The Power of Indirect Instruction in Mathematics: S2 E18

Cheri Dotterer 0:00
Hey everybody, it's Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach. I am here today at tier one interventions podcast, my sister podcast is the writing glitch. And this past week, we offered some really amazing things on both podcasts. On Saturday, math, we it was such a powerful conversation that we aired the entire hour and a half episode on Tuesday and on Thursday, we aired impact Wednesday, which was a follow up to that session. The conversation on in Saturday, math was about cognitive science of math, and what are some of the terms that Jonily And I use when we are teaching the instruction methods that we are teaching, And that is spaced repetition, interleaving, space, practice and cognitive feedback. I hope I got them right. The

Speaker 1 1:05
biggest component of improving number sense is counting. The foundational gap filler for any math deficit is counting. So we're going to take counting to the extreme. Today, we can do that in many ways, but today we're going to take counting to the extreme with staircase. I'm going to back up and layer two other intros before we answer that first question with staircase, the tier one interventions topics, is staircase. I want to go into what staircase looks like in season one, the staircase, which is the counting and the number sense, tier one, math interventions, reference task number eight of the Dirty Dozen is the staircase, and the staircase is like a quick dot. The quick dot module is another module. If you want to watch and listen to that before if you're watching the recording of this, you might want to pause the staircase recording and go listen to the quick dot module, because you'll get the foundation of what a quick.is I'm not going to re explain that here, but I want to make that connection. How do we improve memory and retention of content? We come back to this. We come back to the original part in January. This is the maybe the third interaction. Maybe this is the 10th interaction. Because your kids love staircase so much. You do it once a week, maybe in January. This is only the second interaction, or with this new group of seventh graders that I partnered with this year, this month in January, this is our first interaction with staircase. Okay, so it doesn't matter. We bring back the original slide. Tell me about blah, blah, blah, whatever. Once we have kids creating questions, and once I've created some teacher questions for this, which you know what I didn't put in there, this is going to be a reminder for me in tier one interventions, we have what we call task packets, and I will drop this into the that's why I didn't drop it, because it's not in my task packet folder. There are task packets that actually have and I'll pull one up for another problem, but I'll put the staircase one in there where the image is displayed, and then all of the questions that kids create, and I create, we put basically in a packet, we put the question, and we leave space, and then when I copy it for students, I put three blank pages at the end, because the task is like a task that never ends. Then I copy these packets for kids, and the goal is not to go through and answer all the questions. The goal is, I might say to kids, hey, we're going to do staircase task packet next Tuesday, I'm going to give you guys 30 minutes to work on staircase task packet. And this gives me an opportunity to pull a small group at my teacher table and work on subtraction that kids are missing while the other kids are engaged in answering some of these staircase questions. And then, if they finish the packet, which kids should never finish the packet in the year that it was created, they actually go to the blank pages and create more questions for that task that they're going to answer. What's the task that never ends. This math task packet set of questions is what's going to drive this independence for students to be able to work independently, while I am able to pull small groups in my classroom, I can do tier two intervention in my classroom through. Through the structure of the Dirty Dozen tasks, if I set it up this way, and Create Question packets so I can just be like, Look, I need to work with these six kids on subtraction next Tuesday. I need the rest of my kids to be independently engaged and not come and ask me questions. Now in reading, we can get a just right pick book. There's a whole process on how to get kids a just right book. I can say to kids, go read for 20 minutes, and kids can independently read. Never before have we had that parallel to mathematics. We can now with reference tasks. Reference tasks to mathematics is just like the just right book for reading, so that we can encourage independent mathematics, so that I can actually work with a small group of students and the rest of the kids are not just busy on busy work, but they're busy working independently on a high level, complex math task that they can not only focus and engage on, but they can get into a flow state that Cheri was talking about with mathematics. Y'all, this has never been done before, in K 12, and this is the final that's going to help us do that, Cheri, okay, okay, I'm

Cheri Dotterer 6:21
going to interject here, and that is, we can have the OT and or speech at another small group table, doing tier two, three interventions in the classroom, which is going to blow an OTS mind that they don't have to take them somewhere else into this little quarter in the back of some music room somewhere. But stay in the classroom. Have your own group that you're at, adapting the work for them, while the teacher has the small group tier two going on with the other students, so you could actually be pulling out one or two students, creating your small groups and creating an engaged, purposeful, meaningful, connected environment for the students.

