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Episode Summary:

Learn how to use students’ prior knowledge to not only propel them forward to reach the standards in your grade level, but clear up many day-to-day problems that come from managing a classroom full of students.

In this episode, we talk with Pamela Seda, author of Choosing to See: A Framework For Equity in the Math Classroom and we share how to structure your lessons so you are in position to use powerful formative assessment techniques so you can save time and achieve more. Pamela shares the important ideas she will present at the 2024 6th annual Make Math Moments Virtual Summit.

Resources:

• #207 Choosing To See with Pamela Seda [Podcast Episode]
• #88 Start The School Year Off Right From A Distance [Podcast Episode]
• #139 – Making Math Moments Day 1 to 180 [Podcast Episode]
• Making Math Moments Academy – Strengthen all six (6) key areas of an effective math classroom. 

Attention District Math Leaders:

How are you ensuring that you support those educators who need a nudge to spark a focus on growing their pedagogical-content knowledge? 

What about opportunities for those who are eager and willing to elevate their practice, but do not have the support? 

Book a call with our District Improvement Program Team to learn how we can not only help you craft, refine and implement your district math learning goals, but also provide all of the professional learning supports your educators need to grow at the speed of their learning. 

Book a short conversation with our team now. 

Episode Summary:

Upcoming Summit Session and Icu Care Framework

Jon, Kyle, and Pam discussed an upcoming virtual summit session led by Pam in November. They recalled their previous conversation about the Icu care framework and its application in classrooms. Pam shared a recent math moment where she advised a teacher on starting the school year with problem-based activities, drawing from her own experience as a new teacher. Jon and Kyle appreciated Pam’s initiative and requested she share the activity immediately, emphasizing the importance of not being left hanging.

Pam’s Collaborative Math Approach Discussed

Pam shared her experience using the ‘Algebra, One’ textbook, which focuses on problem-solving, in her previous district. She described an activity where students worked on a problem individually, then in pairs and teams, and finally as a class, reflecting on their process and the accuracy of their answers. This activity set the tone for the collaborative and engaging approach to math that Pam planned to use throughout the school year. She also highlighted a math moment where students shared their own math stories, demonstrating how math is present in everyday life.

Setting Expectations and Activating Prior Knowledge in Math Class

Jon emphasized the importance of setting expectations and creating a positive classroom culture at the start of the school year. He mentioned a resource he and Kyle had put together to help teachers kick off the school year effectively. Jon also highlighted Pam’s upcoming session at the 2024 Mcmath Moments Virtual Summit, which would focus on activating prior knowledge in math class as a component of the Icu care framework. Pam then began to elaborate on the principle of assess, activate, and build on prior knowledge, and why it’s an equity issue.

Introducing CER Assessment Rubric Development

PamSEDa introduced a new assessment rubric she created called the CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning), designed to improve student learning outcomes. The CER rubric focuses on providing clear feedback to students, helping them understand their proficiency and areas for improvement. It was initially developed for the math department as part of the school’s improvement plan, and PamSEDa later adapted it to other subjects. The CER rubric was well-received by the school, and PamSEDa is now using it to guide her teaching.

Rubric-Based Feedback for Student Improvement

Pam Sedda shared her approach to using a rubric for providing feedback to students, which she found to be more effective than traditional methods. Kyle expressed his support for this approach, emphasizing the importance of the work put into helping students improve, regardless of the assessment structure used. They both highlighted the value of defining proficiency levels and providing clear feedback to students. The group also discussed the challenges of aligning grading practices with this approach, particularly when faced with rigid grading requirements.

Addressing Academic Struggles With Delta Math

Pam shared her successful approach to addressing her children’s academic struggles using online assignments from Delta Math and regular communication. She also discussed the importance of formative assessments in tracking student progress, with the upcoming summit registration at makemathmoments.com/summit being a platform for sharing practical strategies to improve student outcomes. The team was encouraged to attend Pam’s session and anticipated seeing everyone at the virtual summit.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:20:22
Pamela Seda
I created it because of realizing that so much of assessment that we do is really for the teacher and that the kids very seldom benefit from it. It’s more, okay, I know what the kid knows, but then does the kid know how to improve from it? Do they know what their next steps are? I mean, even if we tell a kid what they did wrong.

