Room to Grow Podcast

Season 5 Episode 12: What We Learned in 2025

00;00;02;00 - 00;00;41;06

Joanie intro

In today's episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and I explore the complex issues around cell phones, screen time, and students math, learning, and mental health. We independently engaged with books in the last year that speak to these issues, and in our conversation today, we attempt to make connections between the ideas. In Jonathan Height's book, The Anxious Generation and the book The Disengaged Teen by Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop.

We hope you'll find the discussion compelling and that it provides ideas for teachers, students, and families to take action that best support our students. So let's get growing.

00;00;41;08 - 00;00;47;09

Curtis

Well, Joanie, I am very excited to be in 2026 now.

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Joanie

Happy New year, Curtis.

00;00;48;19 - 00;01;39;16

Curtis

Happy new year. We are recording the Room to Grow podcast for January. This is our sixth now season. Yay! The Room to Grow podcast. Very excited about that. That's going to be. We've got a lot of things planned out for this year. It's going to be really a good year. And we've had a little bit of time actually now over the break and the holidays to you to kind of reflect, on some things.

And, actually our podcast topic for today, thinking about, screens and how we relate to them, healthy in a healthy way and really even just thinking about their impact on us in the classroom and kind of making some connections about that. Is really something that's been near and dear to my heart, thinking about this with my own children and being a parent, thinking about that. 

And so I'm really excited for for today and for our conversation.

00;01;39;18 - 00;03;36;28

Joanie

Yeah, I am too, Curtis. And I think one of the things that I found really interesting in our preparation conversations has been that this isn't just an issue for us to discuss about, you know, middle and high school age teenage students and their interactions with screens and technology in their lives. But really, our our issues as adults as well, like a lot of, the things that we want to, to elevate in today's conversation are not just about kids. They're also about our our own engagement and what it means for our lives and our life satisfaction and our ability to be happy and healthy individuals. And at the same time, we don't want to lose the thread of, you know, the whole point of the Room to go room to Grow podcast is about helping math teachers teach math better. So we certainly are going to bring that lens. But just to kind of open up the framework for our listeners, we've we've talked about trying to have this conversation on the podcast multiple times for a couple of years now. Honestly, it's been several seasons where this has been on our brainstorm lifts at the beginning of the season of like, oh, we should have a conversation about technology or about AI or about, screen time or whatever it is. But I think what maybe pushed us to be ready to have this conversation are a couple of books that you and I have engaged with separately, you know, not even with the intent of I'm going to read this book so we can talk about it on the podcast. But I think starting with the two books that were really impactful for each of us and talking about those books a little bit to kind of ground our listeners in where each of our heads were.

And then, I think there's some really interesting conversation to be had about how the ideas in the two books connect and what they mean for students learning of mathematics. So why don't you get us started with, the book that you read that that really kind of was the catalyst to this conversation.

00;03;37;00 - 00;08;52;14

Curtis

For sure. For sure. And I before I even talk about the name of the book or, the author of the book at all, I just wanted to advocate, as a parent, that, the, the things in this book, whether you agree or disagree with everything and every conclusion that is drawn, isn't really the issue. I don't think I think the, the issue is really just about being informed.

And so I, I highly encourage, any parent or really any user of technology, period, out there who's among our listeners to, to read this book or catch it on, audio books. However you managed to do that, it's certainly worth worth your time and effort. And it really did impact the way that I think about the way that I engage with technology, in the way my kids engage with technology and my family as a whole.

So, the book is the is the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hite and I. I just highly recommend it. We'll have, a link to the book and some notes around that in the, in the, notes for the podcast. But really, there's, there's a few themes that kind of come out of that book and, and a few things that, that maybe kind of relate to what we, talk to talk about a little bit on the podcast.

Really kind of the, the first theme is, is the idea of a rewiring of childhood, the idea that, as the smartphone and really social media kind of came into students and adolescents lives back in the early 20 tens, really that, that shifted and rewired kind of the way that, students and children just in general kind of do their childhood.

