Rounding Up

By: MLC - Mike Wallus
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  • Summary

  • Welcome to Rounding Up, the professional learning podcast brought to you by The Math Learning Center. Two things have always been true in education: Ongoing professional learning is essential, and teachers are extremely busy people. Rounding Up is a podcast designed to provide meaningful, bite-sized professional learning for busy educators and instructional leaders. I'm Mike Wallus, vice president for educator support at The Math Learning Center and host of the show. In each episode, we'll explore topics important to teachers, instructional leaders, and anyone interested in elementary mathematics education. Topics such as posing purposeful questions, effectively recording student thinking, cultivating students' math identity, and designing asset-based instruction from multilingual learners. Don't miss out! Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. Each episode will also be published on the Bridges Educator Site. We hope you'll give Rounding Up a try, and that the ideas we discuss have a positive impact on your teaching and your students' learning.
    2022 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
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Mathematics Science
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Episodes
  • Season 3 | Episode 14 – Supporting Neurodiverse Students in Elementary Mathematics Classrooms - Guest: Dr. Cathery Yeh

    Season 3 | Episode 14 – Supporting Neurodiverse Students in Elementary Mathematics Classrooms - Guest: Dr. Cathery Yeh
    Mar 20 2025
    Dr. Cathery Yeh, Supporting Neurodiverse Students in Elementary Mathematics Classrooms ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 14 What meaning does the term neurodiverse convey and how might it impact a student’s learning experience? And how can educators think about the work of designing environments and experiences that support neurodiverse students learning mathematics? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Dr. Cathery Yeh, a professor in STEM education from the University of Texas at Austin. BIOGRAPHY Dr. Cathery Yeh is an assistant professor in STEM education and a core faculty member in the Center for Asian American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the intersections of race, language, and disability to provide a nuanced analysis of the constructions of ability in mathematics classrooms and education systems. TRANSCRIPT Mike Wallus: What meaning does the term neurodiverse convey and how might that language impact a student's learning experience? In this episode, we'll explore those questions. And we'll think about ways that educators can design learning environments that support all of their students. Joining us for this conversation is Dr. Cathery Yeh, a professor in STEM education from the University of Texas at Austin. Welcome to the podcast, Cathery. It's really exciting to have you with us today. Cathery Yeh: Thank you, Mike. Honored to be invited. Mike: So, I wonder if we can start by offering listeners a common understanding of language that we'll use from time to time throughout the episode. How do you think about the meaning of neurodiversity? Cathery: Thank you for this thoughtful question. Language matters a lot. For me, neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in our human brains and our neurocognition, challenging this idea that there's a normal brain. I always think of… In Texas, we just had a snow day two days ago. And I think of, just as, there's no two snowflakes that are the same, there's no two brains that are exactly the same, too. I also think of its meaning from a personal perspective. I am not a special educator. I was a bilingual teacher and taught in inclusive settings. And my first exposure to the meaning of neurodiversity came from my own child, who—she openly blogs about it—as a Chinese-American girl, it was actually really hard for her to be diagnosed. Asian Americans, 1 out of 10 are diagnosed—that's the lowest of any ethnic racial group. And I'll often think about when… She's proud of her disabled identity. It is who she is. But what she noticed that when she tells people about her disabled identity, what do you think is the first thing people say when she says, “I'm neurodivergent. I have ADHD. I have autism.” What do you think folks usually say to her? The most common response? Mike: I'm going to guess that they express some level of surprise, and it might be associated with her ethnic background or racial identity. Cathery: She doesn't get that as much. The first thing people say is, they apologize to her. They say, “I'm sorry.” Mike: Wow. Cathery: And that happens quite a lot. And I say that because–and then I connected back to the term neurodiversity—because I think it's important to know its origins. It came about by Judy Singer. She's a sociologist. And about 30 years ago, she coined the term neurodiversity as an opposition to the medical model of understanding people and human difference as deficits. And her understanding is that difference is beautiful. All of us think and learn and process differently, and that's part of human diversity. So that original definition of neurodiversity was tied to the autism rights movement. But now, when we think about the term, it's expanded to include folks with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, mental health, conditions like depression, anxiety, and other neuro minorities like Tourette syndrome, and even memory loss. I wanted to name out all these things because sometimes we're looking for a really clean definition, and definitions are messy. There's a personal one. There's a societal one of how we position neurodiversity as something that's deficit, that needs to be fixed. But it's part of who one is. But it's also socially constructed. Because how do you decide when a difference becomes a difference that counts where you qualify as being neurodiverse, right? So, I think there's a lot to consider around that. Mike: You know, the answer that you shared is really a good segue because the question I was going to ask you involves something that I suspect you hear quite often is people asking you, “What are the best ways that I can support my neurodiverse students?” And it occurs to me that part of the challenge of that question is it assumes that there's this narrow range of things that you do for this narrow range of students who are different. The way that you just talked about the meaning of neurodiversity probably means that you have a different ...
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    26 mins
  • Season 3 | Episode 13 – Assessment in the Early Years - Guest: Shelly Scheafer

