SPEAKER_00 0:00

They're sitting there thinking, I'm the only one just like me in here. What do I do as a teacher that opens the door for that student to know that, hey, listen, you can be successful in this class. You are going to be successful in this class, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that that happens. Welcome to Room to Grow. I'm Curtis Brown.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

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

SPEAKER_00 0:29

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

SPEAKER_01 0:33

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. In today's episode, Curtis and I tackle some important ideas about student access to high-quality mathematics. We build our conversation from NCTM's description, ensuring that all students routinely have opportunities to experience high-quality mathematics instruction, learn challenging mathematics content, and receive the support necessary to be successful. It's no surprise that classroom culture, building relationships, and believing in all of our students are key components to ensuring access. And we really want to acknowledge that this is super hard. Teaching is hard. This is a big topic, so let's get growing.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Well, hi Joni. Hi, Curtis. It is so good to have you here in the TI offices again and recording a podcast. We don't get to do this very often, but uh we're really excited to be doing this here today. So I'm really happy to have you uh with me in the office today.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Always enjoy our in-person time, and it's nice that it's not scorching heat in Dallas today, too. I know that helps a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

It's really nice. It's really nice. Well, hey, so today we've got this really great uh topic, one that we've we've been kind of dancing around for a while in terms of some of the content that we've had uh in the past. And so I'm really excited to be talking a little bit about this idea of access and what do we mean when we're talking about access? How do we know we're doing it? And what are some of the things that we can actually do in our classrooms and in our schools and our districts to kind of make sure that we're kind of measuring up to this high bar that's been really set for us.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, for sure. I think this has been such an important topic in math education for like a lot of years now, really talking and and I think it's part of the rise of big data, right? Like we have a lot of information now that we didn't have when I started teaching in 1989. This isn't stuff that we looked at then, like, you know, what kids are enrolled in what classes and is it equitable? And do we see, you know, all students having the opportunity to pursue the math that they need for the future that they want after high school? Um, so it's definitely been at the forefront of conversation and of all of our minds. So I'm really excited to take some time to talk through this today. So I'm hoping you'll um, you know, we we both typically do some research in preparation for our recordings, and you came up with a really nice sort of definition about what do we mean by ensuring that all students have access to high quality mathematics. So why don't you launch us with kind of that? Like, what is it that we're talking about? Let's get really tangible here.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

For sure, for sure. Well, I certainly can't take credit for this definition or this statement about uh what this is. I actually pulled this from the NCTM blog, the NCTM NCTM article uh around this. And I really thought this was a nice way of thinking about what we mean when we're talking about this idea of access, but because it can be pretty nebulous, uh, or at least it's a big buzzword, right? That can mean many things to a lot of different people. Absolutely. So here's what it came, here's what that came from in that article, and we'll have this article linked in the show notes for people to go back and reference. Says ensuring that all students routinely have opportunities to experience high-quality mathematics instruction, learn challenging mathematics content, and receive the support necessary to be successful. So, really, and I love the the all students in the each and every context here. I mean, that's a really important piece of the puzzle. But for me, the piece of this that that really stands out the most is the uh opportunity to experience high-quality mathematics instruction, that students have access to rigorous material presented by a teacher who is highly qualified. Right. That's a big piece of the puzzle. And then some, and then an opportunity to dive into that challenging content. Like those pieces of the puzzle are really, really big. Those are passion pieces of mine. Um, and but we've talked a little bit about the idea of the support, and we're gonna have some conversation about that here in just a little bit. So it's all three of those pieces being together that kind of makes this idea of access.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, I love that you kind of highlighted on those. And I think about, you know, coming out of the COVID era and looking back on data, I know uh in the assessment conversations that I've been a part of, that opportunity to learn has been such an important phrase of, you know, what have students even had the chance to learn? So I think that is like such a key component of this. Um, and I agree with you, the support part too is really, really important because I've been a part of schools and systems where we've said, okay, let's do a better job of getting, you know, a more representative group of students in our high-level mathematics classes. But it's it's it's not just about like, here you're in the class now, right? Like, guess what? Access, you're in the class. It's not about that. It's about ensuring that they're successful too, once they get there.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

