Why Students Forget Math — And 3 Problems That Fix It

Segment 1
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[00:00:00] Hey everybody. It is Cheri Dotterer here at Tier One Interventions podcast. It's great to have you here with us while we talk about the core of the math classroom. Today we're gonna be talking more about. Pizzas, rectangles, lockers. Oh my.

Cedric: The next 10 segments are excepts from our October Workshop. If you are enjoying what you are learning, please subscribe and leave a comment.

I think that was the right order. Over to Jonily.

Let's learn a little bit about mathematics. So there are basically three major concepts that are going to leverage math achievement, and we've been talking about those in every session this year. And doesn't matter the order, it's commut, commutative, it can change order, you can get the same flavor.

Lockers, rectangles, pizzas. Oh my. And before we jump into lockers rectangles and pizzas, [00:01:00] this is a three part outline. Today we're gonna start with a story. Our good friend and certified coach, Natalie West, is a part of this story. You'll hear why in a moment. So we're gonna start with a story.

Then we're gonna move into the number one exercise skill and concept that will boost fluency, achievement, and independence, student independence, which then is going to connect back to the big picture of lockers, rectangles, and pizzas. So again, we're gonna start with a story that is very much about how to succeed and improve and boost fluency, achievement, and student independence.

Through that story, we're going to make the point of what is that number one exercise to do that and then make the connections to our three major tasks, [00:02:00] lockers, rectangles, and pizzas. So that's our three part outline today, and we bring to you our story. Now, Natalie, I'm gonna tell this story here at the beginning.

You are welcome to jump in at any time, or you're welcome to just listen to the story that I tell and then give your reflection at the end. I'm not sure what is gonna, what's gonna jumpstart you. So we're gonna make it very organic. And before I start telling the story, this is a story that just happened yesterday, but very much connected to our content today.

Before I tell the story on my board from the last math teacher mastermind are still the notes that we left with, and the story is going to tell about these notes. So there's so many connections today in our math teacher Mastermind. We ground ourselves in what [00:03:00] we call CE S. So our model for producing really great rich mathematical experiences in classrooms for kids is C-E-S-C-E-S is.

Culture, essentials and seasons. Culture is creating this climate and environment that is conducive and accessible to everyone. That includes movement and all sensory type exercises to help students engage in mathematics and feel like they belong to the learning. Essentials are the academic and non-academic highlights that everything is based on if everything's important, nothing is important.

So we, so filtering down to our essentials makes us prioritize what are those high leverage components that are also going to increase fluency, [00:04:00] achievement, and student independence. S is for seasons, which means if we come out of the typical traditional math instructional delivery method, which the textbook encourages, which is chapters and units in order sequential, we need to come out of that because that is not how students learn and retain information when we come out of that linear, sequentially based pacing of our year.

The alternative is to teach in seasons such that there are five seasons in our calendar school year, and. All of the essentials are exposed every season so that we can build on those over time. So in our Math teacher Mastermind, we are based in CES, and all of the instructional decisions we make are based on this model.

If you're not watching the [00:05:00] podcast on YouTube and you can't see my board, I'm trying to explain it and deliver it pretty articulately. So I'm telling you about it, but I'm also gonna ask you to go to YouTube. If you're listening to this on any podcast audio version, go to YouTube Tier One Interventions podcast.

So interventions with an S podcast one, the number one, not the word one. So go to YouTube tier one Interventions podcast and go to today's podcast that you're hearing here. Lockers, rectangles, pizzas, oh my Part three. And you'll be able to see the visual version of this. You'll just see the letters written, CES, but then you'll see a big circle with a line through it, which means universally, no, don't do [00:06:00] this.

Stop. Inside that circle are three things that we need to avoid at all costs in our classroom. And that is telling, not all the time, but telling too much, too soon, confirming or denying student responses too much and too soon. So that is how we switch from a traditional delivery method to a seasonal delivery method, focusing on essentials.

And then on the bottom, I'm not gonna make a big deal of that. It's basically how do we do this? Which is how I'm gonna launch us into our story today. And within our story, we are gonna launch the solutions to how to create this great cultural environment based on essentials, delivering mathematics and seasons so that all students [00:07:00] have access to the learning in a variety of ways.

So number one, here's our story for today.

Yesterday, Natalie had the opportunity to shadow me all day, and she was excited. I was excited. I'm not sure who got more out of it. We could argue to say that I got more, she'll argue to say that she got more. But through this shadowing observation situation, and I encourage you as educators and curriculum specialists and intervention specialists and occupational therapists, special service providers, anybody who has a stake in the education, the math education of our students should observe each other a couple times a year because it allows us to really open our minds to what is [00:08:00] impactful instructional delivery.

