Math on the Rocks

Here is a quick episode before the CMC-South Conference. We continue grappling with Direct Instruction and its role in math instruction. . . RESOURCES  mentioned in this episode: ✚  What does MTSS look like in mathematics?         https://thecorecollaborative.com/what-does-mtss-in-math-look-like/   . ✚  The Math PLC Tune Up        https://www.mimitoddpress.com/math-plc-tune-up      . ✚  WORKING DR...

If we were given a magic wand to design an instructional system that actually worked for all students, what would our system look like?  In this episode, the guys talk about exactly this. . . RESOURCES  mentioned in this episode: ✚  What does MTSS look like in mathematics?         https://thecorecollaborative.com/what-does-mtss-in-math-look-like/   . ✚  The Math PLC Tune Up        https://www.mimi...

Inserting inquiry into your teaching routine is HARD. Teachers know this. Unfortunately, inquiry-based instruction has been caricatured as NOT TEACHING. Sometimes teachers find themselves having to defend their use of inquiry because strategic use of productive failure can look messy to a person expecting “I do, We do, You do”. Cole, Scott, and Duane talk about inquiry-based instruction and how to...

English Learner Success Forum invites us to look beyond simply adopting high-quality instructional materials and ask a more important question: are those materials actually meeting the needs of multilingual learners? In this episode, Dr. Alma Castro, Dr. Renee Skarin, and Dr. Julianne Foxworthy Gonzalez share what they learned from a deep review of mathematics materials used across California. The...

While Scott is having fun on the gold course, Duane and Cole continue our conversation about Direct Instruction. We bounce around ideas of how inquiry, direct instruction, and learning math facts all can co-exist for the benefit of our students.  RESOURCES  mentioned in this episode: ✚  Alabama Numeracy Act resources        ⚫️  https://amte.net/connections/2025/08/navigating-alabama-numeracy-act-...

The recent Science of Reading movement has caused dozens of states to update their instructional practices with reading. Many states have gone so far as to legislate science of reading instruction. Duane is concerned that well-meaning politicians and school leaders will attempt to over-generalize the direct instruction that is an essential component to teaching young readers and apply it to mathem...

Mike Flynn invites us to rethink accessibility in mathematics by shifting the focus from fixing students to redesigning the learning environment. Drawing on Universal Design for Learning and his own experience as both an educator and parent, Mike shows how small instructional changes can dramatically change how students experience math. In this episode, Mike shares practical “micro moves” teachers...

Joanie Funderburk challenges us to think about who is doing the mathematical thinking in our classrooms. Even when we believe students should make sense of mathematics for themselves, our instinct to help can sometimes lead us to take over the very thinking we want students to do. In this episode, Joanie shares three practical ways to shift the cognitive lift to students: start with a quick win th...

Heather Price invites us to look beyond what students learn in mathematics and consider how they experience the classroom. Drawing from research conducted in California middle schools, she explains how students’ feelings about math can shape their engagement, confidence, and achievement. In this episode, Heather explores four interconnected conditions that help students thrive: positive relationsh...

Ashley Powell invites us to rethink what it means to teach mathematics through problem solving. Rather than treating problem solving as something students do after they have learned a set of procedures, Ashley frames it as a powerful way students build understanding in the first place. In this episode, Ashley shares practical ways to get started with problem-based instruction, including how to ada...

Keith steps up and joins Duane to continue our ongoing conversation about the importance of high-quality instructional materials. Sure…a school district might adopt a curriculum through a consensus-based decision-making process, but is that curriculum aligned to the framework? How would you know without having read the 1000-page framework? Also…even if your adopted curriculum is aligned to the fra...

Kevin Dykema invites us to rethink productive struggle as more than a math education buzzword. Instead of rescuing students with steps and answers, he shows how teachers can create the conditions for students to reason, grapple, and make sense of mathematics. In this episode, Kevin shares practical ways to make struggle productive, including building positive math identity, creating a supportive c...