00:00:20:24 – 00:00:21:15
Pamela Seda
Does it help?

00:00:21:18 – 00:00:42:03
Jon Orr
In this episode, we are going to speak with returning guests to Pamela Saito, author of Choosing to See. And we’re going to specifically talk about learning how to use students prior knowledge and the assessment, information and data that you learn from students after propel them forward to reach standards, to reach grade level standards, to clear up day to day issues you have in your classrooms.

00:00:42:03 – 00:01:13:12
Jon Orr
The assessment you learn every single day from your students because you are exceptional, caring, thoughtful teachers. Your teachers who are listening to what’s happening in the classroom, seeing what’s happening classroom. Pamela status here to talk about the framework she’s using to make that happen in the classroom. Let’s get into it. What?

00:01:13:14 – 00:01:16:14
Kyle Pearce
Welcome to the Making Math Moments That Matter podcast.

00:01:16:14 – 00:01:20:18
Jon Orr
I’m Kyle Pierce and I’m John or we are from Big moment dcop.

00:01:20:20 – 00:01:30:19
Kyle Pearce
This is the only podcast that coaches you through a six step plan to grow your mathematics program, whether it’s at the classroom level or at the district level.

00:01:30:20 – 00:01:45:23
Jon Orr
And we do that by helping you cultivate in foster your mathematics program like strong, healthy and balanced SRI. So if you master the six parts of an effective mathematics program, the impact that you are going to have on your teachers, your students will grow and reach far and wide.

00:01:46:00 – 00:02:00:04
Kyle Pearce
Every week you’ll get the insight you need to stop feeling overwhelmed, gain back your confidence and get back to enjoying the planning and facilitating of your mathematics program for the students or the educators that you serve.

00:02:00:06 – 00:02:19:09
Jon Orr
Hey there, Pamela. Thanks for joining us for a second time on the Making Math Moments That Matter podcast, We talk with you back in episode 207, and this one’s going to be, well, let me look, let me look. This one is going to be 298. It was a while back. It was back in 2022 that we chatted with you about the ICU care framework.

00:02:19:11 – 00:02:29:17
Jon Orr
I’m sure we’ll dig into that a little bit here today. But welcome back. We’re going to talk all things about your virtual summit session. That’s coming up in November. So welcome. And how are things?

00:02:29:19 – 00:02:51:19
Pamela Seda
Things have been going great. I’ve just been loving having the opportunity to talk with teachers and go to different conferences across the country and see that people do things differently than we do here in Georgia. And it’s always great to learn from other people not that Georgia does things bad. It’s just always good to get the best of everything and pull it all together.

00:02:51:19 – 00:02:53:11
Pamela Seda
So I’ve been doing great.

00:02:53:13 – 00:03:18:18
Kyle Pearce
I love it. I love it. We definitely can relate. We work with a lot of districts all over North America and beyond, and you see some of the similarities and a lot of the challenges are very similar. We find. But then you also look at some creative sort of approaches and things that people are doing and have, you know, been sort of grass roots and sort of worked on together in these smaller pockets, which is really awesome.

00:03:18:18 – 00:03:43:24
Kyle Pearce
So to be able to go and see and learn and then bring you get to leave something, but you get to take something back with you is always amazing. Before we dig into this show, we do usually ask folks for their math moment, but you already shared a math moment back on episode 207. So today we’re going to throw something at you and we’re going to ask you, like, what would you say is a math moment lately?

00:03:44:01 – 00:03:53:00
Kyle Pearce
That’s either resonated with you or maybe something that’s been on your mind. Before we dig into all about your summit session.

00:03:53:02 – 00:04:17:17
Pamela Seda
It’s interesting that you asked that because I think I had a math moment yesterday. I was talking with a teacher who I actually met at in CTAM Regional Conference in Seattle, and so she was wanting to implement ICU care with her students. And so she I talked with her yesterday. And so she we were talking about she says, well, I’m going to start this beginning of the school year.

00:04:17:19 – 00:04:44:07
Pamela Seda
Do you have any advice for how to start the year off? And so I told her about this problem based activity that I created for the first day of school, and I talked about how it really set the stage for how we’re going to do math. We did math. And it’s funny, the way I came up with this activity was because I was a brand new teacher and I did not, you know how pre-planning I don’t know how they do it in Canada, but pre-planning starts on Monday and it was Thursday before I was in the system.