    Season 3 | Episode 13 – Assessment in the Early Years - Guest: Shelly Scheafer
    Mar 6 2025
    Assessment in the Early Years Guest: Shelly Scheafer ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 13 Mike (00:09.127) Welcome to the podcast Shelley. Thank you so much for joining us today. Shelly (00:12.956) Thank you, Mike, for having me. Mike (00:16.078) So I'd like to start with this question. What makes the work of assessing younger children, particularly students in grades K through two, different from assessing students in upper elementary grades or even beyond? Shelly (00:30.3) There's a lot to that question, Mike. I think there's some obvious things. So effective assessment of our youngest learners is different because obviously our pre-K, first, even our second grade students are developmentally different from fourth and fifth graders. So when we think about assessing these early primary students, we need to use appropriate assessment methods that match their stage of development. For example, when we think of typical paper pencil assessments and how we often ask students to show their thinking with pictures, numbers and words, our youngest learners are just starting to connect symbolic representations to mathematical ideas, let alone, you know, put letters together to make words. So When we think of these assessments, we need to take into consideration that primary students are in the early stages of development with respect to their language, their reading, and their writing skills. And this in itself makes it challenging for them to fully articulate, write, sketch any of their mathematical thinking. So we often find that with young children in reviews, you know, individual interviews can be really helpful. But even then, there's some drawbacks. Some children find it challenging, you know, to be put on the spot, to show in the moment, you know, on demand, you know, what they know. Others, you know, just aren't fully engaged or interested because you've called them over from something that they're busy doing. Or maybe, you know, they're not yet comfortable with the setting or even the person doing the interview. So when we work with young children, we need to recognize all of these little peculiarities that come with working with that age. We also need to understand that their mathematical development is fluid, it's continually evolving. And this is why Shelly (02:47.42) they often or some may respond differently to the same proper question, especially if the setting or the context is changed. We may find that a kindergarten student who counts to 29 on Monday may count to 69 or even 100 later in the week, kind of depending on what's going on in their mind at the time. So this means that assessment with young children needs to be frequent. informative and ongoing. So we're not necessarily waiting for the end of the unit to see, aha, did they get this? You know, what do we do? You know, we're looking at their work all of the time. And fortunately, some of the best assessments on young children are the observations in their natural setting, like times when maybe they're playing a math game or working with a center activity or even during just your classroom routines. And it's these authentic situations that we can look at as assessments to help us capture a more accurate picture of their abilities because we not only get to hear what they say or see what they write on paper, we get to watch them in action. We get to see what they do when they're engaged in small group activities or playing games with friends. Mike (04:11.832) So I wanna go back to something you said and even in particular the way that you said it. You were talking about watching or noticing what students can do and you really emphasize the words do. Talk a little bit about what you were trying to convey with that, Shelley. Shelly (04:27.548) So young children are doers. When they work on a math task, they show their thinking and their actions with finger formations and objects. And we can see if a student has one-to-one correspondence when they're counting, if they group their objects, how they line them up, do they tag them, do they move them as they count them. They may not always have the verbal skills to articulate their thinking, but we can also attend to things like head nodding, finger counting, and even how they cluster or match objects. So I'm going to give you an example. So let's say that I'm watching some early first graders, and they're solving the expression 6 plus 7. And the first student picks up a number rack or a rec and rec. And if you're not familiar with a number rack, it's a tool with two rows of beads. And on the first row, there are five red beads and five white beads. And on the second row, there's five red beads and five white beads. And the student solving six plus seven begins by pushing over five red beads in one push and then one more bead on the top row. And then they do the same thing for the seven. They push over five red beads and two white beads. And they haven't said a word to me. I'm just watching their...
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    30 mins
  • Season 3 | Episode 12 – Inside Out: Examining the Meaning and Purpose of our Questions - Guest: Dr. Victoria Jacobs

