Rounding Up

ROUNDING UP: Improving Students' Turn & Talk Experience with Ramsey Merritt Most educators know what a turn and talk is—but are your students excited to do them?  In this episode, we put turn and talks under a microscope. We'll talk with Ramsey Merritt from the Harvard Graduate School of Education about ways to revamp and better scaffold turn and talks to ensure your students are having productive...

ROUNDING UP: Exploring the Power & Purpose of Number Strings with Pam Harris I've struggled when I have a new strategy I want my students to consider and despite my best efforts, it just doesn't surface organically. While I didn't want to just tell my students what to do, I wasn't sure how to move forward. Then I discovered number strings.  Today, we're talking with Pam Harris about the ways numbe...

ROUNDING UP: I Have, You Need: The Utility Player of Instructional Routines with Kim Montague In sports, a utility player is someone who can play multiple positions competently, providing flexibility and adaptability. From my perspective, the routine I have, you need may just be the utility player of classroom routines. Today we're talking with Kim Montague about I have, you need and the ways it c...

ROUNDING UP: Same but Different: Encouraging Students to Think Flexibly with Dr. Sue Looney Sometimes students struggle in math because they fail to make connections. For too many students, every concept feels like its own entity without any connection to the larger network of mathematical ideas.  On the podcast today, we're talking with Dr. Sue Looney about the powerful same and different routine...

ROUNDING UP: Which One Doesn't Belong Routine with Dr. Christopher Danielson The idea of comparing items and looking for similarities and differences has been explored by many math educators. Christopher Danielson has taken this idea to new heights. Inspired by the Sesame Street song "One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others)," Christopher wrote the book Which One Doesn't Belong? In this episod...

ROUNDING UP: Understanding the Role of Language in  Math Classrooms with William Zahner How can educators understand the relationship between language and the mathematical concepts and skills students engage with in their classrooms? And how might educators think about the mathematical demands and the language demands of tasks when planning their instruction?  In this episode, we discuss these que...

ROUNDING UP: Assessment as a Shared Journey: Cultivating Partnerships with Families and Caregivers with Tisha Jones Families and caregivers play an essential role in students' success in school and in shaping their identities as learners. Therefore, establishing strong partnerships with families and caregivers is crucial for equitable teaching and learning. This episode is designed to help educato...

ROUNDING UP: What If I Don't Understand Their Thinking? with Ryan Flessner "What do I do if I don't understand my student's strategy?" This is a question teachers grapple with constantly, particularly when conferring with students during class. How educators respond in moments like these can have a profound impact on students' learning and their mathematical identities. In this episode, we talk wi...

ROUNDING UP: Supporting Neurodiverse Students in Elementary Mathematics Classrooms with Dr. Cathery Yeh 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...

ROUNDING UP: Assessment in the Early Years with Shelly Scheafer Mike: How is the work of assessing young children different from assessing students in upper elementary grades or in grades six through 12? And what actions can we take to ensure we understand our youngest learners' thinking? Today we're talking with Shelly Schafer, senior manager of Content Development with the math Learning Center a...

ROUNDING UP: Inside Out: Examining the Meaning and Purpose of our Questions wit Dr. Victoria Jacobs 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 conversa...

ROUNDING UP: Affirming Students' Mathematics Identities with Dr. Karisma Morton In this episode, we will explore the connection between identity and mathematics learning. We'll examine the factors that may have shaped our own identities and those of our students. We'll also discuss ways to practice affirming students' identities in mathematics instruction. BIOGRAPHIES Dr. Karisma Morton is an assi...

ROUNDING UP: Building Productive Partnerships with Sue Kim & Myuriel von Aspen In this episode, we examine the practice of building productive student partnerships. We'll talk about ways  educators can cultivate joyful and productive partnerships and the role the educator plays once students are engaged with their partner.  BIOGRAPHIES Sue Kim is an advocate for children's thinking and providing t...