Speaker 1 7:19
This is when what Cheri and I say, we don't want to eliminate, pull out tier two and tier three. We don't want to eliminate that all together. There's a time and a place for it, but least restrictive environment means as much as we can serve kids in the regular tier one classroom, it's going to benefit so many more students. So if really, all of this should be called tier one, and we can try to make a lot of tier two, tier three happen in tier one, but then, as the classroom teacher gives kids like, hey, next Tuesday, we're going to have 30 minutes to do this, then the supports person, or the special ed teacher and the classroom teacher might say, You know what, this is, a perfect 30 minutes. You're going to get 30 solid minutes. It might be best to pull the kids out of the classroom at that time, that way they're not missing any instruction. And these kids are going to be doing the same thing that that the rest of the class is doing, but they can do it targeted to their IEP. We've

Cheri Dotterer 8:27
really gotten what I'm doing on what I'm proposing is that it's happens at a table in the classroom agreed. I know, and and, and I know this is going to, like, blow OTS minds, because I hear them say, how do you create that environment? How do you schedule that? It takes planning. It takes coordination with the teachers. It takes a little different mindset than what we've been doing in the past. And then we get this list, and we have to plug them into a schedule, and no matter where that when that schedule is, we're only there one day a week. But if we are strategically planning this, not only could we convert our profession into a full time position in the school system, we would be able to engage and collaborate more efficiently, more effectively, with the entire staff, and then we wouldn't have what is ot as one of the questions coming from the teachers,

Speaker 1 9:36
but here's the hang up, here's the hang up, and I am. I'm a teacher, so I'm going to pick on us for a moment. The hang up is, OTs, if you're bought in and you're like, yes, I want to do this. I'm going to tell you right now, the majority of math teachers on this planet do not have this model and structure in place. So you as the occational therapy teacher service provider, do. Going to be beating your head against the wall because you're like, Yeah, but the math teachers that I work with don't teach this way. So see, it's, it's a whole chicken and egg thing too. And we can't wait on each other to change before we start to push the change. So I get it. This can't happen unless the regular tier one math room, math classroom core teacher is invested in this model,

Cheri Dotterer 10:24
and that's why I absolutely love it. Now Jane Janet's not here today, but Janet Lane has been partnering with the OT in her seventh grade classroom, and they are starting to create a collaborative environment where the OT is doing some of this work that we are suggesting, and the the OT has come to participate in some of the impact Wednesday, Saturday, math events. To start to get a taste of what we're sharing, we just need to give her a little bit more

Speaker 1 11:00
push. Now, here's the thing, if you're listening to this, if you're listening to this recording, and you're like, how do I do this in my school, what you need is an extension of what Cheri just talked about. You need a team of people to sign up for tier one interventions course, and on that team needs to be the curriculum leader, the school principal, the math regular classroom teacher, the special ed teacher and the direct service provider. And it could be more people, but you need that team to all sign up for tier one interventions course, and you all need to go through the course together for a year. And I would even say before you even implement one thing in the classroom. Now you're going to you're going to get so inspired that you're going to be like, I want to implement some things tomorrow. Go ahead, but really give yourself some grace. Don't worry about changing anything. Just take the course with your team for a year. You get a 12 month membership. Take the course, but it's gotta be your team for a year. Then think about what that looks like in your building. That is your first step. Anybody? Let me clarify anything on that.

Cheri Dotterer 12:23
Let me clarify that the courses you will have access to for a lifetime. Oh, yeah, you're coaching with Joni and I,