I think that's such a big piece of the puzzle, right? Because we can open the door. I mean, we did a really good job of that, I felt like at my high school of opening the door and saying, hey, listen, like you can come in to these higher level courses, into these advanced placement type courses, into these other opportunities, right? That that we really tried to make sure that the bars were um that it was open. Right. That that you could come in to those classes. So opening the door, I think, is a big part of the puzzle.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And and it is a part of the puzzle that maybe needs to be addressed in some places. For sure. But once the student is in the door, it can't just be, well, you're in the door, so you're like everybody else that's in this room. Right. Like we've got to make sure that we have support in place for each and every student to be able to be successful. And for what works for one student here, uh, may not work really well for another student who happens to be in that same course. I know we talked a little bit about that earlier in our pre-discussion here. So if you want to enlighten us a little bit about some of your thoughts there, I think that would be good.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah. Well, I just want to kind of tie more into that opening the door thing because I'm thinking back on my own experience. And it's one thing to say, you know, I taught at a high school that was, you know, a majority of white middle class students. Um, and as the school grew, the population, you know, shifted, the demographic shifted, and there were more students of color and there were more English language learners, and there were more, you know, it became a much more diverse population. And, you know, as a department, we agreed to say we want, you know, whatever. We we wrote down our, you know, sort of percentages or our numbers of this is the enrollment we want in our AP courses. And the idea was we wanted it to reflect the demographics of our school. Sure. We wanted to, you know, if our if our school numbers said, you know, 22% of our students were um black or Hispanic, then we wanted 22% of our AP enrollment to be black or Hispanic students. And so that intentionality is definitely a first step. But I think what part of where we went wrong is, you know, we'd get the students in the classroom and then they didn't stay. And sometimes it was that support piece. And I want to come back because I there's a lot for us to flesh out on that. But I also want to come back and talk about the the sort of some other things that we don't always think about. And that's the students' backgrounds and their own beliefs about what they think they can do. And and in in some cases, that's a a family's belief about where you belong or don't belong.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Um, or the, you know, oh, well, I'm the only kid like me in this class. So I don't feel have that feeling of belonging. So there's so much more to that access piece. And there's certainly the academic support to ensure academic success, but there's also this whole social emotional community. And this is where I think the work around identity and agency. Um, you know, there's that fabulous book that was published years ago. Um, and we'll talk some more about that. But like bringing that stuff in and with intention building up that that, you know, the students who weren't typically there need to know they belong there. And and everything about the course needs to needs to support that message.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

So, Joni, what are some of the things that a teacher can do? Because I I I know we typically try to, you know, save some of these things towards the end, but I especially in the relation and rapport concept.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Um, what are some of the things that a teacher can do? Because you brought up this teacher, this student, and I'm I'm sitting in my classroom now thinking about this, right? I'm I'm leaning back and thinking back to students who were sitting in my classroom who really were the only person like me in that classroom, right? They're sitting there thinking, I'm the only one just like me in here. What do I do as a teacher that opens the door for that student to know that, hey, listen, you can be successful in this class. You are going to be successful in this class, and I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that that happens. What are some of the ways that I as a teacher can do that?