You know, prior to that time frame, there was a little bit more focus on like, play based. He calls it a play based childhood, for children really growing up doing things in sort of a play based space. And now really now when you think about what childhood kind of looks like, especially an adolescent time period, the amount of free time that's spent on, phones really kind of changes the way that that childhood is looked at.

And so he calls it actually a phone based childhood, and outlines some of the things that happened, the things that have happened as a result of that. And really talks about just this theme that, you know, that has had an impact of bringing more anxiety, bringing more, depression, thinking about self-harm, in adolescents in that time frame that the increases of those have have coincided with this shift from play based to, to phone based childhoods.

And so, that's one theme that's there. And actually, it's probably the major theme that we're going to be, thinking a little bit about how does that connect to the math classroom? It really also highlights, a couple of other things, thinking about, the, the early adolescence as being a major formative period in students times and in children's time, frame.

So that middle school time frame is highly, formative, for students and for children and, and really kind of the direction for the rest of their lives. We think about middle of pivotal right for their math education. But it's more than just in their math education. It's also just in, in general in life. Those years from 10 to 14 are critical, really for students in informing who they are and social sensitivity.

All of those things weigh into that. Then he kind of outlines a couple of other, a couple of other things thinking about that. This is not just, an individual or even a family sort of space, but really it's sort of this, a collective action space that it's hard to kind of get things going with just your family.

I mean, we can make we can make decisions as a family or make decisions as a group and as a, you know, maybe a social group that we are a part of. But really, culture as a whole, society as a whole, has this going on. And the decisions that are made in, in the larger frameworks, really impact our, our kids ability and our kids growing up and our kids in all of their experiences, but in particular the classroom.

And so we'll talk a little bit about, the policies and things that that have started coming into play right in this space. Right. We started to take some action in this space. And so we'll we'll look at that a little bit. And then there's a couple of other, a couple of other, things. We've got some recommendations.

He's got some recommendations that he makes around. What do we do? 

So for foundational kind of reforms that he kind of recommends, we may not, spend a whole lot of time talking about that. But really the importance of play and real world experience. I mean, yeah, we were just talking about this even before we started recording. Kind of the difference between what video games were like, right in the.

00;08;52;14 - 00;08;53;21

Joanie

In the early days.

00;08;53;26 - 00;09;05;05

Curtis

90;s and early 2000’s as individual or you played with a group, but you were on a concert console, it wasn't connected to the rest of the world. And he was playing against people.

00;09;05;08 - 00;09;06;05

Joanie

And you were in the same room.

00;09;06;05 - 00;09;25;09

Curtis

You were in the same room, right? You had to be. You had to be in the same room. I remember in college, my buddy and I setting up sort of with our first remote playing video game experience because we set up a network between our computers, that's also across the street.

00;09;25;11 - 00;09;28;24

Joanie

Because you are nerdy kids that could figure out how to do that on your own.

00;09;28;24 - 00;10;06;21

Curtis

You set up our own little Wi-Fi network between the two of us. I love that we could play. We didn't. We weren't on the internet playing. We were playing against each other across the little Wi-Fi network, that we had made in our, between our two houses. And so but that was kind of the first experience of not being in the same room with someone that you were playing a video game.

And so we'll talk about the importance of real world experiences and in-person, experiences a little bit. And so those are things that were kind of outlined in that book. But once again, I just, I so highly recommend folks spend the time, and read that book.

00;10;06;24 - 00;11;52;13

Joanie

Yeah, it I, didn't have a chance to read the book, but I did listen to a podcast conversation with the author and got some of those highlights, and I'll, I will put both the book and the podcast. I listened to it in the show notes as recommended resources for our listeners to engage a little bit more. But it was it was so interesting to me to listen to Jonathan Hite talk about the progression. You know, because we think we often think back on our own childhood and how much has changed. And I'll date myself here, but, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s, my husband and I joke that when we were kids, like we left the house, that yeah, in the summertime especially, we left the house at 730, 8:00 in the morning and our parents didn't see us again to tell dinnertime or even until it was dark and but at the same time, you know, if my mom needed me for something, she would just call a neighbor down the street and say, hey, is where's Joni? And tell her to come home? Right? Like there was a different level of connection during that time. And then I, you know, my children grew up just before the smartphone era. So one of my sons graduated high school in 2010 and one graduated high school in 2013. So that was really just the beginning of that boom of social media.

