How to Remedy a Struggling Math Student in the Classroom: T1I S1 E8

Unknown: Hello, and welcome to
the tier one interventions

podcast, where we share with you
tips, techniques and strategies

to strengthen your for the poor
classroom that is, without a

poor classroom, we cannot
thrive, learn how to create an

inclusive climate and culture
and environment in the regular

tier one core classroom through
collaboration of the regular

classroom teacher, intervention
specialists, instructional

coach, occupational therapist
and other direct service

providers. Through this
collaboration, we can blend our

expertise to maximize learning
for all students, and

specifically students with
learning disabilities. Through

this, we can also eliminate the
number of students needing tier

two and tier three pullout
intervention to ground this in

what our purpose here is. And
that is really the title of the

podcast and the course and the
coaching, which is tier one

interventions. And what we're
talking about here is

transforming and transcending
the regular classroom so that

kids get what they need in the
regular general core classroom,

so that we don't have to take
away recess, why can't I

create a structure a climate and
a culture? And for me, I'm a

secondary math teacher, regular
classroom teacher by trade.

Why can't we and I have, I've
done a lot of the

transformation. And I still have
a lot of work to do myself

through these techniques. But we
should strengthen our core. And

what that means is make these
adaptations in our classrooms.

So these kids can thrive in
regular instruction. And they're

able to get their needs met. And
we're able to improve their

overall access to learning by
what we're doing in the regular

classroom. Kids shouldn't have
to be pooled in small groups,

tier two and tier three
interventions to get what they

need. Now, obviously, you have
those outliers, and you have

those critical kids. I'm not
saying that's going to be

eliminated. However, there are
too many kids right now that we

can help regulate. And remedy I
liked the word share use remedy

right in the tier one classroom.
And as we transition to our math

topic, which is the course and
curriculum that this podcast

leads into, as we transition
into our math content, we know

and we've got Krista and Amy,
who are two achievement formula

certified coaches who have been
implementing these transitional

tier one academic adaptations
and interventions, as regular

classroom teachers that have
completely

been a game changer for these
kids in the regular classroom

and the math tasks that we do.
And the structures and the

design and the delivery of the
mathematics, which is different

than a typical traditional math
classroom has allowed these kids

to thrive and achieve higher in
mathematics than they ever have

before. I did have an issue this
week with a student like I like

to with our discussion
throughout the years with you

Jonily. I've been trying to get
the kids movement. And I've

noticed that when I had them
feel the math that they it, it

sticks in their brain better.
And they roll their eyes at me.

They're like, Oh my gosh, are so
annoying. And so part of the

trick is we get to move our arms
and silly but you know why

equals we just do and so some of
the kids are all in some of the

kids don't. So there's one kiddo
who's a little overweight, he's

really grumpy. And he didn't
want to do it. So sometimes I

poke him and sometimes act like
I don't notice that he's

participating or not. But there
was this other girl who didn't

want to do it. And I was like,
calling him I could do that. But

I couldn't do anything. And she
was like, he doesn't have to do

it. And I lost my temper. And
I'm like, goodness gracious. I'm

trying so hard with a boss. I
was like a deep breath.

Use some of these things on me.
They were doing it because

anyway, the point of the story
is later on, her mom called me

and she's hanging with my
daughter said you got upset with

her and I wouldn't explain that
she was actually on the

spectrum. But she didn't want
anybody to know because she's

trying to figure out strategies
for herself so she can fit in.

So then I felt doggy doo,
because I was like I didn't know

that.

I don't think we know better, we
do better. So I didn't beat

myself up too much. But this
discussion today just brought

her for the fourth or front. And
so now I'm looking at and then

this other kid had this big
issue and he's has a 504 with an

ADHD. And so I was looking
online and I saw this graphic I

found that was talking about
autism versus ADHD. And so I'm

just like, looking and listening
to everything. You're teaching

me Sherry, and I gotta get the
tea in there. I gotta help me

figure out this kid because this
kid needs this but this kid

doesn't. So as a classroom
teacher, it's very overwhelming.