Speaker 1 12:33
yeah, good, yeah, you'll have the digital stuff for your life, for the lifetime, okay, but let's get back to business here. So we come back to staircase, and we start to ask some salty questions. We start to ask some salty questions. Salt means, okay, I can lead a horse to water, but can't make it drink. I sure can. I can force a horse to drink water by giving it a salt lick. I can lead kids to learning, but I can't force them to learn in this model. We can, because I'm always answering the question when I'm planning my lessons, what's going to make kids thirsty for learning instead of forcing them to learn. It's these salty questions we have a salt lick, how many blocks make the 100th stage. Whoa. One of our other techniques in this model is to ask salty questions that we never care if students get the answer to then we go on and ask another question. One of our other techniques is, when we're asking questions that are answer getting and solving, we want to start our questions with, how does, or how do depth of knowledge can be implemented through questions that begin with, how does and how do? Let me give you an example. How do the number of blocks in stage 10 compare to the number of blocks in Stage Five? Why are there not twice as many blocks in stage 10 as in stage five? If you're looking for questions to use to facilitate exploration in your classroom, we give those to you as a part of this package. If you're looking for questions that are going to be on your task packet that you're going to copy for kids. We give you those in the slide deck. We give you lots of sample questions in the slide deck. So if we go back to what are our four focuses, non academically, do? Uh, because these need to be the foundation before. Like, I haven't even gotten into number sense and counting yet. We haven't even got into the core math solution, because all of these things are more important than the math. Kirk said this before, the emotion, the climate, the culture, the experience trumps the mathematics. We're so eager to fast forward the mathematics that we're spinning in this insanity system. Keep doing the same thing over and expecting different results. Sarah said it in the comments, and I couldn't agree more. So hopefully, and I want to open this up right now in process, and then for the last 2025, minutes, I'm going to go real deep into the mathematics. But I want us to process for a moment before we really accelerate the mathematics. I want us to talk about our takeaways right now in these four focus areas. How did what we taught you so far help you understand how to increase focus and engagement, independence, individualization, math, accessibility and improving memory and retention of content, all of these things that we know kids are deficient in how does this session today? How has that increase? It increased? Yep, agree. What are your takeaways for these four parts? And lots of you have to hop off. We're going to have some discussion. Don't feel bad about hopping off. Go do what you need to do. The recording will be there. Don't worry about it. Okay, so I'm giving you permission to hop off. If you are going to stay on. I want to have about five minutes right now of some conversation, of your takeaways, then I'm going to go fast and furious into the mathematics. I'm not going to let you talk anyway. So if you need to hop off, you'll be able to listen to this recording later, but right now for the next five minutes, what are your takeaways? Talk to us. Unmute. Talk to us. Go. You.

Unknown Speaker 17:23
Oh, I guess I'm the only one who unmuted.

Speaker 1 17:28
Go Kirk, talk to us. I think we

Speaker 2 17:31
are on the edge of some very meaningful things. Not to say that what you haven't obviously, this is awesome. I come every Saturday because I learn every Saturday. But in terms of creating a new system for math instruction, or math classrooms, how do we change math classrooms so that students can actually learn math without feeling horrible about themselves? We're we are beginning, and I want to continue to have conversations about student emotions and teacher emotions and why it is that students in school feel so badly about math. But I think if you look at the homeschool student population, you wouldn't find as much math anxiety or math trauma, not that it's not there. I just don't think it's as prevalent. And what's the reason for that?

Cheri Dotterer 18:33
I have a suggestion for that.

Unknown Speaker 18:38
So that's why I'm

Cheri Dotterer 18:41
Yeah, I have a very good friend who is an occupational therapist who has been homeschooling her kids for the last eight years or so, and she and I talk periodically, and it's the way they instruct. They have three or four different programs, but one of them is called Charlotte Mason. And Charlotte Mason really is the foundation of the Montessori method. And the Montessori method provides indirect instruction first followed by direct instruction, which is exactly the way Joni teaches. It's indirect first followed by direct instruction, which is totally flipping learning on the head. Because what even in building think brain based learning this book, which I talked about a little bit on Wednesday night at impact Wednesday they ins, they still use the method of direct instruction first followed by indirect where they're practicing doing homework and that kind of thing. Joni has blown everybody's mind because she has flipped it on its head, but that's. The way they're learning in homeschool is through Charlotte Mason. They are doing that same method as Joni is instructing in the school system. Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:08
And Singapore Math is big in the homeschool communities, and they it's complicated. Most people don't implement it strictly by the teaching guide. But I, I love Singapore math. I think it's one of the best math programs out there,

Speaker 1 20:27
hands down, agreed. And I want to be very clear. I want to be very clear. And, oh, actually, let me stop for a moment. Natalie Krista, did you have anything you wanted to add?