And so having, you know, thinking about that real shift in the experiences of the lives of the students that are sitting in our classrooms right now. And I think, you know, you and I talk all the time about how different mathematics teaching is now from when we were in the classroom. And this is a huge a huge factor in that.

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Start of Segment 2

00;11;52;15 - 00;19;45;13

Joanie 

Well, thanks for that quick overview. And then I'm going to do the same thing with a book that I had the chance to engage with. And the, the I, my exposure to this book actually happened at a policy conference last summer where one of the authors was brought in to talk about some of these concepts through the lens of technology in classrooms, and I in particular.

But I received the book at that conference and, although I haven't read it page by page, cover to cover, I've gone through the information and found so much that's interesting there. So, this was, there's it's all research backed information, but really thinking about the impact of technology on students and their learning. So, there's a lot of similarity and crossover that we'll get to in just a minute.

But the authors this my book is called The Disengaged Teen and the authors are Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop. And they basically did a lot of interesting studies around the roles of technology on student learning, and also just on student learning and, you know, categorization of how students learn and how students engage. So, this really resonated with me.

They talked about, you know, engagement is based on student interests, and we're going to see the motivation to be engaged when students feel like what is being presented or what they're working on is relevant to them, their interests and their lives. So kind of like a we already know that, they talked about the things that are not effective in helping students become better learners and more efficient and more successful in school, like nagging and threatening and, you know, those kinds of negative consequences, those things typically don't result in positive outcomes for our students.

And then they also talked. What I thought was really interesting is about the connections between engaging as a learner and engaging in your life. Right. So this kind of ties back to we math is the content that we teach, but really especially those of us in the secondary space teaching middle school students and high school students, we're preparing them to be citizens, to have healthy, happy and productive lives.

And the connections that they made between how you engage as a learner in school and how you feel and engage in your life was was a super interesting component. So, they frame the book around for what they call modes of learning. And what I loved about this. Again, this really resonated even back in the days that I was in the classroom. These I could identify students that fit each of these different modes. What I really like, too, about this is that, a student is not like put into one of these four categories and they're stuck there. That's who they are. That's how they're wired. It's more about this is how they're coming to the moment of learning. So there's room for that to change. And it can even change for an individual student across different classrooms, across different weeks of the school year. Like this is this is very dynamic and not something that's set in stone. So they define these four modes of learning as resist or mode. So students actually resisting the learning. And we've all seen that, you know, the kid that puts their head down in the back of the room and refuses to do their homework and refuses to engage in the learning, they might even skip class.

They might act out, they might, pretend to be sick and convince their parents to let them stay home. So that just really, absolutely resisting. Right. And for each of these modes, they talk about, like what's really going on internally with the kid. And I think this is maybe the start to the connection to John, Jonathan Height's book as well. So when students, they describe just to give a quick couple of words for each of these, a student in resist or mode is silently struggling with feelings of inadequacy or invisibility. And we've often heard that said, like kids don't hate math, they're feeling unsuccessful in math. So certainly if I don't feel like I'm going to be successful, I don't want to engage.

I'm going to just kind of shut down. Yeah, the second mode of learning is passenger mode. And again, I saw this all the time as a high school math teacher. The kid just doing the bare minimum, not really. You know, kind of pushing back on like this doesn't matter to me, I don't care. But still doing what they need to do to get by. Not the complete shut down, but not really engaging. And again, that's around. They're not seeing connections, not seeing the relevance to what they're doing at school and what they care about their lives. And you know, where they want to go after school is is complete. The next, learning mode is the achiever mode. So, you and I were talking prior to our conversation like, yep, this this is what I was in school for sure.

Like, I'm I'm showing up, I'm doing the work, I'm getting good grades. I'm I'm playing the game, of school, so to speak. And and I'm happy to do that. But I'm not doing that because I have some innate desire for the learning that I'm doing. It's more like I, I feel the value, I feel valued by others when I'm successful, whether it's my parents or my teachers or my peers.

