SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Room to Grow.

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I'm Curtis Brown. And I'm Joni Fenderberg. We work together at Texas Instruments, and we're glad you're here. We're looking to continually improve our practice, and we understand that you are too. 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.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joni and I discuss the opportunities that this coming school year brings. We touch on reframing the term learning loss and how by doing this we have a chance to reset our ideas around classroom culture. We address two important ideas for creating a fertile learning environment, and finally, we consider focusing on students' perception of their own abilities. We have some fun in this episode with garden imagery, so let's get growing. Well, Joni, it's really exciting to be sitting down uh with you once again and just chatting about learning and specifically our classrooms and our excitement going into the new school year this coming year. It's going to be a really exciting one. So I think there's a lot of things to think about. And today, I think what let's we're going to really talk about this idea of our classroom environment and making sure that it's that it's ready to go for our students. And really, what are the things that uh coming off of this pandemic year and all of the changes for virtual and remote learning? And what are some of the things that we now kind of have an opportunity to kind of refresh and do things from uh I brand new this year? Um, what are the things that maybe we can we can do and talk about uh for this coming year? So, Joni, this is going to be a really exciting conversation. Um, and maybe a place for us to to start uh is this idea, this hot topic, um, this this term called learning loss and and how we're going to address it. So maybe let's start talking uh a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah. I I've been looking forward to this episode, Kurt, because I think my it was always my favorite time of year, the start of a new school year, the and it is that opportunity to start fresh and that opportunity, you know, everything's new and exciting and there's energy and you're refreshed after having had, you know, some time during the summer to recharge. So uh I think so much about our colleagues that are classroom teachers and have gone through um the experience of teaching through the pandemic and you know, all the ups and downs of that. Well, more downs, I think, than ups for sure. Just the challenges around having to switch, switch gears on a dime and you know, decisions being made and and you know, teachers go figure it out, kind of a thing. And of course, we all know it's it's not unexpected that there's an impact on student learning in in that we haven't had the continuity of learning that we're typically used to in a regular school year, where we're not you know, forced to be home for months and months on end, um, or come into school and then go back home and all of that disruption. So yeah, learning loss is all over the news and all in in social media and all these things that you know we're exposed to as educators. And I know you've seen too, uh, a lot of our friends in the math education leadership space have tried to diminish that term and have tried to help us realize that talking about loss uh really, you know, gives us a deficit approach to thinking about the impact of the last year and a half where that we've all dealt with in terms of COVID. And it doesn't do us or students any good to come in thinking, okay, something's wrong, something's broken, something, you know, something awful we have to fix is um, you know, this big looming thing that we have to address at the beginning of the school year. So I think one of the challenges about this new school year in particular is moving past that loss attitude and and really shifting the thinking to, you know, whether it's just using different language, like, well, learning may be delayed, you know, students haven't had the same opportunities to learn. Um, there's been a disruption in student learning. Like I think all of those ideas uh are a good first start to shifting uh into a more productive um school year. And as the title of this episode is to create a classroom environment that's actually fertile for learning to happen, rather than saying, okay, we're gonna start start the school year by fixing, you know, the what happened last year. How are your thoughts about how we can reframe this and move through that temptation to feel overwhelmed by what hasn't happened in the last year and a half?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I think we do have a big opportunity this year to change our mindset about this idea of learning loss and really maybe come back at it as learning delayed, like you mentioned back at the beginning of your comments there. I think that's a I think that's a direction um for us to go. And then really, so this idea then becomes okay, so what do we do as we need to address this idea of uh of this learning delay or or trying to figure out how we address that. Um and and I think probably one of the biggest places we can do that is in the way that we shape and frame our classrooms, right? So we've been out of our classrooms for, I don't know, 13, 15, some of us a long time 13 or 15 months now, have not been set foot in the classroom in their building. And so this idea that, hey, you know, this really is uh a big time refresh. It's not just that we've been gone for two for a couple months in the summer, but we've actually been out of the classroom doing something completely uh unique and new to us and to our students. And now we're coming back in this face-to-face mode. So we really do get a chance uh to reset our classrooms and our classroom environment and and thinking about that. And so I think probably that's a good place for us to kind of have this conversation about creating what is a what is a fertile environment. And maybe we've got uh a few comments about what that actually means to us, right? Uh what is a classroom that is fertile for learning? And yeah, there's a lot of garden imagery here. I mean, we're on a room to grow podcast, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I just want to call out like this idea of the fact that there has been a major disruption to students learning and to teachers' teaching, you know, that's very real. And we have some plans for a couple of