um for the year who's going to oversee sort of making sure the teaching practices are similar throughout the six through twelve making sure teachers that need support implementing the new curricula um there's someone there to help them they have the time to do that answering parents questions um so it's exciting to have that person in place yeah I think it's important to note um that it's someone who has been a teacher at the high school for quite some time in the district and so I think has a local my vision my experience is has the local expertise to understand not just the curricula but also the teachers the environment uh and the community because all those have to match so um thank you for sharing that and what are um I think it's it's a significant significant shift for staff members to be even despite all the support you shared to be taking on a new curricula um and I just didn't know if there was any impressions that you had or that you were comfortable sharing about how staff are you know supporting each other and managing the shift um regardless of their level of enthusiasm it's it's just on a day-to-day level um doing something for the first time can be really challenging there's not some discussion happening at the middle school I bet it's the same at the high school as well um but just daily um we don't have um meetings every day but we do have um department meetings monthly and then we also have grade level meetings every few days on our seven-day rotation and during those meetings we're able to talk about you know how are things going in your class when you did less lesson three um how was it received in each of the classes that you taught that lesson and what are some things that worked really well and we're able to sort of use that to fine-tune our lessons and and have some good discussion and share some resources and there's also a sort of a facebook page where we can get insight from other teachers who may have had more experience of working with this curriculum for the last couple of years and we're sharing ideas that way I would say there's a high level of excitement um among the staff implementing it um that collaboration is high that we really try to um teachers make an effort to meet in course groups if they can't meet all together at least so that students are having again a common experience they can talk about issues that came up we have a page where we everybody writes in like questions um the coach from cpm weighs in occasionally on that as well so that's been a great resource we all share things when we've tried something out you know you might get an email I tried this this is what went really well this wasn't so well you know if you have a comment on it let me know because we we don't have weekly meetings so we kind of just find the time to do that but I would say everybody's enthusiastic and everybody's collaborating on it and really trying to make it work fantastic so one of the last questions I will have time for is a question in every subject when kids at the secondary level but I think it's particularly acute in mathematics which is you know families often struggle of how much support to offer their child um at home when kids are very young and perhaps learning how to read there's a very natural feeling of how that could go I think as students get older based on whether it's the students themselves or also the feeling of not wanting to support adolescents too much and create a dependency model so I don't know if you had any advice of how families can support their children in mathematics at the secondary level and what are some things that are helpful and perhaps what are things that aren't so helpful um that's a tough question sorry um so the program we have online has homework help for every question so that's a great feature because it kind of takes the onus off the parent to do that um but asking the student what they did in class is always a great way to start the conversation um and then if they get stuck on the homework to remind them there is that homework help that they can go to um and really what we're looking for is completion not perfection so if they got stuck they should circle that and we can go over that when they come into the class um but just really keeping a positive attitude and not you know if they weren't good at math don't say that just you know be positive about it and say you can do this you can get it encourage them to come for extra help short times you know not right before the test they didn't get anything like coming continually is really a really important and um in our program the homework is mixed spaced practiced work which means that three of the questions are going to be about what we did in class the rest is review so if they didn't understand one of the review questions they should get in and ask their teacher for some extra help on that that's like more cumulative review that's exactly this is really strategic and and well planned in both curriculums it's also the same with the open up curriculum so having um access to it online there's also there's a student tab but there's also a family tab where um family members can get just a snapshot of what is that unit about and what are some of the key ideas and vocabulary um and i think one of the best things that families can do when they're helping students is rather than trying to be the answer giver but really teaching students how to use the resources that are available to them so what questions can you ask what notes do you have from class that could help you with answering this particular problem tell me something about the strategies that you learned in class and which one of the strategies was really helpful for you let's try using that strategy right now um getting students to really think about how they're approaching the math i think is probably the most valuable thing that families can do for them rather than um necessarily getting a particular problem on the homework correct because again we're looking for completion in effort and the way they're thinking about it rather than accuracy as much when it comes to practice with homework and and i think um just emailing the teacher like if things you know it seems to be a struggle just you know keeping lines of communication open are really important right this was fantastic thank you i know this was a large interest of our community over the last few years and certainly last spring as we were in the curriculum adoption phase of this and um sometimes ironically when you actually adopt the curriculum and it's implemented the interest the public interest goes down but the personal interest of the students the families uh and certainly the staff goes goes up and so i really appreciate the care and time that you all are putting in as leaders in your schools um and we look to see the impact it has on student achievement um as well as staff feeling as you said enthusiastic and collaborative uh about the work and uh you know i say that we'll we'll keep on i'm sure you'll get a lot of questions at open houses and curriculum nights uh and that'll continue uh but really the whole the whole all the changes that could happen and all of our interest in making sure all students needs are met couldn't happen without teacher leadership so i just want to take a moment to thank you both for your role in that there's other teacher leaders as well who i know have been connected but but your roles have been central so thank you thank you so much well thank you for your support and i really want to thank you all the teachers that we work with because they're incredible yeah you know every day thinking about every student so thank you thank you all right so that is our latest episode of window into arps thank you for um spending some time talking about math education we'll be back soon with future topics and have a lovely day