Like, the whole purpose of that is for me to be feel successful, not to actually because I'm motivated or excited right about the learning. Right. And then the fourth mode is the explorer mode. And this is really when students are driven by their own curiosity and by the questions that they care about, their own interest in learning something rather than the external expectation of, like, I'm telling you, you have to learn this because it's on the test, or you need it for the next class or whatever, but actually because they're interested and they want to know the answer, and because they find it something relevant and meaningful to them, within their own, you

know, life experience. So that's just kind of the, the quick overview of that. And, you know, of course, there are implications that I imagine folks can think about. Like, of course, having having relevance and interest based opportunities is going to be more engaging for students. But the the interesting, component of the research is how much more learning happens when students are in explorer mode.

That's when the learning actually is deeper and stays with them longer. So a lot of the issues that we talk about on the room to Go podcast and, you know, conceptual understanding of important mathematical ideas we've elevated that is hugely important. And, you know, the role of procedures in building that kind of deep understanding and flexibility and fluency with mathematics.

And but, it's the externally motivated student who might be in a high achiever mode because, you know, they're looking for the grade or the validation or the approval is actually not learning as much as the student who's in explorer mode, who's feeling that intrinsic motivation and caring about what it is that they're learning. That is much more internalized.

And when that learning is internalized, it can then be applied to unique situations, which is what we talked about as our goals for, for mathematics learning. All the time, especially in middle and high school. So all right, so with those two kind of foundations, first of all, I would love to give you a second to respond to my quick overview of the disengaged teen.

And then maybe you can start us off on making some connections between the two books and the sets of ideas that we just went through.

00;19;45;15 - 00;20;00;12

Curtis

Well, now, Joni, you just, were talking about that and I what was going through my head actually was the NCTM publication, that just was, just released last year. Right. The Reimagine.

00;20;00;12 - 00;20;01;15

Joanie

High School Reimagined.

00;20;01;21 - 00;21;55;01

Curtis

High School Reimagined publication. And I just think about I went, oh, yeah, you know, I mean, we think about, and we know engagement to be important. We know these ideas of, of, conceptual understanding and, and really the connection between concepts and procedures and, and really how they co-develop between the two. We know the importance of that.

And we know that that really engages students. It really helps them to recall. Right? They, they remember and they learn it, deeper when they see those connections between those two. But in and we talk a lot about this idea of relevance that we need, and we know that it's helpful. But really what to me, what you were just talking about really gives, a lot more importance, lends itself this a lot more importance, really why we're interested in this engagement.

We know it's important. And we know that it also helps students remember concepts better, right? They make they make deeper involvement. That idea of the student really being intrinsically motivated and and the fact that they are, are in explorer mode. That was really, as I was reading your notes and then just listening to you even just now, that idea of explorer mode is where we want like, that's the pinnacle to me.

Like that's the top, right? And there's all kinds of things. And I even made myself this note earlier, that there's all kinds of things that we go to conferences when we hear things, and we, and we want to make these shifts and we want to, like, flip the switch. Right? We want to just jump the gap from where we are now to that pinnacle.

And we want to figure out how to, like, settle on that pinnacle and like, always be there. And we know that that may be that utopia may or may not be achievable.

00;21;55;01 - 00;21;57;22

Joanie

Yeah. it's probably unrealistic. That's why I use the word utopia.

00;21;57;24 - 00;22;16;09

Curtis

That's exactly why I use that word. But, yeah, I, I, I was thinking about this, and I had this, had this thing in my head earlier, and I thought, you know, this, I don't know whether people will get this or not, but I went to uni. Remember how you wanted to change the channel on the television and you had to turn the dial?

00;22;16;12 - 00;22;24;15

Joanie

Yes, I, I remember that no, there was no remote control for the television. You had to actually physically go to the television to change it.

00;22;24;16 - 00;22;34;03

Curtis

Or maybe, maybe equally as relatable. When you were listening to the radio in the car and you had to turn the dial, right. And there was.

00;22;34;03 - 00;22;38;14

Joanie

And get it just right, because if you were off by a ten, they would get static.