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I mean, you're answering it right there, but you're also opening the door, Curtis, for my soapbox. You know, this is the Joni soapbox around our own, our own beliefs and and you know, the message, I think what's the most important is just being so intentional. Because if you're not intentional, those implicit biases that we all have are going to come through. And I would say, in in more cases than not, are gonna work against you. So, you know, I think again, not that I did this perfectly when I was in the classroom either, but reflecting back on things I did well or didn't do well, um, I think that message of I believe you can do this, I know you can be successful. And like who's who has the ownership for the student's success? And we've talked about this a lot before. Um, there is a, of course, there's a role for the student. The student has to work in order to learn. Learning doesn't happen without thinking and engagement in all of those pieces. Um, but I know in my experience, and I I would even argue maybe in my own classroom at times, um there can be a common message that, hey, I'm doing my part. I taught it, it's their responsibility to do their part to learn it. And I think that's just such an unhelpful attitude. So being taking as a teacher full responsibility for I need to understand what this student needs to learn. And then I need to do everything I can to ensure that they're getting what they need. And even just that communication with the student. Um, that's been something that has worked for me, to be able to say, hey, you're struggling and I see this, and and I'm trying to help you learn and understand. And I'm struggling to reach you. So let's figure this out together. Help me understand what doesn't make sense to you. And, you know, really taking the time to build those relationships and understand who the student is as a person, what do they bring? What are the, what are the assets that they bring from their own life and from their previous academic experiences? And then how do I, how do I leverage those and how do I elevate those? Um, you know, I'm thinking back on our conversation a couple of months ago with Juliana Tapper. And, you know, how do you give voice to those kids and like everything that every kid in the room brings something of value. So really ensuring that the student knows you value their thinking, and every other student knows you value that student's thinking, right? That creates this sort of culture of um, you know, I'm here for you and I'm here to be an active part of your learning.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah. And I think I think one of the biggest things you just talked about was culture. Yeah. The culture of my classroom and the way that I establish that classroom. And we're in the beginning part of the school year. We're recording this right now at the beginning part of the school year. So teachers are out there right now establishing culture in their classrooms and talking about and making the place a safe space for every student to be valued, every student's response to be valued. That's what we're doing right now at the beginning of the school year. Right. Right. When this episode launches, it won't be uh quite, it'll already pretty be pretty well established, but um, it's such an important piece of establishing that culture of every student, every response is mattered and brings value to the classroom, and we can learn together through those spaces. When we are thinking about um this idea of access, and and one of the pieces that we brought up is this challenging mathematics content and this idea of high quality mathematics instruction. Um what does this mean when we start thinking about this concept of high quality math instruction? Not just, hey, you're a you're in, here we are. But what do we do now, now that every student has done it? We've talked about rapport, we've talked about what we can do as a teacher to establish that kind of classroom culture. And we've even talked a little bit about those uh beliefs. But then where where do we go from there? Okay, so we've established those pieces. What's the next step?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Well, I think the challenging part of this conversation or this part of our conversation, Curtis, is gonna be not to just revert to the platitudes, right? Like, oh, it's just high quality oh, it's just good teaching in airquads. You know, like it's like we want to be sure we're really talking about what do we mean by that. So, I mean, of course, I would point to NCTM's um mathematics teaching practices. So those eight teaching practices, but if I want to get really into the weeds, um I'm gonna pick on one of those, and that is um look for and make use of student thinking. So again, tied back to that beliefs thing and tied back to supporting students who may not have a strong self-image of I belong here in terms of a challenging, rigorous mathematics course. I think it's it's really getting at how do I, as an educator, work hard to understand how the student is thinking about this mathematical idea? And then how do I then help that student's thinking about the mathematics help inform all the other students thinking about the mathematics? And I think if that's something that I can work into my instruction regularly, it's contributing, first of all, to that classroom culture piece. It's contributing to nurturing the identity and agency of those students who are to traditionally marginalized, and it's enhancing the mathematical learning of every kid in the room, even the kid who is traditionally successful or you know, fits the majority mold of that class. So, how do I really get at deeply understanding what students are thinking about? And then how do I put their thinking into the bigger picture of the mathematical concept that I'm trying to teach so that it supports the sense making for all of the other students that are in the room. So that's my sort of my one little particular like you could start here. Like, how do I do that? And I realize I'm saying that, like, oh, just figure out what kids are thinking and then make connections. That's not an easy thing to do. But I think it goes a long way and it and it checks a lot of boxes of the components that we're talking about is important for for access.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, I think so. I think it, I mean, it goes to the the five teaching practices, right? And that whole concept of of uh sequencing my responses, right? Right. Taking my responses and as I'm going around the classroom, I'm choosing intentionally to pull some different responses and sample responses from developing responses into these proficient responses. And how do I kind of sequence these pieces together and get students to talk about their thinking in a way that as a class we draw on and and and we learn from each individual, right? Every student has contributed uh to this piece. So there was an article that I um spent some time looking at um earlier today and thinking about uh this um this piece and it's it's addressing or dealing with uh minimizing the Matthew effect, um, which I thought was kind of an interesting blog uh and and really kind of a cool, a cool piece. We'll reference this uh just just a little bit. But what that was one of the pieces in there that that um the author talked a lot about was this idea of making sure that um we have these low floor, high ceiling type tasks that can be implemented in such a way that um student thinking can be elicited at all the different uh levels, right? At all the different proficiencies. And then we can really pull them and stack them together. That way every student can learn uh from each other. And I thought that was a really nice way uh of kind of thinking about this and and and dealing with this. One of the pieces that we really didn't haven't talked yet um a whole lot about um is what does this result, what does this look like whenever we're doing this well uh in our school or in our district or in our classroom. What does this actually look like? And how can I know that I've got good access happening? Right. Um and we talked a little bit about this, right, with the idea of demographics, and you guys in your in your school were trying to make sure that proportionally across the different uh cultures or proportionally different across the different um, you know, I guess demographics that are available to you, right, that you had equal representation. Can we talk a little bit more about what that means then once this is actually happening? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Yeah. Well, I I I I think it's back to that idea of a lack of predictability, right? Right. So um again, in the in the equity and access work that happened in my school and the district that I was working in, it was this um, you know, specifically around student outcomes. So we were talking specifically about standardized assessment data on our um on our statewide assessment that was given every year. And it was described as um, you can't predict a student's outcomes based on a demographic characteristic, that a student's outcomes is is just wide open and has nothing to do with the color of their skin or the zip code where their family lives or how much education their parents had, or whether English was their native language, or you know, on and on and on, all those demographic categories that um we we look at. And and the interesting thing when you think about defining it that way, Curtis, is it sort of implies that that actually is there, that predictability is there to some degree, right? So busting open that predictability is the goal. Um, it's we have to acknowledge that that predictability is not based on any characteristics about the student, about the student's background, that typically that predictability is based on characteristics of our system. So being willing to actually look at the data with a critical eye and and then challenge when the data tells us that our system isn't isn't working.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