00:04:44:07 – 00:05:03:03
Pamela Seda
So I had four days to where I couldn’t even get. When you’re not in the system, you can’t log on. And so needless to say, I wasn’t going to have my syllabus ready and I wasn’t going to have my textbooks ready to give out on day one. So I was like, All right, so let me create a math activity that I going to do on the first day.

00:05:03:05 – 00:05:11:08
Pamela Seda
And after that, it was such a wonderful activity. I was like, I’ll never give out textbooks and do syllabus on day one again.

00:05:11:10 – 00:05:12:23
Jon Orr
Well, you can’t leave us hanging.

00:05:13:01 – 00:05:14:11
Pamela Seda
What’s the activity? Okay.

00:05:14:13 – 00:05:19:09
Jon Orr
Yeah, yeah, give it to us. Now, this whole episode became about this.

00:05:19:11 – 00:05:31:18
Pamela Seda
When I was in a previous district. We had use a Algebra one textbook called Algebra one a Process Approach, and was produced by the University of Hawaii. So we called it Hawaii Algebra.

00:05:31:20 – 00:05:32:13
Kyle Pearce
It’s very different.

00:05:32:13 – 00:05:51:22
Pamela Seda
Algebra in the Chapter one, Chapter one was all about problem solving and how do we take kids to the four steps of problem solving? And then the rest of the book was problem solving. So there was a problem in there called the Bingo Problem, and it was a five by five square and it asked how many squares are on the bingo card.

00:05:51:24 – 00:06:10:01
Pamela Seda
And of course the kids think it’s 25, but that’s because they’re only counting the one by one squares. So then I make them think. So the activity I gave was work on this by yourself. Right? Answer down. Okay, Now work with a partner. What answer do you have with your partner? Write that answer down. Work with your team.

00:06:10:01 – 00:06:33:05
Pamela Seda
And I always had very first day of school. They were seated so that they knew who their teammates were because their desks were together. So I said, Now put your hands together with your team. Write that answer. And then now let’s discuss it as a class and write that answer down. So then I had them reflect, Okay, which configuration did you enjoy doing the most with the most comfortable for you?

00:06:33:07 – 00:06:55:12
Pamela Seda
So then I said, For which configuration do you think the answer was the most accurate? And so they got the chance to see. A lot of them really liked working by themselves, but they said they prefer to work by themselves. But then they realized their answer wasn’t very accurate, that they got closer to the more accurate answer to consensus, the more people that were involved in the learning process.

00:06:55:12 – 00:07:12:14
Pamela Seda
And I said throughout school, this is what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be solving problems. You’re going to be engaging in doing math that you don’t already know how to do, but you will have the opportunity to work in all these configurations. Sometimes you’re going to work by yourself, Sometimes you’re going to work with a partner, sometimes you’re going to work with your team.

00:07:12:14 – 00:07:28:06
Pamela Seda
Sometimes we’re going to do a whole group. And that just day one set the expectation and the fact that it was the first day they already knew I wasn’t going to be like other teachers because everybody else was doing syllabi and giving out textbooks. So that was the activity. Now. So how did that lead to my math moment?

00:07:28:11 – 00:07:49:20
Pamela Seda
Well, this teacher shared an activity that she had done and we were talking about in my book, we’re talking about sharing mastery. You know how I’ve asked kids to give their teachers to find out their students math autobiography, their math stories. Well, she said their team decided to share their own math story, but literally, it was a math story.

00:07:49:20 – 00:08:13:16
Pamela Seda
It was their story. And they had to fill in the blank. And there were numbers. So they had a bank of numbers and the kids had to figure out and fill in the numbers based on the context and getting to know the teacher. And I remember thinking how math is everywhere. But sometimes in school we have a very narrow view of it.

00:08:13:18 – 00:08:25:20
Pamela Seda
And I just loved how they humanize mathematics on the very first day with sharing their own personal stories, but seeing numbers and context. That was my math moment.