ROUNDING UP: Breaking the Cycle of Math Trauma with Dr. Kasi Allen If you are an educator, you've likely heard people say things like "I'm a math person." While this may make you cringe, if you dig a bit deeper, many people can identify specific experiences that convinced them that this was true. In fact, some of you might secretly wonder if you are a math person as well. Today we're talking with...

ROUNDING UP:  Helping Our Students Build a Meaningful Understanding of Geometry with Dr. Rebecca Ambrose As a field, mathematics education has come a long way over the past few years in describing the ways students come to understand number, quantity, place value, and even fractions. But when it comes to geometry, particularly concepts involving shape, it's often less clear how student thinking de...

ROUNDING UP: How You Say It Matters: Teacher Language Choices That Support Number Sense with Dr. James Brickwedde Carry the 1. Add a 0. Cross multiply. All of these are phrases that educators heard when they were growing up. This language is so ingrained that many educators use it without even thinking. But what's the long-term impact of language like this on the development of our students' numbe...

ROUNDING UP: Building Asset-Focused Professional Learning Communities with Summer Pettigrew and Megan Williams Professional learning communities have been around for a long time, in many different iterations. But what does it look like to schedule and structure professional learning communities that help educators understand and respond to their students' thinking in meaningful ways? Today we're t...

ROUNDING UP: Nurturing Mathematical Curiosity: Supporting Mathematical Argumentation in the Early Grades with Drs. Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey Argumentation, justification, conjecture. All of these are practices we hope to cultivate, but they may not be practices we associate with kindergartners, first-, or second graders. What would it look like to encourage these practices with our youngest...

ROUNDING UP: Making Sense of Unitizing: The Theme That Runs Through Elementary Mathematics with Beth Hulbert During their elementary years, students grapple with many topics that involve relationships between different units. In fact, unitizing serves as a foundation for much of the mathematics students encounter during their elementary years. Today, we're talking with Beth Hulbert from the Ongoin...

ROUNDING UP: Choice as a Foundation for Student Engagement with Drs. Zandra De Arajuo and Amber Candela As educators, we know offering students choice has a big impact on their engagement, identity, and sense of autonomy. That said, it's not always clear how to design choice into activities, especially when using curriculum materials. Today, we're talking with Drs. Zandra De Araujo and Amber Cande...

ROUNDING UP: Principles for Responsive Curriculum Use with Dr. Corey Drake When it comes to curriculum, educators are often told to implement with fidelity. But what does fidelity mean, and where does that leave educators who want to be responsive to the students in their classrooms? Today we're talking with Dr. Corey Drake about principles for responsive curriculum use that invite educators to re...

ROUNDING UP: Grouping Practices That Promote Efficacy & Knowledge Transfer with Dr. Peter Liljedahl We know from research that student collaboration can have a powerful impact on learning. That said, how we group students for collaboration matters — a lot. Today we're talking with Dr. Peter Liljedahl, author of Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics  , about how educators can form productive,...

ROUNDING UP: The Promise of Counting Collections with Danielle Robinson and Dr. Melissa Hedges Earlier this season, we released an episode focused on the complex and interconnected set of concepts that students engage with when they learn to count. In this follow-up episode, we're going to examine a powerful routine called counting collections. We'll be talking with Danielle Robinson and Dr. Melis...

ROUNDING UP: Making Sense of Spatial Reasoning with Dr. Robyn Pinilla Spatial reasoning can be a nebulous concept that is hard for many educators to define. In this episode, we're talking about spatial reasoning with Dr. Robyn Pinilla from the University of Texas at El Paso. We'll examine the connections between spatial reasoning and other mathematical concepts and explore different ways that educ...

ROUNDING UP: Strengthening Tasks Through Student Talk with Drs. Amber Candela and Melissa Boston In this episode, we are talking with Drs. Amber Candela and Melissa Boston about powerful but practical strategies for supporting student talk in the elementary math classroom. RESOURCES Discourse Actions to Promote Student Access Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching to Inform Instructional Quality...