One last maybe thing for us to thought to think about and talk a little bit about um is just another maybe tool for folks who are trying to open the door further and make things more accessible and try to push a little bit further into this idea of making sure that we are having accessibility as a piece of what's happening in our school. Um, and thinking about the content that we teach and thinking about the things that are going on in our classroom. Let's let's talk just a minute or two about things we can do, resources maybe that are out there that we've seen, or uh pieces that that help us um extend into this accessibility piece.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah. And again, I think it's about thinking about the great resources that already exist, right? Like this isn't about um again, trying to avoid the platitude. It's not, it's just good teaching. Well, right. Um it yes, it's I mean it is, but but why and what does that specifically mean? And so I'm thinking about, you know, way back 12 years ago now, we got these standards for mathematical practice, and actually a lot of the content in the standards for mathematical practice that came out with the Common Core State standard. Was familiar to those of us that had been teaching math for a while. You know, we had uh NCTM had their practice standards a lot um a lot earlier than that. But I'm thinking specifically about um math practice two, which is to reason abstractly and quantitatively. So uh unpacking the actual language of that practice, I think is a really interesting way to think about um setting up my instruction and thinking about how to use high-quality resources. So, what that math practice means to me is that at any time during instruction or during as students are working with a mathematical task or working with a um, you know, a contextual problem in mathematics and doing the math, that they can reason about the mathematics, they can, you know, kind of know the mathematical steps to do, but they can also make connections to the context in which this task is connected. So, you know, I realize as I'm saying this, there's actually this prerequisite that the task have a context, right? That we we talk about tasks that are anchored in the real world and in students' experiences. Um, and and because they have that anchor, they have the ability to make sense because of their experience with the world, and that supports them in making sense of the mathematics. So, this ability to kind of go back and forth between math and context and context and math and be able to say, you know, how do these things relate to one another? And when I'm doing this mathematically, what is that doing in the context of the work that I'm doing? I'm thinking back to my um, I had a great elementary um math support specialist friend of mine, and she would say, it's not just about saying, you know, how many buses do we need for 84 kindergartners to take a field trip? But if we're dividing by that number, what does that mean in terms of buses and kindergartners, right? Like it's really like constantly saying, why are we doing that math? And what does that math mean in terms of this? And um, you know, what this step right here, what does this, you know, 12.25 number mean? What does 0.25 mean in the context of this problem? And what's 0.25 of a bus? And um, you know, so that ability to kind of go back and forth, I think is a is a huge component. How about you? What do you think about in terms of of resources for actually making meaningful and relevant content be accessible?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Well, I think I think that's part of it is meaningful and relevant content.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