00:08:26:01 – 00:08:43:14
Jon Orr
It’s great because I think, you know, the time that folks are listening to this episode, we’re getting ready to go back to school. It’s summer, but also like it’s crisper, probably closer to where you’re from in Atlanta. We’re getting real ready to come back to school us up in the north or probably a little bit longer. But I mean, like people start thinking about it early.

00:08:43:20 – 00:09:00:09
Jon Orr
It’s a perfect math moment for this time. And this is probably why it came up yesterday. Right. Is this is what we’re thinking about right now being coming into August. It’s like the longest Sunday night ever. And we’re thinking about those moves we’re going to make in the first day. And Kyle and I, we’ve put together a resource about how to kick off the school year.

00:09:00:09 – 00:09:15:14
Jon Orr
Right. And it’s all about what you just said. I used to spend years and spend years. I taught for years going through the syllabus in the handbook and going through the rules. And don’t do this and don’t do that. And it’s like, why did I do that? Why didn’t I do the PAM move here and get the bingo card out, you know?

00:09:15:14 – 00:09:37:04
Jon Orr
And it wasn’t until later where you realize, if you like, that doesn’t matter. It matters about getting right into setting expectations, showing what it looks like on a regular basis and getting math right away, but also setting the culture and creating that culture right away. Super important to kind of like ditch that syllabus and get right into it right away and get the kids to know who you are and also get to know who the kids are.

00:09:37:04 – 00:09:55:13
Jon Orr
You know, get to know the kids right away. Pam, let’s jump now into because I think that it’s going to spawn right into the session that you’re going to be talking with us at the 2024 MC Math Moments Virtual Summit, which your session this year, because you were with us last year, you kicked off on the Friday night and we’re kind of leading the way back last year.

00:09:55:13 – 00:10:22:02
Jon Orr
So lots of folks, a lot of interest last year. This year, your summit session is from what they know to where they grow, which, you know, sounds it rolls off the tongue there, but it’s all about activating prior knowledge in math class. So which I know is a component of your ICU care framework. So give us the high level of what you’re going to talk about at this session and then we’ll we’ll dig in on it and then we’ll let everybody get on with their way early.

00:10:22:02 – 00:10:53:08
Pamela Seda
So I’m going to start off by talking about that principle of assess, activate and build on prior knowledge and why it’s important and why doing that is an equity issue. And then I’m going to talk about a practical way to do it. I’m going to introduce a tool that I created called I call it the CPR Single point rubric, and I created it because of realizing that so much of assessment that we do is really for the teacher and that the kids very seldom benefit from it.

00:10:53:08 – 00:11:15:14
Pamela Seda
It’s more, okay, I know what the kid knows, but then does the kid know how to improve from it? Do they know what their next steps are? I mean, even if we tell a kid what they did wrong, does it help them get better? Does it help them along the trajectory of learning? So I created this rubric. One is I was inspired by a post on the cult of pedagogy.

00:11:15:14 – 00:11:38:23
Pamela Seda
They talked about the single point rubric and when I noticed it, so single point rubric basically says this is what proficiency looks like, and then it has a blank column for not proficient, and then it has a blank column for exceeding. So that way you give feedback to why a kid is not proficient or why a kid is exceeding proficient.

00:11:39:00 – 00:12:01:08
Pamela Seda
And one of the reasons I love that, because I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to use four point rubrics or even tried to create four point rubrics. There are so many ways a kid could go sideways and you’re asking me to make a prediction about what’s a four, what to three? And always invariably kids were between a three and a two, and I didn’t know there are two of them and there’s a three.

00:12:01:09 – 00:12:01:21
Pamela Seda
That’s where.

00:12:01:22 – 00:12:04:20
Kyle Pearce
It was. Yeah, I don’t know about you, but.

00:12:04:22 – 00:12:17:16
Jon Orr
Like when I remember trying to make those a long time ago and so many you see, is about like more or less it’s quantity versus quality or the descriptors are just so vague. It’s like you do this consistently.

00:12:17:18 – 00:12:47:15
Pamela Seda
You describe hard time keeping adequately, had a hard time using them. And so if I’m having a hard time, I know the students don’t benefit from it that much. So that was the first thing. One reason I just love that idea of the single point rubric is give feedback and a lot of students aren’t getting feedback. And then the other thing I did and I actually just like I told the example about how I kind of stumbled across the first day activity because my syllabus wasn’t ready.