Krista, thank you for this. I'm
gonna let you talk about this a

little bit. Let's give a shout
out right now to Peter Peter,

author of building thinking
classrooms.

Krista has the absolute
connection here. This is all the

science behind why those
strategies work, Chris to talk

to us a little bit about your
implementation, your massive

implementation of the strategies
and building thinking classrooms

that have become just

a complete shift and amazing
movement in math education. Talk

to us about that, Krista, I
started using those vertical

nonpermanent thanking spaces for
the movement. But like you said,

this kind of connects that all
into that, why that works and

why that's better for our kids.
So they just they go there. And

they work at their, at the
boards, and they want them to be

standing. But now I'm thinking
like, what if we have souls

there for them to sit, just
trying to work in some more or

what if we lay, we have a
vertical board, but it's down on

the floor. And so they can write
on that? I'm just thinking about

some ways that I can offer some
flexible seating within that

vertical spaces piece of that
building between classrooms. I

don't want us to miss it's a
very subtle and easy thing that

we can do as educators. And it's
one that we question as

educators much of the time when
I do trainings on transforming

tier one math classrooms.

Much of the transformation
includes novelty gaining student

perspective, open endedness. And
the questions that I get a lot

is Yeah, but when do you
actually teach? When do you do

the teaching, when do this what
it's so conflicting with typical

traditional math delivery.

And we're not choosing one over
the other, we're not and this is

why I like to call it
transcendence rather than trans

formation. Transformation really
indicates a change, and we do

want to change, but it almost
implies giving up one thing to

do a new thing. And that's not
what I'm asking us to do. And

I'm going to give you an example
of this in a moment. But

transcendence means creating
that new path. That includes the

old school stuff that still
makes an impact. And the new

learning that we have, that
makes an even better impact and

blending those. Let me give you
an example. We say oh research

said we don't want to change
things up and have too much

novelty. But Daniel Pink in his
book drive says, one of the

motivators one of the major
motivators of human behavior and

motivation of kids in our
classroom

is novelty, expecting the
unexpected will stimulate their

interest in doing what we're
doing. But then we think as a

classroom teacher that conflicts
with when we say, oh, no, these

kids that have some of these
learning disabilities and

processing issues and ADHD, they
need routine they need structure

I want you to think about and I
know some of you may not have

been able to see it. But in
Teresa's PowerPoint,

she kept up with a routine and a
structure. Because what I'm

advocating for is we have both,
we have routine and structures

in place. However, she changed
the color of the background of

the PowerPoint. She changed the
ACT every day, there was a

breathing exercise, but the type
of breathing changed. So you

see, we can actually combine
routine and structure with

novelty and unexpected. And we
need both of those two function

to have good executive
functioning skills. We need both

of those, we need the routine.
We need the procedural we need

all of that. We also need this
novelty and this unexpected,

which is exactly what I talked
about. This is the whole point

of making math veneers that we
have to live in both lands in

the tier one classroom have to
give opportunities for

procedural algorithmic

Step by step routine bass
because that's a skill that we

want kids to thrive with. But at
the same time, we want them to

be able to know what to do when
they don't know what to do. We

want them to be able to regulate
in an unexpected situation. We

want them to be able to attend
to and be stimulated and novelty

will do that. And the bread and
butter of these tier one

interventions academically are
exactly what Theresa showed,

what do you see? What do you
notice? Tell me about if we

leave with nothing else,
transitioning from Okay, the

movement, the breathing, we can
get the body ready for the brain

to be cognitive is cognitively
stimulated, the very next step

to enter into an academic lesson
is to stimulate the brain, that

cognition. And the way that I do
that routinely is with my

favorite prompts. What do you
see? What do you notice and tell

me about

the other way that we have
created this new structure for

mathematics is through this tier
one math intervention for

strengthening course and
curriculum. We call this the

adaptive condensed math
curriculum.