episodes from now to dive into that a little bit more from the instructional approach. Like, how do you deal with the fact that you've got, you know, six graders in your class this fall that maybe didn't have a great fifth grade experience and maybe even half a fourth grade wasn't so great. So, how do you actually deal with that as a teacher and continue to move the learning forward is a different conversation. And that's not the one we're intending to have here today. We want to focus today on the opportunities that the new school year brings to think about establishing that culture, to think about the sort of yearly reset that we get and even a more special opportunity to reset this year as we come back, you know, cross our fingers kind of on the other side of the COVID pandemic and crisis. So thinking about a fertile classroom, and again, we should apologize ahead of time for all of our fun garden imagery we're gonna bring into this idea, but um, you know, that idea of tilling the soil, of how do we how do we sort of shake things up a little bit to create a space where our students come in and actually can settle in and grow and learn. So uh we have we're gonna have lots of articles to link to in this because there's been a lot of research and conversation around these ideas. And one of the ones that I really appreciated uh came from Linda Darling Hammond. And she wrote an article that was titled Accelerating Learning as We Build Back Better. And I liked that idea, that alliteration, say that 10 times fast, build back better. Um, but I think there really is some opportunity to think and focus on a couple of concepts that really lead into building a positive classroom environment and thinking about those as tilling the soil of the classroom to, you know, make that ground fertile for students. So she names five. I'm gonna list them right here, but we're not gonna talk about all five of them. She talks about relationships, community connections, student self-expression, and students' perceptions of their own ability. So I want us to focus. Um, I think we agreed that we could focus our conversation maybe comprehensively on the ideas of community and connections as really relevant to math classrooms and kind of encompassing some of the others. So when I think about community, it was again with the beginning of the school year being one of my favorite times. Um, I think building that culture of we're all in this learning together is something that's really important to do early on. It's harder to create a community months in if you don't have that established from the beginning. And the fact that you know, students come into a new school year kind of prime for that opportunity to build new relationships and maybe a little, you know, hesitant and a little, you know, shy. So I think the opportunity to make connections between the students and create um, you know, as the as the teacher, creating the feel of the classroom, if that makes sense. So one of the things that was really important to me at the beginning of the school year in establishing classroom culture and a sense of community was giving my students opportunities to talk to me and to talk to one another from as the very first moments of the very first day of class. So really establishing that, hey, we're we're this is something. We've created something here because we're all in the same room for this set amount of time, and ensuring that on that first day, I had created opportunities for them to engage. And knowing that hesitance that comes with being new in, you know, this is a new set of students, a new set of people, um, even if there's some familiarity and kids know each other from previous school years, it's a it's a new setting in and of itself. Um, so giving some really strong structures to building that community with activities that um, you know, allow kids to choose their level of engagement and provide lots of structure to conversation rather than relying on them to sort of come out of their shelf. What did what did you do or what have you thought about in terms of building community?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, when I well, when we read that article, um, I saw each one of those five pieces really being able to be summed up in the idea of community, right? This this concept of of really when you walk in the door, and I don't know about you, but I really wanted my students when they um when they were headed to my classroom, there needed to be a mentality uh that was associated with my class. And and there is, there's no way we can um get around that. Every single classroom, every single environment, you just know uh, or at least you have some some assumptions about uh what that environment is going to be like, right? And so our first day, our first couple of days in the classroom were the time that we got to kind of set that mindset for the student for really the rest of the year. And I don't mean to put a lot of pressure on those first couple of days, but I think that really is super important. Um, the how the classroom feels in those first couple of days really establishes the tone for the remainder of the school year. And so I felt always that it was important, like you mentioned, to give activities where the students were able to have communication with each other. So I had lots of group work kind of ideas on the first day of class, which I know that sounds a little bit scary, right? But I think it's so important to get my students up out of their seats next to each other, having a conversation, talking about mathematics in a structured way, but talking about mathematics um side by side, establishing that, hey, our learning is going to be together, right? And then we're gonna have we're gonna have roles and there's gonna be questioning and we're gonna be forced to think. Um, we're gonna be forced to to have kind of uh take ownership of our own learning. Um, we're gonna do all of those things and kind of get that going in the first couple days.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

I want us with just to talk about this idea of connections because I think this is another one that's so important to think about at the beginning of the school year and to establish early on in your instructional routine. So um I would love for you to share of like how are you thinking about what connections mean and what connections, how connections relate to building a classroom environment fertile for learning.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