00:12:47:17 – 00:13:14:22
Pamela Seda
Well, this was another example. I stumbled across the S.R. rubric because I was a part of a school improvement plan committee and they wanted to make gradual release of responsibility. The math strategy for our school improvement plan. And I tried my best as gently as possible to try to steer them away. But they were really insisting on gradual results of responsibility.

00:13:14:22 – 00:13:38:21
Pamela Seda
So I said, I’ve got nothing on you. I got nothing for you. So I said, Let’s go. Let the science department go. And so they just shared. S.R. four and it was accepted and they loved it. And I was like, claim evidence, reasoning. I think we can do that for math. And so I Googled it and I saw that it was used in some math settings of what I didn’t tell my administrator at the time.

00:13:38:21 – 00:14:02:21
Pamela Seda
It was mostly elementary and I was a high school, but that didn’t matter. So our school adopted claim evidence, reasoning for our math department, for our school improvement plan. So I developed all these resources around claim evidence reasoning. So I very clearly defined what the adequate claims to a word problem. What’s evidence? Evidence is your work. What does that look like?

00:14:02:21 – 00:14:30:08
Pamela Seda
I had spent time describing that. What is good reasoning? I spent time describing that. So I had done all that as a part of my school in the school improvement plan. So then when I saw I married it with the single point rubric and Walla, and then I realized this is just so much more effective because it gives students and tells them not only why this is not proficient, but it then also says this is what you can do.

00:14:30:10 – 00:14:45:22
Pamela Seda
And so that’s what I’m going to be sharing, where I’m giving some examples, looking at student work, showing what how we might use the rubric to give feedback to kids, how we might teach kids to use the rubric and get feedback to each other. So that’s what my session is going to be.

00:14:45:24 – 00:15:09:16
Kyle Pearce
I love it. I love it. One of the challenges I find with assessment and evaluation is no matter what improvement we look to make, I think the most important work is the doing of the work, if that makes sense. Right? So it’s like, you know, you went down that path. Pamela, like many of us have, and I do remember trying to make a rubric because supposedly that was going to be the end all, be all for me at the time.

00:15:09:16 – 00:15:32:14
Kyle Pearce
And I found the same challenges. But the more work that we put in to trying to help students along this path, I think the better off we become and the better we’re able to implement, regardless of whether we use C.R. or if we use some other type of structure. As long as we’re doing that thinking, I think that’s where we get the biggest payoff.

00:15:32:14 – 00:16:10:06
Kyle Pearce
So I’m really excited for all of the attendees at this year’s summit who are going to have an opportunity, whether they’ve heard of C.R. before, maybe they’ve utilized it or tried to utilize it before, or maybe it’s brand new by them going on that journey with you. I can already hear it just in this very short preview that you’re giving us here on today’s episode that people will be able to relate to some of your struggles, but then they’re also going to be able to potentially see what you’re doing differently through this method and whether they choose to use that exact model or whether they take what you’ve learned by using this model and try

00:16:10:06 – 00:16:33:23
Kyle Pearce
to apply it to whatever journey they’re on. I’m seeing that anyone and everyone who attends this session at the summit is going to be able to walk away with some great reflections, some great action items that they can put into place as we begin this new school year. I know this episode is coming out as many school years are starting and then this summit is in November.

00:16:33:23 – 00:16:49:08
Kyle Pearce
So that’s kind of a nice little place for people to kind of be tweaking along the way, right, Trying to make things better and easier for them and in turn making it easier for their students, as you mentioned, to interpret and utilize.

00:16:49:10 – 00:17:14:01
Pamela Seda
Yes, because what I found was the power of creating this rubric was the clarity of my expectations. And that’s what I love about the single point rubric. Was I making it crystal clear what is proficiency? And then I realize, do I need to have all these levels below proficiency? I don’t really care. Do I need to know that you’re way below?

00:17:14:04 – 00:17:39:20
Pamela Seda
Like, it doesn’t matter if the expectation that I communicated was we’re going to keep working long until it’s proficient and I’m going to continue to give you feedback until it’s proficient because clarifying and defining what below proficiency is to me is not nearly as important as defining what is proficient. And then when your work comes, if it’s not proficient for me to help you understand, what do you need to do to make it proficient?