If you are on the hunt for new
textbooks, or you're up for

curriculum adoption, I want you
to step back and rethink what

that might look like. Because
tier one math intervention

course, and curriculum, this
adaptive condensed curriculum

for mathematics, give gives you
everything you need to teach all

of your standards, from
preschool through high school in

mathematics, with 12 tasks that
we call reference tasks, these

12 tasks, adapt everything that
Sherry And Teresa present and

teach us. But they also target
all of our math standards,

narrowing it down to these 12
Essentials. I call them the

Dirty Dozen. There are 12
reference tasks that are exactly

the same for every grade level,
preschool through high school.

But the level of complexity
increases as we move through the

grades. And the goal is in our
tier one regular core math

classroom, that kids are exposed
to all 12 of these every year,

throughout the year. So
frequent, often and early.

These are the 12 tasks pizza,
don't they are because I'm going

to tell you how they're being
rolled out through this course.

Pizza problem 120 chart paper
folding, making rectangles quick

dots locker problem, Jessie and
K geoboard, Candy problem, paint

problem staircase and function
machine.

These are the only reference
tasks you need to teach all of

your curriculum. And there are
multiple variations of each one.

The result, the remedy be the
reason these are the remedy for

fixing poor math achievement,
and let's face it, math scores

are dismal. They're dismal. And
we're looking for the solution.

We're here to tell you this is
the solution. But it's going to

take rethinking what your tier
one math classroom looks like.

Because these reference tasks
are the remedy to increase

greatly math achievement, like
we've never seen before. That's

truly what transcendence is
getting results based on a new

path that we've paved, that
these results are things we've

never seen before.

This adaptive condensed
curriculum has 12 sessions, one

for each of the reference tasks.
Today, we're going to go in

depth with paper folding from
the introduction through what

each interaction looks like. The
implementation of these tasks

happen like this. In the math
classroom, as a regular

classroom math teacher, I think
of my year in seasons. The first

season of instruction is what we
call first 15 days. And this

happens immediately at the
beginning of the school year.

In August, September when the
school year starts, the first 15

days of math. It

exposes all 12 of these
reference tasks. Now, so that

you're not overwhelmed. Some
schools choose four of these, or

three of them, or eight of them,

just to ease in each year, but
in the first 15 days of school,

you're exposing as many of these
reference tasks as possible, add

an exposure level only. And Kirk
Kirk makes mentioned, please do

not use the touch math
curriculum. See, this is my love

hate relationship with all
curriculums. With all textbooks

with all digital resources, no
matter what you use, I could

name any of them. I could name
bridges, investigations, I could

name go math, big ideas, Glencoe
McGraw Hill, I can name any of

those. They're all the best. And
they're all the worst. See this

is. And this is what I like to
do. I like to dive into all of

these curriculums. And I like to
pull the best pieces from them

and just use that sliver. That's
what Sherry And I's tier one

interventions does. That's why
it's called the adaptive

condensed curriculum, because
it's a combination of everything

that's out there. And the best
pieces of it, backed in

cognitive science and research
based and created by minds on

math for the math curriculum. So
great point, Kirk on this, this

is so important, actually more
important than the math content.

Because through this sensory
delivery, your kids will improve

their number sense, think about
the understanding that kids will

have have the number eight, even
at the high school level,

through the sensory delivery
systems. Now, here's what I'm

going to do, I'm going to go
through each of the color paper

strips, because they're, I
purposefully, do not give kids

the sensories. At first,
remember, in those three paper

folding, I just want kids to
give their perspective

abstractly, I don't want to give
them sensory stuff. And I want

to tell them, this is going to
be difficult, you're not going

to know a lot yet, because I'm
assessing what they already know

about number because some kids
innately automatically know more

about number without any of
these techniques, they actually

know more about number than I
do, I need to know that for

other kids that they're not
going to be able to engage with

to the negative three or eight
or like they're going to be in

fight or flight mode, because
that's what math notation and

symbol does to them. I need to
know that. But I need to assess

that in a very raw abstract form
for just a few interactions,

then I'm ready to move into the
sensory based.