That finding content that helps me to see me as a doer of mathematics, that I can see myself in the context of the situation. I can see myself in uh the the piece that we're trying to solve, or or the context itself is relevant to me. Right. I think those two pieces are extremely important uh for us. And I I I met a a guy this summer uh at a conference that um I'm gonna reference his his materials here. Um, so Dashell or Dash Saver, Young Saver is his name, dash YoungSaver is his name. And that the place or the website is skewthescript.org. But his whole passion, he's an AP statistics teacher, and he and I were chatting a little bit about you know how he kind of got started in this idea of skew the script. And he said, you know, I was doing kind of the typical AP statistics type laboratories where the kids were getting hands-on and we're doing some fun stuff with candies and with uh some of these other things. And honestly, me myself, I'm an AP stats teacher too. Me, too. You are as well. And we love these things, right? The hands-on activities, getting kids to shoot rubber bands across the classroom, or you know, bringing double stuffed Oreos into the classroom and finding out are they double stuffed, all those fun little things that we did. And he said, you know, my kids looked at me and they said why? Yeah, like this off well and good, but I don't think we really care about this stuff. He said, uh, and so he asked his kids, so what do you care about? And from that conversation, what do you care about? Yeah, he began to develop these lessons and these concepts, um, which really kind of guided uh their lessons from there on out, their interests. And so now there's a whole set of these current events and current topics, and some of them are politically related, some of them are environmentally related, some of them are just car related or movie related, or all these things that are close to things that they care about. So important to see themselves and see the things that they care about in the mathematics that they're doing. So I I brought that up just because I thought the story was very relevant for us talking about this idea of access. It isn't just about opening the door and getting a student into a challenging class like an advanced placement statistics course. It's a very challenging course, right? The content is challenging. It's great that every student can come in and have access to it. But then we've also got to make it relevant for the student who's walked in the door because we want to make sure that we ensure success for that student. And one of the pieces, and I'm just gonna kind of get off my soapbox for just a minute after this, but this is another one of the common course um standards of mathematical practice, MP4, uh is one of my favorites. Yes. And and this idea, and I'll just read to you the first sentence of this and and pick up uh a piece of this. Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics that they know to solve problems arriving in everyday life, society, and the workplace. That's what we want. Yes. I mean, that's what we really want students to be doing, and that's what access looks like. Yes. Right? Is if I can get students to apply mathematics that they know that applies to everyday life or society or working in the workplace in those pieces. It goes on from there. But I really felt like that sentence talks a lot about what we're trying to talk about here, making things relevant for students and making it feel like the mathematics applies to what they're going to be doing or feeling or dealing with in their life.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah, for sure. And I just want to take a moment and well, two things. First of all, on a more serious note, I'm just seeing how this weaves back into the connections around, you know, classroom culture, around understanding students, building relationships, caring about the things that they care about. Um, and then I want to add that on a light note, like it doesn't always have to be some huge life moment thing. It doesn't have to be like when you're out of college and working, or when you, you know, when you're entering the workforce or after, you know, whatever, whatever their path is, it doesn't have to be this grand, relevant, important thing that they're working on. It can be something silly if it just means something to them. And I'll just share with you my daughter, my son and daughter-in-law are completely obsessed with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Completely obsessed. Like, I shouldn't know, we can't, like, no, there are no events that evening because we can't miss the Bachelor and the Bachelorette. And it's not good enough to record it and watch it or whatever. Like, they have to watch it live. But my daughter-in-law found um a social media influencer on Instagram, and I'll share for our bachelor and bachelorette fans that are our listeners. Um, her Instagram handle is at bachelor data. But this woman compiles all this obscure data from the Bachelor and the Bachelorette episodes and seasons. So every day there's multiple posts about data that she's collected. She makes these incredible data displays. And really, I said to my husband, like, if I were teaching A-B statistics, I would be all over this because you could do inference testing on whether getting a horseback date means you're more likely to win the rose on the final ceremony. Like it doesn't have to be curing cancer. It doesn't all have to be addressing social justice issues. It can be as fun as, you know, what's the math behind what's happening on The Bachelor and who's likely to win.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

And I I brought and I thank you for bringing that up, by the way, because I I made the comments about Skew the Script because um I thought that the message was so good. Because the question was, well, what are you interested in? Yes. Because frankly, I I think and I believe that my students, you know, they signed up the next year because we had the Oreo Day. Yeah. Right. I mean, there was that was something that my students really were passionate about or really were interested in, and it was such a fun day, right? So there was a piece to that puzzle, but it doesn't relate to every student. Right. And I think that's what we what we want to kind of come back to, to circle all the way back around to what you were talking about at the very beginning about classroom culture and establishing that you individual student, yes, the door was open and we got you in here, but now you matter.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

And we're gonna do what we can in this classroom to make sure and ensure that you have what you need to be successful in this class.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yes. And math is what you care about. 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.