00:17:39:20 – 00:17:58:18
Jon Orr
And this is something that we strongly believe in as well, because we’ve made changes in our math program, in the math classes, to assess. We used to call it, you know, we do call it assessing for growth, just making sure that this is where we’re trying to get where we’re trying to reach the standard, where we’re trying to perform at standard level, go above and beyond.

00:17:58:23 – 00:18:28:22
Jon Orr
Here’s the benchmark, here’s where we’re trying to aim for. And I completely agree, if you’re not there, our job is to help you get there. And we shouldn’t be penalizing you. If you’re not, we shouldn’t be like holding it against. It’s almost like we used to always say, like the marks are in flux until you get there. But then it’s like, but we’re at some point the course is going to end or the year is going to end, and we’re going to be somewhere along this line of where you were or where you currently are on these standards.

00:18:28:22 – 00:18:36:24
Jon Orr
And then that’s the time. It’s like, okay, now we’ve turned assessment into evaluation, but we always used to say everything is formative assessment until.

00:18:36:24 – 00:18:38:12
Pamela Seda
That end, right?

00:18:38:14 – 00:19:11:23
Jon Orr
Right. Because the formative assessment is about helping students see where they are in their standards and helping them grow or improve, like get the information you need to improve your instruction so that the students can then grow and reach the standard. Now, the question that I think we get asked all the time about in thinking about formative assessment that way and using assessment tools like the rubric you’re describing and structuring your assessment guidelines in classrooms to make sure that you’re getting students to perform and reach these standards.

00:19:11:23 – 00:19:30:09
Jon Orr
The pushback where I guess the question, it’s not really pushback. It’s the question is like John Kyle, Pam, like what do we do when the marking periods here we get this here in Ontario, I think we all lot more flexibility with when grades go in and when we can assess on these standards and when, you know, we can we can stretch it all year long.

00:19:30:15 – 00:19:50:04
Jon Orr
But a lot of times, like in Atlanta, I’m sure it’s like the grading period ends and then it’s like teachers have to put the market the grade book and then they don’t get a chance to change that grade book. That’s one of the battles I think people it holds people back but going, I want to try this. Do I just put it in and then it’s stuck there, even though I don’t believe it should be stuck there.

00:19:50:04 – 00:20:01:14
Jon Orr
And how do I grapple with this? What have you seen from teachers? How do you guide people in kind of like grappling with this? I have to put marks in, but I really want to use assessment to keep the learning going, right?

00:20:01:16 – 00:20:24:23
Pamela Seda
So this was just something that I had to do. My district was very rigid about grades. I had to put in three grades every week. I had to. So that was not flexible for me. I had to put three grades in a week. And so I then they had to figure out how do I take this single point rubric and turn it into a grade, Right?

00:20:24:24 – 00:20:55:24
Pamela Seda
So it’s so I said proficiency was at 85. Then I had two categories for exceeding. So it was 85, 95 or 100. So part of that had to do with being clear, what’s it, 85, what’s a 95 is 100. So that just made my life easier. And so that was the beginning. Now, how did I deal with the reality of the fact that I just had kids who just had stuff that wasn’t proficient, either had failing grades or didn’t for me was more likely just stuff that they just didn’t do at all.

00:20:56:01 – 00:21:25:00
Pamela Seda
So this was another case of where I was upset with one of my administrators, and so I was going to prove to them that they marked me down for something and I was like, I’ll show you. And I came up with something really, and it had to do with remediation. So I came up with the remediation plan, which was I created online assignments that were and I mean, this is I’m not really I’m not make any money off this, but this is just the reality of what I use.

00:21:25:00 – 00:21:48:06
Pamela Seda
I use Delta math because it was a way to practice skills. I created Delta math assignments that covered the content that they missed. And I would create these assignments so that they’d have plenty of practice. And if they showed proficiency and a Delta math proficiency for me was 100, right? If you could get 100 on this, then I would replace any grade that was missing with that grade.