00;22;38;14 - 00;23;09;03

Curtis

Yes. So this was what was going through my head in sort of the adjustments and the things that we do in order to try to, to get our students or to get our classrooms to feel like that explorer mode, or to be as cultivating of that explorer mode of student, as possible. It feels like that knob, right, that we're trying to dial in and we're going to and it's going to probably change based on the weather and, and the, the topic and, and whatever. Right. So, you know.

00;23;09;05 - 00;23;10;09

Joanie 1

And the students. Yeah.

00;23;10;09 - 00;24;08;24

Curtis

And the students. So anyway, it was that was an analogy that just kind of came to mind. I was I was thinking about that and really just even, just this idea of connecting both what's happening with our students with, screens in this phone based childhood. And we, we aren't necessarily we we're seeing some societal changes and some things that are maybe weighing in on that.

 I think it's 37 now. States have some sort of law and, regarding phones and schools now, they're very of varying, strength, strenuous ness. Right? Only only some are complete bans and some have, you know, statements about local laws and whatever. But 37 states have now made some, motion towards you got to deal with phones and schools, and specifically during class time, because we know that it's such a, distraction.

00;24;08;26 - 00;26;23;29

Joanie

Right, right. And I think that the thing that, attending to the information in these two books and our attempt to make connections between them has helped me see that they're not just a distraction. Like, yes, they are a distraction, but really unpacking what that distraction is. And it's not necessarily as simple as just get the phones out of the kids hands while they're in the classroom like that.

That's like the surface level or the first step. But when you understand, like, in Heights book, when he talks about the wiring, right. And the the way that kids think about themselves and their interaction with their peers, his different because social media exists, because they have this ubiquitous technology and the ways that they engage with that. It adds this whole layer of complication.

So taking the phone away is a necessary condition, in my opinion. Sure. But it's not the only thing we need to think about, right? We need to we need to understand, like why there's this phone addiction, like what is that dopamine addiction thing all about? And what's going on for the kids so that as we remove the phone, we can actually address the actual issue and get the kid to or the, the students and not even just talking about a single kid here. This is this is something that most students in our classrooms are dealing with. But get them to that that healthier point of interacting so that they can be in explorer mode of their learning, or that they can access explorer mode more often than they're able to when the phone is there to distract them. So yeah, it's really interesting to think about how these two books are really talking about different things, but they're really the they're really ways of looking at the same issues.

And that's that's what we want to kind of elevate here in this conversation is how do we think about the role that these things are having on students and their learning of mathematics.

00;26;24;01 - 00;27;06;14

Curtis

For sure. And that idea that, it isn't just about the, the phone or for that matter, any connected device, the Chromebook or my laptop or anything else. And the fact that I can access any of those social media platforms, the internet, any of those kind of AI tools, whatever, those, those things, it isn't just about the fact that, if we remove those things, then all of a sudden all of our, our problems are solved in, math classes and whatever.

I mean, we were already trending towards, you know, poor math scores before 2010. And so we we…

00;27;06;14 - 00;27;08;01

Joanie

We can’t blame all of our ills on that.

00;27;08;02 - 00;27;52;22

Curtis

Right? We need to we need to think a little bit about, okay, so if the phone isn't there of the screen isn't there. What are we replacing it with? What are we what are we bringing them back to engage with now? But I think there's also and there was a connection made in, in some of our summarization and some of our thinking about this.You know, you even mentioned the dopamine hit and I think about my own self and why I grabbed my phone. Yeah. There's just this, there is when I start to get bored, when I start to get disengaged, when I start to lose, concentration, which for someone with ADHD, happens a lot. Yeah. For me, I'm very tempted to just grab that phone and just, just even seeing the screen.

00;27;52;25 - 00;27;54;10

Joanie

Absolutely.  Absolutely.

00;27;54;10 - 00;28;18;29

Curtis

Just see the screen come on. There's a dopamine hit. There's a just a just a little bit of a elevation. And so one of the things that maybe came to light for me as we were talking about this and thinking about this was that, you know, thinking about students, when they're disengaged in my math classroom and maybe they grab their phone, maybe they flip to a different tab on their, on,

00;28;19;01 - 00;28;19;22

Joanie

On their Chromebook.