So I think this idea of connection is actually twofold. Um I I think we can really kind of look at it on two different levels. First of all, I think it is connected to this uh idea of community and relationships and and sort of all of the safety things that we've talked about, really creating a safe classroom in that um the connections that we need to establish for our students um uh can be in the context uh of the things that we establish for them uh as problem sets or as uh scenarios for for the the mathematics that we are we are doing. And so getting context and and things that are relevant to our students, I think is a great way to establish and create connections, not just um, you know, help with the relationships and helping us understand our students and our students understand us, but also really the idea of them being engaged in in their um in their cultures and and in their learning. And whenever we can connect what they're learning about to their own experiences, um it just makes everything flow better, right? It makes it stick better and it makes it matter for them. And anytime stuff matters, then uh it's able to be remembered. So I think that's one part of it, right? So that's connected to community. But I think there's also a piece of it, and certainly when I've when I heard the idea of connections, my mindset went straight to the connections among the mathematics that students uh are learning, right? And and the connections among the responses that we get inside the classroom. And I know we've talked about valuing every student's response and and you know, making sure that we kind of light the pathway from uh sort of a beginning response to an advanced or a more complete response, right? And and all of the little pieces in between, right? And and linking each of those so they can see their thinking among all of the different uh paths and and answers that we get when we look at at solutions to to problem sets. So I think there's there's that. But I think there's there's also this idea of connecting their learning then um to previous learning. And I and even in just leading up to this uh podcast episode, our conversation, um, I was thinking about the the idea. I mean, that's really just how humans learn, right? When we think back to to what babies do and infants, you know, they connect every little piece to some experience. Um, and in language learning happens that way. Um even our establishment of of quantities and and um what it means to be zero, because that's still a concept that's just you know next to really impossible to actually define and and show, right? So that's that's just a hard one. But I mean, all of those things as we grow, we connect to stuff and our experiences. And so being able to not try to say, hey, fractions, we're talking about fractions today. And here's this new silo that you need to um kind of compartmentalize this learning. No, fractions are an extension of this thing that we've already been talking about, this idea of number and putting it into a number line and onto the context of, hey, there's, you know, between one and two, there's all these numbers in here. And just being able to establish this concept of connections between things that students already have a grasp on and then extending those that learning into new concepts. And so um I think connection for me is the is both of those two things. And I think that's important for us to to connect to our classrooms.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, I I love how you described that. And I think your framing of the meanings of connections and why they're important, you know, connects back to our your connections connects back. It connects back to our initial conversation, right? Like how like reframing this from learning loss to opportunity. And in order to make those connections, we do have to understand what students' experiences were during the pandemic. And and that ties right into the building of relationships and creation of community. So it's all just so beautifully, uh, beautifully intertwined. And you know, paying attention to one of these factors sort of forces us into paying attention to others as well. So I think that's really, really interesting. I think another uh one of the other most important ideas around classroom culture that you and I have talked about is students' own beliefs about themselves as learners and doers of mathematics. So I'm I'm curious about your thoughts around where where is the line between the teacher's responsibility in what students believe about themselves and the students' responsibility and what they believe about themselves? Like it's sort of like wait, as a teacher, do I really have control over what students believe? So, how how can we start to unpack that a little bit and think about what do what do we really mean by students' perceptions of their own ability? And what do we as teachers do to contribute or deter from that?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

That's a really good uh question. I like the way you phrase that. Do I really have influence over my students or do I really can I really change that? And I think the answer is I have influence. I can influence what my students believe about uh themselves and about their ability to learn. Can I control it completely? No, I don't think I can control it completely, but I absolutely can do things and and change things that help influence what students believe and perceive about their own ability to learn effectively. I think that I think that's probably my short answer. And a little bit longer answer might be um how we do that is we have to maybe first of all change our own beliefs and our own mindset. And we you can listen to our last podcast to hear some of the things we talked about in that concept of of how our beliefs impact student uh achievement. But I think that's that's a place, right? If we can figure out um good ways to communicate to our students that we believe that they can learn and achieve mathematics at a high level, every one of them. If we can kind of if we can kind of influence that and and and say that to our students, and not just in words, but in the way that we handle their responses, in the way that we handle and connect their responses to other students' responses, um, in the way that we call on students, um, even in the questions that we ask. I think uh each one of those things contributes to that concept, right? And so changing how we believe, I think is is uh big uh in that, in