00:21:48:11 – 00:22:03:15
Pamela Seda
So that just means you always had an opportunity to be able to go back and replace it. But I did have because I had certain grade period times that was and I couldn’t change it. So I was being proactive. If you know your kids, you know how human nature is. We always wait till the last minute to do that.

00:22:03:15 – 00:22:24:12
Pamela Seda
And if I know that’s how my kids were, then I was proactive. I had certain days that I would have them just workdays and I would call out my kids every day. I mean, single handedly, every kid, one by one, I’d have their grade printed out. I’d say, highlight the grade you don’t like. They would highlight it. Okay.

00:22:24:12 – 00:22:52:14
Pamela Seda
Highlight the corresponding replacement assignments. They’d highlight it, highlight the due date they’d highlight. And I said, okay, so now do you have a plan for what you’re going to do? And they’re like, Yes. And I would say for now, more than 95% of my kids that worked, it was to me the difference was that one on one and I gave them a path for how they could and for the way vast majority of my kids that did the trick.

00:22:52:14 – 00:23:19:13
Pamela Seda
And then of course, I gave that information to the parents as well and emailed them. But I did have deadlines and I did have some kids who just never would do it, but they weren’t. Those were actually it was my most capable kids who would be the ones who wouldn’t meet the deadlines, I guess because the system had rewarded them for noncompliance or not doing the assignment, they were able to.

00:23:19:13 – 00:23:30:19
Pamela Seda
And so they were the more likely the ones to not honor the deadlines. But most of my kids who struggled in math, that was enough for them to do whatever they needed to do.

00:23:30:21 – 00:23:47:12
Kyle Pearce
Well, you know what we noticed in John? I think he would agree with me on this when we were doing our talk about it on the podcast a lot, where we would do our weekly assessment, it was more or less a formative assessment where we were just really trying to see where students at. It’s like a check in.

00:23:47:14 – 00:24:06:23
Kyle Pearce
We wanted students, we called them growth Days After doing that, we would give them the opportunity. We had a tech tool, for example, that was one of the tools they could utilize. Yep, very similar. We also had some other activities that they could do if they wanted, you know, to go pen to paper and they wanted to rework on certain standards and improve them.

00:24:07:00 – 00:24:38:21
Kyle Pearce
And something that I noticed is like you’d get one or two of those high achieving students that were like they were trying to go for like the 100, right? Like, so they were going hard. But I totally know that group of students that it was almost like you had some students who were struggling and it was almost like they were like, Wow, I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity because I haven’t had the opportunity, the time and support that I’ve needed up to this point, and I’m going to do something about it, which was fantastic, which is really what the real group that we’re really trying to highlight there.

00:24:38:23 – 00:25:01:12
Kyle Pearce
But something that was interesting is that group that will call the students who I would say I’ll call it a little bit of lucky, meaning like they had maybe more prior knowledge that they brought with them or maybe something in their experience, something along the way where they were able maybe they were the memorizes was like I was in school, the memorized or that’s able to quickly get something out and be done with it.

00:25:01:14 – 00:25:31:23
Kyle Pearce
But it was like they weren’t interested in doing any better than that. It was like, This is my first ditch effort and this is what I’m going to put in and it is what it is and I’m going to move along. So I’m happy that you share that because I don’t know if I’ve talked much about it previously, but I’m sure that there’s some educators out there that envision when you give students multiple opportunities to improve and to show their thinking and to show their growth in your mind, you’re envisioning 100% of students are all benefiting from this, right?

00:25:31:23 – 00:25:56:24
Kyle Pearce
And they’re all taking advantage of it. But the reality is that may and it likely is not going to be the case, then the next challenge becomes is how do we motivate that particular group to, like, go for more? You are so capable of doing more here. Let’s apply that. So I really appreciate that friends who are listening, I’m sure through this episode you’ve already got some great takeaways from Pamela here.

00:25:57:05 – 00:26:26:13
Kyle Pearce
And of course, if you get to spend a full hour, I say if when you spend a full hour with Pamela at the virtual summit coming up in November, you’re going to have an opportunity to dig into the weeds here. You’ll have the visuals with the slides and you’ll have all kinds of wonderful opportunities to interact with Pamela and dig in on her session called from what they know to where they grow, activating prior knowledge in the math classroom.