So through this shadowing observational time yesterday and for those of you that don't know, I am actually back in the classroom teacher of record after 14 years. I teach three classes in the morning, and then in the afternoon I coach math teachers. I teach at the high school al two algebra twos and in algebra one.

So Natalie got to observe that. And then on some days I go to the middle school, but yesterday we went to the elementary school because other days I go to the elementary school and I focus instruction on grades two and three this year in the elementary school. So we had an opportunity to go to the elementary school in a second grade classroom yesterday.

And I taught a lesson and the classroom teacher is a phenomenal classroom teacher. And the kids are used to having me in there, not frequently, but sometimes once a week with some breaks. [00:09:00] And when Natalie and I went in yesterday, my goal was to teach through all of our essentials. It was to collect data.

It was for kids to know number. It was for kids to count, to measure, to have movement, to have sensory experiences, to use different math tools. So if you check off your list of what are all of the instructional strategies that are gonna increase, improve and scale learning, my goal was to try to implement as many of those as possible.

And the goal yesterday was for kids to measure their weight and their height, and then put a sticky dot on a graph on a coordinate plane, which coordinate plane is not mastery content in grade two. So I actually created the coordinate plane, the x and Y axis. I labeled them with their [00:10:00] heights with, intervals of heights and weights. So the kids weren't creating the graph, they were just going to put their sticky dot on the graph based on where that connection point was. And I think it's really important. I am not a fan of bar graphs. I'm just not I don't think there's any leverage with bar graphs.

I don't think there's any essential learning that happens with bar graphs. I would much rather kids look at data on a two variable graph because this is what function is, this is what secondary mathematics is. So when we talk about essentials, we have to give up some things. We have to decrease the time that we're spending on some things, especially in the elementary, that don't have transferable leverage to secondary content.[00:11:00]

Bar graphs is one of those things. I'm not saying never do a bar graph, but if you do a graph that is a two variable graph on a coordinate plane where kids are not graphing so let me give the example. So we're, I'm not too far removed from what you're interpreting this as a bar graph would be on the horizontal x axis.

You put students' names, everybody's name in the class, and then you're only measuring one variable. You're only measuring one data point. So on the vertical y axis, let's say we're doing just the student's weights. So I would put the weight numbers and then they would find their name, and then they would put the dot for their weight.

Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that at all. It's a great exercise. However, it isn't transferable leverage. [00:12:00] And what I mean by that is it's not preparing them for the high complex skills that they need for secondary mathematics. So a better way to replace bar graph is with a two dimensional, two variable graph.

So on the horizontal X axis, I had weight numbers. So I already had the intervals of two for student weights, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, et cetera. And on the vertical y axis, I had numbers that I knew this group would be within for their heights. So 20 and then I believe, I skipped, counted by fives on this. I can't remember.

It doesn't matter. So anyway, maybe I skipped, counted by twos. Who knows? It doesn't matter. The two variable coordinate plain graphs. Will now help us see not just one [00:13:00] data point for a group of students, but it will allow us to see connections and correlations between two data points. Is there a connection or is there a natural phenomenon, a pattern phenomenon that occurs when we compare students' weights and heights?

And if there is, what is that phenomenon? Is it random? Is it scattered? Is it linear? Is it non-linear? And we can tell that now. This is not the intro I gave the students yesterday, but with this second grade class, we have to understand what we're doing in first grade, second grade, third grade has huge impact on success of mathematics for students at the secondary level.

This is probably one of the [00:14:00] most important podcasts that we're recording because I'm giving you specific examples of how to actually transform and change how we're delivering instruction in a way that we can still meet our standards. We can uplevel the complexity. It's still completely a hundred percent accessible for everyone.

That was my intention going into yesterday. So when I went into the class yesterday, I said to the kids, we're gonna do an exercise today. You're gonna be up and moving, you're gonna be collecting data numbers. Each of you are gonna end up with two numbers today.

Jonily, I wanna close out Tier One Interventions podcast, and that is, if you are listening to this podcast and you are [00:15:00] thinking, how do I get involved, you wanna head over to your show notes and click on the link. We are offering you to come to a session like this where you get all two and a half hours at one shot for $47.

You can then join another session for another $47. Or you can buy the whole year for $497 plus you have to buy the. When if you're going to go buy the whole year, you're gonna have to buy level one as well. But the coaching and these conversations that we're having are $497. That sounds to me like a really good deal for to, to really think the way you're thinking about not just mathematics, but occupational therapist delivery, speech therapy, delivery, [00:16:00] special ed delivery, and how we're helping these kids rethink, reregulate, relearn and think about life as whole.