00;28;19;22 - 00;28;49;04

Curtis

On their Chromebook, and they're over on YouTube or something. It isn't just that they're being defiant in my classroom. I mean, sure, they're probably doing something that I didn't ask them to do. Got that? But it it can be as much as seeking sort of that dopamine hit, that reinforcement that little like, hey, I'm, I'm good or seeking an escape. And all of those things can happen because maybe they're feeling inadequate.

00;28;49;07 - 00;28;51;07

Joanie

In their, in that resistor in that.

00;28;51;10 - 00;29;13;01

Curtis

They've happened to land in that resist or mode. Right. Exactly. Like I think there's the in in really they're using that social media that that outlet to to give them a little bit of a boost to come back or maybe it is just a little bit of a distraction, but I think it isn't always just about being distracted.

00;29;13;03 - 00;29;38;28

Joanie

Yeah. And it's about it's about managing something underlying. And I so appreciate the way that you reflected yourself. And, you know, us as adults like how we also engage with our technology, particularly smartphones, in this same way. Right. Like I, I literally I've had to change like very intentionally change some of my behavior because it becomes almost automatic.

00;29;38;28 - 00;30;15;14

Speaker 1

You don't even realize that you're distracted by the device. Like I at one, at one point I realize, like when I'm in the car, every time I'm at a stoplight, I pick up my phone and I'm like, why? Like, yeah, there's nothing here that can't wait until I get home. And I now have chosen to, like, physically put my phone in my purse in the back seat of my car just to remove that temptation and and break that habit of of picking it up all the time.

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00;30;15;16 - 00;32;08;29

Joanie

One thing that I want to bring up right now is I want to be careful, because we've gone through like some of the really concerning issues. And, you know, we're starting to tap into what we know is relevant for our listeners who are in the classroom like they are. And, and maybe in some of the places where the legislation has forced schools, districts and states to take action here.

And we're starting to see a relief from at least cell phones in the classroom. I want to be careful about not vilifying the technology, because, you know, when we talk about explorer mode and we talk about relevance for student learning, the technology provides an incredible opportunity to personalize, to allow students to explore on their own, to, you know, let one kid get into something that they're really interested in while the kid sitting next to them is maybe exploring the same mathematical concept through a different application that's relevant to them, and that is much more challenging to do without technology.

So I just kind of want to circle back and say, we're not suggesting that all technology is the villain and all technology is dangerous and harmful to students in their learning, but it has that potential, and we've seen it go to that potential. We've seen that impact. And having awareness about that potential and the need to balance the effective and appropriate use of technology, because first of all, it is ubiquitous.

It it is powerful and it does have so many positive applications. And it we have to help students learn how to use it. You know, it's if if we're not helping them learn to engage effectively and help in healthy ways with technology, we're not preparing them for their futures.

00;32;09;01 - 00;34;55;05

Curtis

Yeah, I think that's really true. I think the other thing that is also, true at the same time is there are opportunities in the being wise when we use the technology and and when there's times when it is, is actually very good to set it off to the side, or to use disconnected technologies, things that aren't connected to the internet.

You know, I think there's, I think there's plenty of opportunity. Right. Even we saw it when, when graphing calculators were introduced, everybody was so excited because now we have the ability to, to see graphs and see them dynamically and see multiple iterations of, Riemann sums and see them drawn quickly and do all kinds of fantastic things.

Right. We saw holes in graphs and discontinuities in ways that, we've never been able to visualize those things. And the power of visualization is a real, real thing. And so we saw that happen. But then overreliance can also be a problem. And so in the same vein, you know, we think about, you know, connected technologies and, and you brought up the ability for, students to be looking at different things and utilizing and exploring the same mathematical concepts in different contexts.

Certainly. Connected technologies give you that ability, but in the same way, being able to to recognize that there are opportunities for not being connected and, and seeing that that does give us an opportunity to to really make sure that we that we take away the potential for that dopamine hit and replace it with something relevant for them in their, in their own learning.