Speaker 3 20:43
Oh my gosh. I have 1000 things. Talk to us. Go. I am fired up. Jonily, I am. This might be the best session of yours I've ever stop seriously. Oh my gosh. But talk to me. It's the culmination of a lot of different things, like just those interactions over time, like I've been doing this for some so many years now, and I'm still by no means an expert. It's my school has had the Elevate team in, and I've been doing that work on myself for the last year. And at first I was like, okay, whatever. And now, a year in, I have changed as a person, and I find that bleeding into my classroom. And this week was like the best week ever, and we're doing dividing fractions, who, who says that Jonily, what? And my intervention specialist wants to immediately do, keep change flip. And I was like, No, I die. I will die on that hill. In fact, I live there. Now I have built a house, and that is my home on that hill. And so I got real fired up and determined to just prove it wrong, right? And so, of course, we're doing modeling, and we're doing all these great things, and they're getting it it, which is blowing my mind. And friday i Our start problem had dividing fractions with a remainder. We had not talked about remainders at all. We're really just modeling. We're like, how many thirds are in this? How many this are in this? And they're doing those equivalencies as we get through, we're talking it through together. I forget what the problem I know we were dividing by two thirds, and I'm certain we're circling groups of two thirds. And we get to the end and we can't make another one, and they're like, oh, it's four and a half and I about fell over. They're telling me, No way. Oh, we can't make another group of two thirds. We only have half of what we need. The remainder is a half what, my what and my IEP kids, not just like, what I I was, y'all you've heard it here. Natalie speaks, Lord, you know how hard that has been to get that understanding. And they're like, Oh, we can only make half a group, holy part. Oh, indeed. So I was just like, it works. It works. And yes, we will learn to like, why multiplying by the reciprocal works and all those things, but just exploring and modeling and doing the work they did remainders, just just all of the interactions, all the different things I've been doing, and just seeing it work. And in a month, we'll have to redo it again, and they'll forget, and then we'll talk about it, but just celebrating that learning and knowing that they came to that on their own was

Speaker 1 23:25
just but Natalie, okay, I have to give kudos to Natalie for a moment. How many years have you been teaching Natalie? This is my fifth year, fifth year. And you guys, this is a process. I want you to hear what Natalie said. She's been working on herself. Interestingly enough, Natalie was krista's student teacher. Krista and Natalie both now are achievement formula certified coaches. Natalie was Krista student teacher six years ago, and Krista brought Natalie into this model for her first year of teaching. Now, your first second, third year of teaching, I'm sure, was amazingly clunky, but you stuck with this model, and on the fifth year, would you say you're seeing results from the model?

Speaker 3 24:17
Oh, yeah, not clunky. And during a pandemic. Let's remember that. But yeah, it's so much easier to think about it just comes naturally. The questioning I have my observation and my assistant principal, your questions the way you question, the way you talk. I don't confirm or deny. I always have a question. I always have a guiding one of my kids. We were doing 812 divided by two thirds. And I look, I was like, oh my god, your model shows eight pieces, but they wrote 1/3 in each part. I was like, Tell me about that. And they were able to be like, Oh yeah, that doesn't make sense. And we were able to decide each part had to be 112 of the 812 I'm like, tell me. Why you put 1/3 there? Tell me about that. Am I going to be like, Hey, you did this needs to be 112 talking it through. And they're figuring out, oh, this is what I need to change. Or my question, they're like, oh, okay, so my questioning has been the biggest shift from the beginning through now, and I'm getting it's being seen, and I'm seeing the results from it.

Speaker 1 25:17
I love you, Natalie, I love you and Krista. If I hadn't

Speaker 3 25:24
started in krista's class, what would I be doing? Who knows?

Cheri Dotterer 25:29
Natalie, that particular conversation right there has to go on the very top of our mystery math bundle, if it's okay with you.

Unknown Speaker 25:39
Oh, gosh, absolutely. I hope I sounded articulate. We're gonna

Speaker 1 25:46
make you famous. Oh my gosh, I love it, yeah?

Speaker 3 25:51
I live on this hill now. I have a house. I have stake claim,

Unknown Speaker 25:56
yeah, I'm your neighbor, yeah,

Speaker 3 26:01
there's no going back. I can't not there's it only gets better. There's no going back. Not that I ever was there. You're beautiful, Krista, but

Speaker 1 26:13
have a great weekend. Love y'all. Bye, everybody,

Cheri Dotterer 26:16
bye, bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai