SPEAKER_01 0:00

I just think about if we truly want our classrooms to break this struggle stigma, that means kids have to struggle. And that means they have to know that the expectation is that they're going to participate even when they're maybe not totally confident about their answers, but that this classroom is a safe place to share an answer even if you're not confident.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to Room to Grow.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

I'm Curtis Brown. And I'm Joni Fenderberg. We work together at Texas Instruments, and we're glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We're looking forward to continually improving our practice, and we understand that you are too.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

We hope that you'll find this podcast as a room for you to grow along with us as we wrestle with and explore ideas about teaching math even better. Curtis and I are excited to welcome my friend and colleague Juliana Tapper to this episode of Room to Grow. Juliana brings years of experience and expertise in supporting students who traditionally struggle in mathematics. As a math intervention classroom teacher, she honed her skills and now serves as a consultant for teachers, schools, and districts across the country, providing practical and effective ways to help all students successfully learn meaningful mathematics. We talk about the research behind math anxiety, the importance of building mathematical identities, and some practical tips for starting the new school year in ways that set all students up for a successful and enjoyable learning experience. You're gonna love this one. So let's grow.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Well, Joni, I am super excited to be recording another episode again with you. And today we have a really exciting opportunity to uh interview one of your friends and a new friend of mine, uh Juliana Trapper. Juliana, would you give us an opportunity to hear who you are, where you're from, and what you're all about?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here with you both. Um, and I am passionate about students who struggle with math. I've been a high school math intervention teacher at three different high schools in South Central Los Angeles and East San Jose and just outside of Denver where I live now. That's where I met Joni. And yeah, now I work to support schools and districts that are looking to increase student engagement, especially of those students who are struggling, and mainly in middle and high schools.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

That is awesome. Well, Juliana, we're so excited to have you with us. I know, you know, over the over the course of the podcast, you know, we've done, I don't know, Curtis, what is it, 16 or 17 episodes now? And this idea of students who struggle with math, we know is an ongoing issue for math teachers. That, you know, it's always in every situation in every year, there's always some kid that isn't just quite progressing at the level that we would hope. And what I so appreciate you about you is your expertise in this area and what you bring to the table. So maybe you can start out sharing for our listeners what you know in terms of the research about, you know, kids who who have struggles in mathematics or who have, you know, issues, learning issues that go along with that. Um, and paint a picture for what they're actually experiencing during math class.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, so there's a really interesting research article that I read a couple of years ago now. I want to say maybe 2017, um, and it came out of UCUBE with um Stanford professor Joe Bowler and one of her doctoral students at the time. And in the research article, she states that it's actually scientifically proven that math anxiety is a real thing and that the fear center in students' brains lights up when they see numbers the same as way that it lights up if they were to see a snake. And so if we just kind of take a step back as teachers and think about, okay, if I were to see a snake, you know, would I feel like I can learn? Would I feel like I want to participate, or would I just be, you know, totally frozen in fear? And and that that's the same fear center that is activating in our students' brains when they see numbers on the board, or when you ask them to open to workbook page 71, that is what they are experiencing and feeling. And I think, I think as teachers, we kind of think, oh, math anxiety is a thing, test anxiety is a thing. But when you really think about that scientific research, I don't know, I think it brings a whole new perspective to it.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That certainly puts my mind in a whole different place thinking about that. Now, personally, I don't necessarily jump up and down and run away whenever I see a snake, but I can imagine just that feeling of fear. Um, if I came around the corner, I saw a tiger standing in the in a trail or something, right? That just I can't imagine um trying to learn something while I'm trying to also overcome that feeling of fear that our students are running into. So that's a huge thing. Thank you for that perspective for sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah, I also, I also think like from a teacher perspective, you know, um, it's been a while since I've been in the classroom in front of students. But like you said, math anxiety, test anxiety, like those things are things that we've known about for a long time. But putting in the context of this physiological response in kids and what it, you know, what they're actually experiencing, because I didn't have math anxiety, I couldn't relate to that and until you told this story. And now I think, gosh, I would I would respond to a student much differently, knowing that they were literally having this physical response that was creating anxiety that was literally blocking their ability to engage and learn in the ways that I wanted them to. So I think just knowing that and framing that is gonna help me interact with those students in a much different way.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