Oh, Janet, I love the angle
breathing. I love it. And you

were asking a little bit about
what angle I think it was that

my thought was, whatever angle
you're going to work on that

day. So if you're working on 30
degree angles, use 30 degree

angles and you're breathing.
You're going to be working on

isometric triangles. Use
isometric triangles as your

breathing source. I've already
do it I always say I'll have the

kids like toward the arms in
those 800 80s Then we go like

this we'll go right up to
suggested to strictly the gets

right. And then when we go on to
supplementary and complementary

angles. Okay, well, junior high
now we want to start working

out. So like, it was nice
muscles. No, I'm gonna

compliment myself. And then I'll
say oh, now I'm really serious

nominee. Yep, take supplements
and I'm gonna get bigger and

bigger and supplement angle. So
I'm just saying I can try to do

it more often like Ajay Singh
angles vertical, just use it as

a breathing but also to keep
seeing it over and over. And

because we did it, and then the
state test got mixed up and I

wanted to beat them all up, but

I want to emphasize something
else. You've got the right angle

here. Yeah. Yeah, if you flip it
upside down, trying to keep that

angle there. Yeah, okay. What
you've just done biomechanically

is you use your entire rotator
cuff. rotator cuff is weak.

Okay, so if you can come up with
some exercise that pounds?

Oh, yeah, you can start working
on there the rotator cuff a

little bit since that's
typically a weak section of the

shoulder. And that will wake up
the proprioception and the

vestibular system. But this is
mathematically important to

let's not skim by this. So not
only does it do the physical,

which we need, but right angles
are not always upright like

this. And that's the other thing
that we create misconceptions is

we want kids doing that to be
like, Okay, now what angle is

this? Oh, gosh. It's still a
right angle. It's still a right

angle, even though it changed
positions. A lot.

At times, kindergarten, first
grade, if we have a square

that's tilted kids, if it's the
same square, I could have a

physical square. And kids are
like, that's a square all

congruent sides. If I'm like,
what is it? Now? It's not a

square. Do you see? It's so
square? It's the same.

I think that is the same
instruction. It's still a right

angle, whether it looks upside
down. This is zombies. And

angle. Yeah.

Do you just have a cute

opposite gobies, if you do this,
where they're coming back here,

I will now that's internal
rotation. And that is probably

the weakest part of the rotator
cuff right to get kids that

angle.

I don't know if I can do this.
And that you're going to be able

to hear me. But this is very
much a good exercise. This is

gonna be a good exercise for
your kids, I have to turn around

and do this. Okay, one arm is
going over the top.

The other arm

is coming through the bottom and
the idea is touch you tip your

fingers together. Oh, wow.

Okay, senior citizens get that
tested with them and how far

apart your fingertips are tells
how bad your rotator cuff is.

And it's a prediction of false.

So by doing that internal
rotation and stuff, you've done

a quick exercise that is going
to wake the brain up. It's

vestibular and proprioceptive.
It's interoceptive.

And you just woke the shoulders
up for writing, or math or

whatever, anything that you'd
have put it down on paper. And

you really practiced a weak link
in our physiology.

Wow.

So everybody found something
beneficial today.

All right.

Then we will see you on May 18.
For this, and our subject is

quick dots. Yes. I'm looking
forward to quick dots and then

moving forward over the summer.
We won't have anything directly.

But what I'm going to do is I'm
going to put something new in

each month, over the summer, so
there will be more material

added. It's just not going to be
live over the summer. Okay. And

then in September, the third
week in September, what's the

date there? Jonily. Can you look
it up? We're quick. The third

week in July, September. You're
going to start these live again

on May 21 $947 to get all of
next year but listening to tier

one interventions with John
Elise us panic and Sherry

daughter. Tier one interventions
is released on the first and

third Tuesday of the month. I'm
Nicholas King, an intern for

cheri Dotterer educational
consulting