    Season 3 | Episode 12 – Inside Out: Examining the Meaning and Purpose of our Questions - Guest: Dr. Victoria Jacobs
    Feb 20 2025
    Dr. Victoria Jacobs, Examining the Meaning and Purpose of our Questions ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 12 Mike (00:03): The questions educators ask their students matter. They can have a profound impact on students' thinking and the shape of their mathematical identities. Today we're examining different types of questions, their purpose and the meaning students make of them. Joining us for this conversation is Dr. Vicki Jacobs from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Welcome to the podcast, Vicki. I'm really excited to talk with you today. Vicki (00:33): Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Mike (00:36): So you've been examining the ways that educators use questioning to explore the details of students' thinking. And I wonder if we could start by having you share what drew you to the topic. Vicki (00:47): For me, it all starts with children's thinking because it's absolutely fascinating, but it's also mathematically rich. And so a core part of good math instruction is when teachers elicit children's ideas and then build instruction based on that. And so questioning obviously plays a big role in that, but it's hard. It's hard to do that well in the moment. So I found questioning to explore children's thinking to be a worthwhile thing to spend time thinking about and working on. Mike (01:17): Well, let's dig into the ideas that have emerged from that work. How can teachers think about the types of questions that they might ask their students? Vicki (01:24): Happy to share. But before I talk about what I've learned about questioning, I really need to acknowledge some of the many people that have helped me learn about questioning over the years. And I want to give a particular shout out to the teachers and researchers in the wonderful cognitively guided instruction or CGI community as well as my long-term research collaborators at San Diego State University. And more recently, Susan Sen. This work isn't done alone, but what have we learned about teacher questioning across a variety of projects? I'll share two big ideas and the first relates to the goals of questioning and the second addresses more directly the types of questions teachers might ask. So let's start with the goals of questioning because there are lots of reasons teachers might ask questions in math classrooms. And one common way to think about the goal of questioning is that we need to direct children to particular strategies during problem solving. (02:23): So if children are stuck or they're headed down a wrong path, we can use questions to redirect them so that they can get to correct answers with particular strategies. Sometimes that may be okay, but when we only do that, we're missing a big opportunity to tap into children's sense-making. Another way to think about the goal of questioning is that we're trying to explore children's thinking during problem solving. So think about a math task where multiple strategies are encouraged and children can approach problem solving in any way that makes sense to. So we can then ask questions that are designed to reveal how children are thinking about the problem solving, not just how well they're executing our strategies. And we can ask these questions when children are stuck, but also when they solve problems correctly. So this shift in the purpose of questioning is huge. And I want to share a quote from a teacher that I think captures the enormity of this shift. (03:26): She's a fifth grade teacher, and what she said was the biggest thing I learned from the professional development was not asking questions to get them to the answers so that I could move them up a strategy, but to understand their thinking. That literally changed my world. It changed everything. So I love this quote because it shows how transformative this shift can be because when teachers become curious about how children are thinking about problem solving, they give children more space to problem solve in multiple ways, and then they can question to understand and support children's ideas. And these types of questions are great because they increase learning opportunities for both children and teachers. So children get more opportunities to learn how to talk math in a way that's meaningful to them because they're talking about their own ideas and they also get to clarify what they did think more about important math that's embedded in their strategies and sometimes to even self-correct. And then as teachers, these types of questions give us a window into children's understandings, and that helps us determine our next steps. Questioning can have a different and powerful purpose when we shift from directing children toward particular strategies to exploring their mathematical thinking. Mike (04:54): I keep going back to the quote that you shared, and I think the details of the why and kind of the difference in the experience for students really jump out. But I'm really compelled by what that teacher ...
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    23 mins

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