Right. And we think about that, one of the things that I think is really, it goes back to this relevant, we hear a lot about this idea, real world. Right? We talk about real world problems, all the time. Right. That's not a new thing in in math education hitting this idea that, hey, we need to be doing real world problems, but something that I think, maybe wasn't, immediately obvious to me, although I, I think it's, I think it's there.

And I think when I say it, we're going to go, oh, yeah, of course, but this idea of, of engaged and engaging in face to face or embodied learning. So this is one of the topics that, that, that he talks about in his book is this idea of embodied, experiences, real world experiences that aren't virtual.

00;34;55;06 - 00;34;55;18

Joanie

Right.

00;34;55;18 - 00;35;34;16

Curtis

Are, are super important in the development of our brains and our brains the way that they're wired. Right. And so giving our students an opportunity to engage in real world experiences. And I'm not just talking about real world contexts, I'm talking about actual experiences of the mathematics, that they're doing. And I know we've talked about it before on the podcast, but this is an easy one for me.

That idea of position versus time, right? And being able to create and measure distance at a real time and see that motion, happen on a screen connected to a physical movement.

00;35;34;18 - 00;35;34;28

Joanie

Yes.

00;35;34;29 - 00;35;53;01

Curtis

Right. So that idea of being able to make those connections and actually physically feel the experience, of moving back and forth and making that connection of rate of change is super important. And that's what I'm talking about when I say this embodied experience in my math classroom.

00;35;53;04 - 00;37;42;27

Joanie

Yeah, I, I agree, I think that is so important. That is and that is such a nice connection to, you know, getting to again here, we're connecting between the idea of relevance and intrinsic motivation and deep, genuine curiosity and the concern around being able to interact with other people and, you know, make eye contact with a peer and have a conversation and ask a question and engage in learning together in a way that feels safe and exciting and interesting.

Like all of those things work together for what we know is the good and the, you know, the most important thing in the classroom. And those are the outcomes that we want. So I really appreciate you bringing that up. I think I think I want to kind of bring us as we're, you know, starting to, to get to the last five minutes or so of our conversation, like really thinking about, what are some other you gave us a really great first example of having those really physical, authentic, meaningful experiences engaged in the learning.

I'm wondering if we can maybe talk about some more of those push pull challenges and what our listeners might think about, particularly those that are in the classrooms, because, again, it's like, how do we how do we manage, that idea of there's there's curriculum that we have to cover, right? There's there's a state test at the end of the year that I want my students to be ready for.

And how do we create that space for those kinds of activities without ignoring that curriculum? I think this is, you know, one of the many tensions that we have to fight in this topic.

00;37;42;29 - 00;38;43;27

Curtis

No, it is a tension that you have to fight in this topic and this idea of creating relevant and real world scenarios. You have to be, well versed also in, you know, when I was thinking about math topics for my own statistics students, and I was always trying to come up with, how are we going to do how do I want to engage my students in a, in a data collection that's going to like, lend itself toward whatever analysis that we're trying to teach?

And so in the same vein, thinking about how do I how do I deal with, quadratic equations, you know, this idea that we've got relationships that are, quadratic in nature, how do we utilize a variety of relationships that are quadratic in nature? Because not everybody cares about the square footage. In a garden, not everybody cares about the perimeter.

00;38;43;29 - 00;38;45;12

Joanie

Maximizing that to.

00;38;45;12 - 00;39;30;05

Curtis

Have now, right? I'm not. I'm, Please hear me out. I'm not condemning those problems in and of themselves, but perhaps we can come up with other varieties of those problems which are relevant to students in their own interests. And so, you know, thinking about all of those is important. But that puts a little bit of owness on me as the teacher to think critically about what are some relationships that are out there, what are some things that that relate together, that go along with this mathematics concept that I'm trying to teach?

You know, things about algebra one, we got quadratics and and you've got exponentials and you've got linear. The world is full of those three relationships.

00;39;30;06 - 00;39;31;06

Joanie

100% of.

00;39;31;08 - 00;39;31;22

Curtis

The world.

00;39;31;23 - 00;39;33;25

Joanie

Why we start there in algebra one, right.

00;39;33;27 - 00;39;35;13

Curtis

Yeah. Do what?