And I think you brought up a great point, Joni, that a lot of times if we didn't have a struggle with math in our past, that really uh colors how we are in our own classrooms. Like I know for me personally, I struggled with math. Like I would not have math, was I wouldn't have considered myself a math person, quote unquote, in middle school or high school. And so for me, I much more identify with that with my students because I did have that anxiety walking into the first day of algebra one in eighth grade. I had that exact anxiety. And so I really understand it from a student level. And I think sometimes if we just always loved math, if it always just came easy for us and we're teaching the intervention kids, that can be really challenging for us to understand exactly how they're feeling. So I'm glad you brought that up.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

All right, so I I want to see if we can switch gears a little bit because I think starting with that understanding and you know, thinking about from a teacher perspective, like that is gonna shift how I interact with these students. But it's not just the student-teacher interaction that creates the experience for that student. Certainly at if the as the teacher I'm showing compassion and responsiveness to the fear and anxiety that students are likely feeling. That's definitely one step in the right direction. But there's also this sort of classroom culture piece and how students feel like they fit in with the other groups of students in the room. So, you know, recently through NCTM publications and lots of research that's happened from our friends in the higher ed space around math education, we have a lot of really interesting language that I think connects here and thinking about what a student's mathematical identity is and how their mathematical agency plays out. So I think those terms and those ideas are really important to put at the forefront of this conversation too. So uh Juliana, what can how how does that sort of fit in for your thinking and uh your expertise around these topics about what does students' mathematical identities have to do with it?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, I think it has so much to do with it. Um, I mean, we obviously want our teacher, our students to feel like they are mathematicians and to feel like they are, quote, a math person and to grow that growth mindset. And just to me, that's what a positive math identity means. Just like, I know that I can give this a try, even if it's hard, even if I get it wrong the first time. Like I'm willing to try. And with our students in intervention or who have been historically underserved in math and all of that, it can be really challenging for them to feel that way. Um, and so I think um, you know, it's just really important that we are giving opportunities for our students to share about their math pass with us as the teacher. But I really like what you said, Joni, that it's also about them sharing with their peers and being able to say, like, hey, I don't like math. Hey, I'm not confident in math. Like for them to share that with their teacher and their peers is really powerful. And I truly feel like it's only after they share that that they can begin to move forward and become the mathematicians that we know they are. But until they've had a chance to just air that dirty laundry in a way, I just, I just don't think it can happen, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah, that safe space, the rapport is so important, right? Um, getting to where I can make a connection with my students. We see that um in all the different research that's out there, that rapport and foundation uh relationship are so key and vital to being able to uh communicate and and work with our students. And so, yeah, getting that to where they feel safe enough to say, this math thing gives me I'm I'm freaking out a little bit here. Um getting them to that space is the first step, right? And being able to then allow them to uh kind of express that and then now we can start to work. Now we can kind of get to work and get things going um in terms of the student learning and being able to progress forward.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yeah, and I'm I'm I'm really thinking too about the benefits across the whole classroom, right? Like it's easy to say, I'm thinking about the connections too to Carol Dreck, Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset. And I know Joe Bowler made some really nice connections to learning math specifically and mindsets. But I think too often I hear those conversations happening in the frame of, oh, this is a way we can support those students who are struggling. You know, oh, just teach them that they need to have a growth mindset and if they work harder, they'll get better. But I actually think for students who aren't typically struggling, sort of putting the spotlight on this idea of struggle being a normal part of learning math, right? And and as you alluded to earlier, Juliana, it's hard as a teacher if I didn't have that struggle experience of math always came easy to me. If, you know, I understood and enjoyed the math experience. And I'm thinking about students sitting in the classroom that are in that same position. Like they haven't struggled, they haven't, you know, had this sort of uh I'm I'm a kid who's not good at math. They might have the I'm a kid who is good at math. But the fact that they may not have struggled is actually also problematic. So, you know, when we talked about the title of this episode, you know, breaking the struggle stigma, I think part of it is welcoming in the students who struggle. And I love your expertise in that area, and I know we have lots more to unpack there. But I think understanding too that we also have to send the message to kids who aren't typically struggling to say, you should expect to struggle. You should have some struggle as part of your math learning experience. And I want to just take a second to share a story. Um, when I was in my district level position, one of the middle school teachers that I supported taught those like top-level kids. They were, you know, they were in the accelerated track and taking advanced math from middle school level. And she said to them during, you know, kind of setting the stage for her classroom early in the year was you're not learning. If you're if you're not struggling, you're not learning. Your brain grows when it, when it um, you know, figuratively lifts weights. So she had even an image on her wall in her classroom of a little brain, like a cartoon brain with little eyes and a smile. And it had little arms and, you know, is in a flexing bicep position. And and she would tell her kids, like, you all have typically done well in math and you haven't found challenge. And she said, I want you to help me know whether or not your brain is lifting weights. And that became a little key phrase that her students could use to say, hey, I'm not being challenged enough today. I'm not experiencing struggle. So she did a really nice job of creating this culture in her room where everybody expected to and expected and wanted to struggle because they understood the connection there to learning.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And Joni, just to follow up on that too, um, the importance of students who don't typically struggle when they do experience a struggle, because they're going to, eventually it's gonna happen. Or for them to realize that the wheels aren't coming off the cart or that the the that we're not, this shouldn't be a bad bad thing, right? The struggle is not a a bad thing for uh for them to experience and that it's good, it's good to come into uh a time where I don't really know everything that's going on, and this is actually kind of a a challenge for me, and for them to understand that that that deepens their their engagement, their knowledge, their uh their learning, and ultimately their ownership of that knowledge, right? That that, hey, I had to struggle to get this because if it always came easy, maybe maybe it wouldn't stick, or maybe, you know, whatever. So just letting them know that it's okay um to experience struggle because I know as as a person who also really never struggled uh until college with mathematics. But then once I once I hit that spot, it was um it was disillusioning for me. I kind of went, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, what's going on? And I had I had to kind of overcome a a wait a minute, am I not good enough? Am I not gonna get this? Am I not gonna be okay? Um, because I had never struggled up to that point. Uh and when I when I got to the point where I started to struggle, it was um it was shocking for me um and it was a little bit scary. Um and so we need to let them know that it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