Nolan Fossum invites us into the learner’s seat by experiencing math in an unfamiliar way. Using a “cartoon base-10” system, he creates moments of productive struggle that mirror what many students feel when they don’t yet have fluency. In this episode, Nolan explores how counting, deriving, and reasoning through models like ten frames, number lines, and base-10 blocks can build deep understanding...

Scott and Duane get together to chat about math, but Duane gets grumpy and jumps up on his soap box to complain about schools using too much EdTech throughout the day. We know students go home and endlessly scroll on their phones, so schools should be very picky and choosy about whether to add to the screen time at school. Also, the EdTech we use at school should augment the teacher rather than re...

In this episode, Mark Alcorn (educator, coach, and founder of the Sum of It All podcast) invites us to rethink something deceptively simple: goals in math classrooms. Rather than treating goals as compliance-driven statements or posted objectives, Mark challenges us to see them as powerful drivers of student thinking, engagement, and agency. Mark explores how, even when we don’t name goals explici...

We all got together to chat some more about mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and why it is so important for teachers to have it. Who is responsible for supporting teachers in their development of MKT? When is it supposed to happen? We have more questions than answers in this episode. We know that answer is in part…DOING MATH TOGETHER. When teachers do math together, this is when we develo...

This is our final podcast episode before our symposium. So we spend a little time talking about how cool we are…and why folks should attend our symposium. Then our main topic is all about Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT), why teachers need MKT, and how to spread & scale building teacher capacity for MKT. Some MKT resources ✤ Better teacher preparation leads to better student results h...

Duane is still on his quixotic adventure to convince teachers to update their instructional script to Teaching Through Problem Solving (TTP). It is the secret sauce for how to teach in the manner envisioned by California Mathematics Framework. Listen to all our past episodes about TTP and then give it a try in your classroom. Let us know how it goes! Past TTP episodes: Episode 61: https://youtu.be...

Welcome to another episode of CMC's Inspiring Math Minds webinar series! Janet Lee-Ortiz (teacher and 2024 LAUSD Teacher of the Year) and Rachel Lambert (UC Santa Barbara professor and author of Rethinking Disability and Mathematics ) invite us to rethink two things at the same time: how we understand disability and how we understand mathematics. In this episode, they explore neurodiversity as...

Whether we know it or not, math teachers in America have a default teaching script that is so engrained into our cultural DNA that we don't even know it exists. Yet that cultural script – largely described as "I do, We do, You do" – is preventing us from experiencing the math joy our students deserve. In recent episodes we have been proposing Teaching Through Problem Solving as a new...

As the mathematics instruction community adds to our understanding of how mathematics should be taught and learned, teachers now face the prospect of having to change how they teach. This is a challenge in a profession that historically neither provides the support to learn what changes need to be made nor the time to practice making those changes. Cole shares his thinking about how to support tea...

We start out by talking about the goings on of California Math Council as we get ready for our symposium in March. Then we switch to continuing our conversation about the Teaching Through Problem Solving instructional script. Duane wants the world to adopt TTP as the primary form of instruction. Of course we'll still need to occasionally use the instructional script of "I do, We do, You d...

Howie Hua (professor, speaker, and social media communicator) joins us to explore what it really means to be “good at math” and how we can help students build a strong math identity. Through quick routines, mindset moves, and rich examples, Howie shows how shifting from answer-getting to sensemaking can transform classrooms into safe, collaborative spaces where students truly believe: I can do har...

It has been a while since we got together to record an episode of Math On the Rocks, so Scott and Duane got together to catch up. We refresh our conversation about the Teaching Through Problem Solving instructional strategy. TTP is like Building Thinking Classrooms…but different. TTP is like the 5 Practices…but different. Listen to this episode to begin your journey to learn about TTP. All our web...

Odalis Amparo joins us all the way from Massachusetts and shares best practices for multilingual learners. Odalis was a teacher and now works for Student Achievement Partners. She says math is NOT a universal language. Rather, math is multilingual. Join us in this episode and learn what role language plays in mathematics. This is one of the most thought-provoking episodes we've done! Odalis is...