00;39;35;15 - 00;39;37;21

Joanie

That's that's why we start with those three functions.

00;39;37;21 - 00;40;33;01

Curtis

Why we start with those in algebra one? Because those are going to be the foundational things that you end up with, dealing with in the rest of your life. Really. There's those three kinds of relationships. And so just thinking about, okay, there's got to be something there's got to be a context that I can go and I can look.

And this is honestly, I think this is one of the places where learning how to prompt. I, I went to a great session at NCSA about this idea of utilizing AI to write this, to write a lesson. And, and it's a lot more work to do that than it sounds like it should be. But ultimately, utilizing artificial intelligence to be able to help me create a scenario that is both realistic and related to the to the relationship or the type of mathematics that I'm trying to study. That is a way to get there.

00;40;33;03 - 00;43;08;04

Joanie

That's right, that's right. I think that's that's a great, a great framework for thinking about how to manage that, that tension and that challenge. And I would just add, even supporting students in using the AI to find those applications. Right. Like, let's bring them in. That's that's motivating and that's, explorer learning mode to, you know, put the responsibility on the student to find the application that matters to them for the mathematics that they're learning.

And, you know, great opportunity with AI for students to, engage in that themselves. So I, I've just been thinking about the connections back to even the, eight mathematics teaching practices that we explored in our 2025 season. And, you know, all of these things that we've been talking about for years in terms of math education, you know, productive struggle, communication, you know, asking good questions, getting evidence of student thinking and using student thinking to further other students, thinking, like, all of these things that we've been talking about in terms of best practices, tie in to these same kinds of things, right?

Like helping students understand that struggle is a part of learning, that's applicable beyond just math class. That's applicable to some of the dangers and the mental health impacts that Jonathan Hite talks about in his book. Right. Like, yeah, if I'm struggling, that means I'm not good. If, you know, my life doesn't look like my friend's life on social media, that's a value judgment.

And if we can teach that, you know, failure is a part of growing and not being, not knowing all of the answers and not being able to be successful in your first try at something, you know, really addresses those additional issues as well. And I think, you know, for me, students talking to one another and really elevating student thinking and student reasoning is, is such an important, soapbox for me in terms of mathematics education.

And I think about how much impact that has on their relationships with other people on, you know, their ability to have what you were describing earlier as those really tangible, you know, authentic, real physical engagements with other people as part of the learning and how that all ties together to create better learning outcomes and better mental health outcomes for our kids.

00;43;08;07 - 00;43;39;16

Curtis

For sure, for sure. So just thinking about how we, like, maybe move into you. Okay, so so now what? Right. As we think about what is the the call to action for me, as an educator, I, you know, we've talked a lot about a variety of of different things today and thinking about these two different books. And again, I encourage, our readers, our readers, our listeners to go out and either listen or they'll become readers.

00;43;39;20 - 00;43;39;27

Joanie

Yeah.

00;43;39;29 - 00;44;25;13

Curtis

Become readers, either audio or, actually physically reading both of these books. I think it's worth I think it's worth your time. But beyond that, thinking about maybe what's a small change or a change that you can do even in the next week or two. Starting in 2026, what are a couple of things that we can start motivating and moving students from those passenger, resister achiever modes into that explorer mode.

And again, just recognizing that while that is the pinnacle, and that is the end game and the goal that we are going to be transitioning between those things. And so what's maybe one thing that we can do. So think about that in this next week.

00;44;25;16 - 00;45;23;28

Joanie

Yeah, I love that idea of starting small and just do one thing towards that. And I think that the only thing that I would add, excuse me is, is to don't you don't have to go it alone. Like think about the other teachers in your department or in your school that can align with you on some of the efforts that you're trying to make.

Because this is not just a math class right issue. And and the solutions are not just specific to math class either. So thinking about working with your department, working with other teachers in your school, even working with your families, even working with your students, like bring this in as something that is a collaborative problem to be solved collaboratively.

I think that was one of the important points of both books, is there are not simple, easy technical solutions to these problems. These are these are things that require a lot of effort across a lot of venues.

00;45;24;01 - 00;45;45;16

Joanie Outro

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!