So, Juliana, can you give us some ideas either from your own experience when you were in your classroom days or the work that you've done with teachers and schools since then, about how specifically for those students who are coming to math class with that anxiety, with that fear, with that negative math identity, what are some of the things that you've seen teachers do or that you um the research says is effective about overcoming that and helping to establish a positive math identity and get those students interested, willing, and able to engage to their full potential?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, I think really a lot of a lot of the importance there is with good tier one instruction. Um, I think that that's really important because when we we can build all the beautiful classroom culture that we want and have students feel really comfortable, but then if we still get to the lesson and it's still not landing with our students who struggle, they're not going to grow that positive math identity. So I think really making sure that we're focusing on good tier one instruction. Um, and I think a key to that is scaffolding. I'm going through this great um, you know, kind of online course from Achieve the Core, um, dismantling racism in the mathematics classroom. Um and I'm not all the way through it, so you know, I don't want to misquote anything. But um, if it's still open when this uh podcast airs, I really encourage teachers to check it out because it's been great. But they talk about the importance of scaffolding. And like if we can scaffold, so a student, you're doing two-step equations and you call on a student to ask what do you do for the first step? And they say, I don't know. A lot of us just accept that I don't know and move on to another kid that knows it. But that's not good tier one instruction. That's not gonna help all of our kids get it. That's not gonna help the kids who struggle feel like, oh, all of a sudden I'm a mathematician and I can participate in this class. So what I would like, if we scaffold that back, and if we say, well, what do you think might be the first step? Or if they really need some more guidance and you're like, well, I wanna, I don't want this negative three. What's the opposite of negative three? You know, and just getting them to say anything so that they can have just a little confidence in that, oh, I answered that question right, no matter how much you have to scaffold that back. Um, I think that's a really important piece of really building a true math identity. Um so as I was just kind of reflecting on that question, that's that's kind of most what came up for me. I have lots of ideas about um, you know, establishing that sort of classroom culture, but I don't know if we're there yet.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

That's such an interesting question.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Because go ahead, Curtis.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Uh well, I was just uh the way you described that uh interaction, I was trying to uh um imagine and certainly have experienced that, I don't know, uh response. The just getting the student to engage and respond for a period, right, with something other than I don't know um is so important, right? In in getting them involved and and having buy-in. And I love what you said about small success. Any small success can begins that snowball. You gotta start someplace. And so those small successes are so important. Go ahead, Joni. I didn't mean to cut you off there.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