00:26:26:15 – 00:26:57:06
Kyle Pearce
We always put an asterisks there because between now and then I know how I am as a presenter. Sometimes I tweak things along the way. So look for Pamela because who knows, maybe by then she might change her mind on things a little bit, but definitely look for Pamela session. Pamela It’s been an awesome pleasure here. If there’s one takeaway that you hope people get not just from this episode, but specifically from your session when they come to join you and spend an hour with you at the virtual summit.

00:26:57:12 – 00:27:02:00
Kyle Pearce
What are you hoping that they’ll walk away with when they leave?

00:27:02:02 – 00:27:16:17
Pamela Seda
I hope they walk away with the fact that assessment should help kids get better and that they’ll have practical tools so that the kids will know how to get better, not just information for teachers.

00:27:16:19 – 00:27:36:18
Jon Orr
Love it. Love it. And we’re going to put all the links in the show notes of this episode so you can go and register for the summit. That’s actually you can pre-register right now. You can head on over to make math memes dot com boards. That summit you can get in there and then I will let you know when the actual registration goes live so that you can click and register exactly for Pam’s session.

00:27:36:18 – 00:27:41:09
Jon Orr
Pam, we want to thank you for joining us and we look forward to seeing you in November.

00:27:41:11 – 00:27:47:11
Pamela Seda
I look forward to it. And I guess I’ll see you in Chicago. Or are you going to be a team?

00:27:47:13 – 00:27:55:16
Kyle Pearce
Are we at City? I’m we’re going out west. I think we’re going to Chicago, too, But I think we’re going to have to check our calendars. That’s what I think this means.

00:27:55:18 – 00:27:58:22
Jon Orr
When I’m CSM and CSM. I’m pretty sure that’s right.

00:27:58:24 – 00:28:00:21
Pamela Seda
So I will see you in Chicago.

00:28:00:23 – 00:28:10:09
Kyle Pearce
Awesome. Awesome. Looking forward to it. Friends. Check out Pam online and we will see all of you at the virtual summit.

00:28:10:11 – 00:28:34:22
Jon Orr
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Pamela Slater. She is here. She is here in the 2024 MC Math Moments. Virtual summit is happening November 15th, 16th and 17th this year. If you have not pre-registered or registered, get on over to make math moment dot com for such summit. She’s going to be presenting there along with many many other presenters.

00:28:34:22 – 00:28:57:04
Jon Orr
We have Joe Boler attending. We have Peter Little Dell. He’s back. We have Sunil Singh, Chris Lesniak, We have many others that are joining us, many returned presenters, but also some new presenters that have not presented before. So make sure you get on over, make that Monster.com fortune summit to pre-register or register, depending on when you were listening to this episode.

00:28:57:06 – 00:29:22:20
Jon Orr
And I want to thank Pamela SATA here again for sharing her information, her knowledge, so that you and me and every other educator listening to this episode can benefit in their classroom to keep propelling students forward to meet those great global standards. Folks, if this is the first time you listen to an episode, we want to welcome you and encourage you to hit that follow button or subscribe button on your podcast platform.

00:29:22:22 – 00:29:41:11
Jon Orr
If you’re returning or don’t forget to hit that rate and review button. We also want to hear from you. We read all of those. Take the suggestions into consideration. Every time there is a suggestion in those reviews so that we can improve the podcast. You’ll notice that some of the episodes are getting a little shorter. We’re getting a little bit more to the point.

00:29:41:13 – 00:30:00:13
Jon Orr
That’s all from suggestions from you folks, from listening, longtime listeners to saying, Hey, how can we improve the show so that you can make it actionable in your classroom, but also manageable to listen to full episodes so head on over to the review button or the rate and review button. It’ll help strengthen the show, but also grow the show so we reach more educators.

00:30:00:15 – 00:30:14:21
Jon Orr
All the links and resources that we talked about here in this episode can be found over on the show Notes page, which does make math moments dot com for episode 298 that’s make math moments dot com for this episode to 98.

00:30:14:23 – 00:30:19:08
Kyle Pearce
All right their math moment makers until next time I’m Kyle.

00:30:19:08 – 00:30:28:06
Jon Orr
Pierce and I am John or high fives for us and a high bar for you. Oh really.

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