influencing students' perception of their of their own ability. So I think that I think that's huge, right? Um then I think there's I think there's that that I mean. We've heard about it, right? That that communicating to our students um that that concept of whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right. Yeah that that concept, that's a quote that floats around forever, right? So that that is absolutely certainly true, right? That that um if a student believes they can't, then they won't. Um and I was thinking about this quote, that quote this earlier today and trying to figure out, okay, well, there there are experiences, right, where I can I can believe that I can do something and then it doesn't happen. So how does that fit in? Does that mean that I just need to try again? Does that mean that I need to change uh how maybe I perceive success in that moment? I think there's I think there's certain uh all kinds of things that kind of can weigh into that. Because, you know, one of the things that I want to make sure that we're establishing here when we say um that all students can perform mathematics at a high level or learn mathematics at a high level, uh, we're not talking about creating this whole little group of Einsteins, if you will, or or students who are all headed to MIT as mathematician majors, uh, you know, as majors in mathematics. I I that's I I don't think that's what we're intending to say uh at all in that in that regard. But we are saying that students can achieve um highly. We are saying that students can uh perform um more, right? There's always room for for growth and they can continue to grow and they can continue to uh achieve in mathematics. So I think I think that's what the direction that we're headed with this idea.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yeah. And I think part of that too is back to, you know, I so much of what we were talking about in this episode connects back to previous episodes and topics that we've discussed. And I think this ties back totally to motivation and persistence and students' willingness to work hard. You know, this uh this idea that we talked about when in ensuring that every student was learning, like if a student feels like the teacher doesn't believe in their capabilities, then what motivation do they have to actually engage in the in the learning experiences in the classroom and try to achieve in mathematics? So I agree with you. This isn't about saying, you know, that means every student gets accepted to MIT and can study mathematics as a as a major or you know, engineering or whatever it is. But I think saying every student has the capability to do whatever they choose to do. And not every student is going to choose that, but ensuring that every student's able to learn mathematics to the level that is required for the choices they want to make for their lives, right? And that, and that I think we can be on the same page about for in terms of every student being able to learn. But I think about that again, how much how like what you said, how we question students, who do we call on to answer questions? How do we respond to an incorrect answer? Um, you know, all of those things. What do we, what, what do we post up on the wall in the classroom or on the bulletin board? You know, what is sample, what sample student work makes that display? Um, all of those things send a message to our students about how we as teachers perceive their abilities and what we value in terms of of the experience of lean of learning mathematics. So I think that's really important. And in addressing those things, there's this added sort of side benefit of contributing to our students feeling more motivated, uh, our students feeling like they're gaining skills and the ability to persist through difficulty. You know, I'm thinking about the learning pit that we talked about and how do we help students productively struggle and move through challenges is part of their learning as well. So uh, and again, all ties back to that idea of community and making connections and all of those things that, you know, we do as educators that have such a great impact. And in reality, there's a lot of responsibility on us as teachers because the things that we do and say in in each and every given moment of our classroom impact our students. And that can feel like a huge responsibility, but it's also a huge opportunity when we think about you know fertilizing our classroom soil and uh ensuring that our students are getting all of the resources that they need to actually grow to their fullest potential in mathematics. So you want to close us out with some some big ideas here?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

For sure. I think that I I just I love this conversation. I I I was I'm sitting here just kind of um listening to you, and my mind is going back to my classroom and you know, walking in those first couple of days before my students come in and just the quiet room, right? And and thinking about, you know, sort of my excitement for the school year and yeah, this year I'm gonna do XYZ to make sure that you know this this happens or that that these that these things happen. And so I I wanted this podcast episode to kind of be one of those uh ideas where where really we're just taking time to contemplate the importance of establishing community in our classroom. Because really the theme for today has been all about what are the things that we can do to establish and support a community in our classroom, both a community of learners, right? So everybody in the classroom is contributing to the learning overall of the class, and then uh a could uh a community that is that's connected together, not as individual um people, right? So that this is that we really are doing this uh all together. So what are the things that we can do? And we've there are a lot of things that we didn't talk about that are gonna be in the show notes, some notes, some uh some links to to articles uh for this particular episode. But I think um I think we've kind of covered really the ideas of community in in a big, big way. And I I would encourage everyone out there just you know to be thinking about how do I establish big time community? Because this year, especially coming back in, students are gonna be starved for that and ready, um, ready to be connected to a group that is doing something together.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

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.