No, you uh I I knew you were gonna say the same thing I was gonna say because you and I think alike too often. And that's exact that's exactly the point that I was gonna make, right? Like, what is motivating? I had a principal share this once. The most uh the the factor that most contributes to a student's future success in school is their past success in school. And and it sort of sounded like, well, that can't be true. He actually had some research to back it up. I don't know that I could put my hands on that research, but it's super interesting. And it also does make sense when we think about outside of the academics context, when we struggle with something, you know, being successful, even if it's just a small success along the way, is really motivating to keep us engaged through the struggle, right? Like I think about, you know, weight training. If I can see myself getting stronger, if I can have, you know, oh, I can lift a weight I didn't know I could lift, well, then that motivates me to continue to work hard or or weight loss, you know, losing that first five pounds is like, okay, now I want to, now I want to lose more. So um, gosh, I might be uh revealing a little too much about my own focus areas right now with training and trying to lose weight. But but I think those ideas generalize, right? Like a little success is the best way to build future successes. So um, how do we set kids up so that they feel successful? And part of it, I appreciate what you shared, Juliana, about scaffolding back. And at the same time, I want to say we we need to be careful there because, you know, you don't want to lower the expectation so low that the kid realizes, like, oh, well, oh, should I be happy? You know, I couldn't jump over, um, I couldn't jump over this thing that was two feet high, but you lowered it to two inches, and then I could jump over it. Well, whoop-de-doo, anybody could do that, right? Um, so I think, yeah. So I think along with scaffolding, it's also uh it's still maintaining that high expectation, but it's also maybe shifting what we value and what we consider successful, right? So it's not just you're the fastest or you always have the correct answer, but what do we how do we actually send those messages to kids about what's valuable? So maybe thinking about um, wow, you thought of that in a really original way. Can you explain that to the rest of the class or to a way that everybody else can understand? What are some other what are some other things in terms of really setting up um those kids who struggle for success to help them start to overcome that initial barrier?

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, and I'm also thinking about just like the this idea of struggle stigma. And when we call in a kid and and ask them to help us and say, I don't know, and we just accept an I don't know, then that like discredits all of the struggle that they could engage in, even if we're scaffolding back that question. And so I just think about if we truly want our classrooms to break this struggle stigma, that means kids have to struggle. And that means they have to know that the expectation is that they're going to participate, even when they're maybe not totally confident about their answers, but that this classroom is a safe place to share an answer, even if you're not confident. You know, if I'm asking a kid what's the first step in a two-step equation and they give me the wrong answer, like that's totally okay. Like we, you know, we can move forward from there with all those great ideas that you just mentioned, Joni, but they're they're gonna engage in that struggle and lessen the struggle stigma, even if their answer is wrong. Um, so I think that that is really important. I think something that I think is really important in classrooms where the majority of the kids are struggling, and this is a very unpopular opinion. And Curtis and Joni, feel free to push back on. Me with this, but I actually think that cold calling on students, like randomly calling on them, like using Popschool sticks, or like I always did index cards in my classroom with just all of their names, they would put their names on it was a little get to know you activity. And then I'd collect the cards and just use those to ask literally every single question, every single period. And um, you know, it's a very unpopular opinion. But I just think if my classroom was 100% math intervention, almost no kid when I asked them, hey, does anyone here like math? Maybe I would get one or two kids a per year that said that they liked math. The rest of them did not like math. And so I didn't make participation an option. I made it an expectation that everyone was going to participate when I called on them. And it allowed me a lot of practice at getting used to the scaffolding and the I don't know responses. Um, but I think that that sets like high expectations. And that means a lot to our kids who struggle too. Because if you're a ninth grader and you're you've been enrolled in math intervention, and your teacher takes that to mean, okay, well, these kids don't know how to multiply. So I'm gonna go back to third grade worksheets and I'm gonna print off a whole bunch of rote multiplication worksheets because that's what they need practice in. That kid sees across the bottom of that worksheet, third gradepractice.com or whatever. And you know, that's not gonna encourage that kid to break the struggle stigma. They're just gonna be like, I've been doing this literally since third grade and I'm in ninth grade. This teacher does not believe I can do it. So I'm just gonna push this worksheet to the side. And so I think expectations like really play a key role in this. And I don't know, I personally think cold calling on students helps break that and and and really communicates. I have high expectations that every single kid in this class can participate and can handle the questions that I'm gonna ask you.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Absolutely. I think that what you just said about the expectation and the communication, the subtle communication that, hey, I've got a, I've got it. I did the popsicle sticks, I had the uh cup inside. And I did a cup inside the cup. So they couldn't tell whether I put their name back inside, you know, where they where they were. So they were always still a possibility, even though I personally couldn't make sure that I was, you know, going through the entire class, they had no idea that they might get called on again. Um, so it kind of helped me with that. But yeah, what you said was so important, this idea that um by cold calling on my students or by expecting that every student is going to participate and that every answer is going to be valued. And that, yeah, okay. So you didn't do what is the uh I'm gonna do air quotes or quote or correct first step in solving uh a an equation. Um you did a step or and we can work with a step. We can ask other probing questions to get um get you on track to to sort of the the standard procedure, if you will. But I can I can investigate your brain if you're willing to to work with me and and willing to to answer a question, and that's what we need. Um and that hopefully communicates to my student, hey, I expect that you're gonna do this, and uh it communicates to them that they can. It kind of leads us to the maybe the the final topic of our conversation here, which was, you know, what are some things that we as teachers um might be doing that either unintentionally contributes to the struggle stigma, or maybe a different way to ask that question would be how can we avoid uh contributing to that struggle stigma by some of the things that we do in our classroom?

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah, I think um, like I mentioned earlier, one of the best things we can do is give our students space to share their math past and their math baggage. Um, you could do this with literally like a great first homework assignment is what I like to call a mathography, where you just write from kindergarten until now. What were your math experiences like in school? Were they good? Were they bad? Did you have a teacher that you liked? Did you have a teacher that you didn't like? Like, what can I learn about your past in math so that I don't do those things that you're that maybe a teacher did that didn't help you move forward? Um, I think that's a really great thing that students can do. Um, one of my other favorite first week activities is from YouCubed. It's called good group work. And it's all about the importance of letting the students tell you what what do they need so they feel safe to share their mathematical reasoning with their peers? Whether you're gonna have them in rows or whether you're gonna have them in groups, this can be done as a whole class or it could be done just in groups. But what does it look like to be, you know, respectful of other people's mathematical reasoning? What does it sound like to be respectful? Like, what do I want to hear my group members saying to encourage me? What do I never want to hear? Like, I never want to hear the words like you're dumb or um you don't know what you're doing, you know, and just giving students a space to really share that with each other and then also maybe, you know, come up with that as a whole class. Like these are our norms about when we're doing math, these are the things we're gonna say, and these are the ways we're not gonna speak to each other in this class. Um, I think that that, those are like two of my favorite things to do the first week to really help set your classroom up so that you don't have that struggle stigma.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

For sure. Do you think, and you mentioned this in our um earlier conversation, I think, um, when we were talking about ways we could introduce and get small wins, are there other activities um that kind of make sense to maybe in that first week of school or first couple of days of school that that maybe makes sense to help establish that? I love what you've come up with and said so far.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yes, absolutely. So my favorite thing to do is to use which one doesn't belong, um, same and different, notice and wonder. Those are like three of my absolute favorite things to use the first week without even any math. You know, just like if you go to wodb.ca and you look for which one doesn't belong, um, you know, there's ones with car logos, there's ones with TV station logos, there's ones with sports, um, you know, and it's just really fun to start there and let the students get used to participating, let them get used to sharing their ideas with their peers, with you, uh, with speaking up in their class. And then, and then maybe the second week or, you know, maybe a couple of days later, you add in, you know, some of the ones with some numbers, or you add in some of the other ones that are a little more math focused so that students get a chance to use that same activity structure, but this time with math. And you can do the same thing with notice and wonder, just give them some sort of, you know, image from current events and let them say what do they notice, what do they wonder, and then move on to using that with a word problem or something. You know, like there's all sorts of ways that you can be using this with non-math ideas to kind of help build that classroom culture and then bring in the mathematics.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Oh, I really love those suggestions, Juliana. And those are great, those are great protocols for instruction throughout the whole entire year. So I love the idea of like using those as the opportunity at the beginning of the year to create your culture, to welcome in all students, to help bust that struggle stigma. And then, you know, then you've got those as tools in your toolkit as a teacher to connect to the mathematics of the learning of the school year, too. So so great. So listen, both of you, this has been such great conversation. And Juliana, we're so grateful for you bringing your expertise and your thinking. I I really appreciate your, you know, what you bring to the table, not only in terms of the suggestions that you made, but just your whole affect of like, we can do this and this is important, and and these kids matter. And um I just I really appreciate your enthusiasm and energy for this group. So thanks so much for joining us today. We appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Thanks so much for having me. This was a blast.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Well, that's it for this time. Be sure to check the show notes for the resources we mentioned and others you might want to explore. We would love to hear your feedback and your suggestions for future topics. And if you're enjoying learning with us, consider leaving a review to help others find us and share the podcast with a fellow math educator. See you next time.