Kyle Pearce: Welcome to The Making Math Moments That Matter Podcast. I'm Kyle Pearce.

Jon Orr: And I'm Jon Orr. We are from makemathmoments.com and we are two math teachers who together-

Kyle Pearce: With you, the community of math moment makers worldwide, who want to build and deliver math lessons that spark curiosity.

Jon Orr: Fuel sense making.

Kyle Pearce: And ignite your teacher moves. Welcome my friends to another Kyle and Jon episode of the Making Math Moments That Matter Podcast. And we are excited here today because we're going to be talking a little bit about trickery.

Jon Orr: Trickery.

Kyle Pearce: Yeah.

Jon Orr: Is that bad? I don't know. Yeah.

Kyle Pearce: Well, you know what? We're going to be comparing and contrasting between some positive ways to use trickery, in particular. Not just in math class. We're going to share some examples from the everyday real world, but then also how we can bring that into the classroom and talk about some effective and moral ways that we can influence students as they are learning along their mathematical journey.

Jon Orr: Yeah, Kyle. We're using trickery, but I think a better word, a more positive word we're really using here is influence. How can we influence our students to have productive and a positive relationship towards mathematics, see themselves as mathematicians? I think we can use influence in one way and use influence in another way that actually perpetuates existing math stereotypes that math is this barrier or math is like a get done subject. I think you could go in those two paths. There's probably lots of pathways you can go with how you influence students and their views and their beliefs towards mathematics but in this particular episode, we're going to look at these examples where you can influence kids to have this negative view of mathematics or stereotype, typical view of mathematics that the general population thinks about math, but then also pivot towards what are we doing to help kids develop a positive relationship towards mathematics and how can we influence that more? That's what we're going to talk about in this episode.

Kyle Pearce: I love it. I love it. Really, when we think about, for example, engaging students in general in math class, this idea of engagement really does involve influencing students in some way, shape or form. We often talk about, and we've talked about in previous episodes about the hero's journey, for example. When you are writing a story, when you are a filmmaker and you're writing the script for a film, you're taking people on this journey and you're essentially trying to influence them to fall deeper and deeper into this storyline so that you want to figure out what happens and you stay with that story until the end. And really that is ... If you want to call it, again, influence or trickery, that's a way to use some human psychology to understand the behaviors that we as humans ... How we behave and what we positively respond to and what we negatively respond to.
And then we're trying to think of how do we do this in ways that is actually moral? You certainly can influence people in a positive or a negative way and we're trying to think of how do we do it in a way where we're getting the positive result here? The positive result we know ... I think we would all agree that it's positive for students to learn and become proficient in mathematics. Now, on the other side too, we could do something morally and we can get students to do something. It's still moral because we're trying to get them to the end of this math learning journey, but it might have some negative results in doing so. You had already mentioned maybe they look at math differently or their disposition towards mathematics isn't positive. They still learn the math, but maybe don't feel as positively about it or what mathematics really or truly is. And we're hoping that we can dig into that here, but before we do, Jon, what gave us the idea to have this conversation anyway?

Jon Orr: There's a couple things that I think that were floating around in my mind when I heard a particular podcast. But to go back to also what you were just saying, Kyle, it's almost like if you can think, how can we slip kids into thinking and doing mathematics and thinking about mathematics in a positive way without really them feeling like they're doing mathematics? And I think this is where this story came from. I was listening to a recent episode of The Revisionist History Podcast, Malcolm Gladwell's podcast. When I say recent, we're recording this in the summer of 2022. So this episode just came out. And in this episode, which is the episode Way to Go Ohio, he tells a story that is not a mathematics story, but it made me think about how we can use a similar aspect to slip mathematics into our curriculum so that students aren't really thinking about it.
He talks about a hundred years ago. I think he sets the stage in Northern Michigan, but there was other parts of the world where people were developing goiters. It was a thing that happened to people. They had these areas of the country, more people in that area had goiters bulging out the sides of their neck than the rest of the country. Also when they tested intelligence, these same areas were lower in the intelligence by a significant amount than the rest of the country. And so some studies were done. It was revealed that these areas of the country, the people were not getting iodine into their daily diets as much as the rest of the country or the world. And so there were some studies done to go, how can we get iodine into these diets?
And so what was developed is that they took iodine and iodine in this small form looked like salt. And so these studies, I think one was done in Akron, Ohio, was go to a salt manufacturer and let's ask them to put some iodine little pellets that mixed in with their salt. And what happened was you didn't know the iodine was in the salt. It didn't taste any different than regular salt. It looked like salt. And so it's in your salt shaker. People are eating salt on a regular basis. So what they're also doing is consuming salt in their diet. And what happened was over time, it cleared up this issue. It's the least talked about but huge medical breakthroughs in the last a hundred years that we've almost wiped out this whole goiter issue and also raised the intelligence of these areas that were deficient before, just by introducing iodine into people's daily diets through salt. They didn't even know that they were eating this iodine that was helping them wipe this thing off in the country or across the world.
And it's like, how do we slip that in? And another thing that made me think, Kyle, is fluoride in water. This isn't part of Malcolm Gladwell's story, but-

Kyle Pearce: That's where your head went.

Jon Orr: My head went right there. It's like, what else has people slipped into our daily life that they didn't really tell us? There's an element of trickery here. These people introduced iodine into salt to help this one issue. And this is actually why when you go to the store and you buy a box of salt or table salt, it says iodized salt. Kyle, you were saying you just thought that's just how you made salt, but actually it's them introducing iodine into the salt so that we have that in our diet. But fluoride is the same thing. You've got fluoride in your tap water to help with your dental hygiene and your dental health. Places that don't have fluoride, they have more problems with their teeth and cavities than people who are drinking fluoride on a regular basis. But we don't think that we're drinking fluoride in our tap water, but we are. So it's snuck right in there. And so it's made me think about math education and what are ways that we're doing in our math class and our math lessons that help sneak in this goodness that we need and is good for us but we're not really thinking about what's really happening? What are these elements of trickery that we can use to help students develop these positive relationships towards mathematics?
And the other example was this Flintstones Vitamins and tricking a whole generation of kids into eating vitamins by making them think it's candy. So my mind went there Kyle. What are ways that we are using in our classes to not trick kids, but influence kids into this positive aspect of mathematics? But my mind also went to the other side. What elements of mathematics exist already that people are using trickery or slipping it in there, but maybe aren't helping with the positive view of mathematics? Because I think both exist and both people are using psychology to help kids with mathematics. But like you said at the beginning of the episode, how can we do it in a moral way and help kids with mathematics and their relationship towards it? And how can we avoid these other ways that are actually hurting this view of mathematics?

Kyle Pearce: Yeah. Two things stuck out at me. The first one is it sounds like I should eat more McDonald's fries to get my iodine levels up. So that's one thing. But then the second part is, again, coming back to this idea of what is moral? Because it sounds like with the iodine scenario, it sounds like it was pretty much all positive. Now with the fluoride, you'll notice some towns and cities are actually pulling fluoride because they're worried about other maybe side effects or something. And that's a great example of the challenge here in our role as educators when we try to slip these things in and we want to keep it moral and positive. So I think everything we do as math educators is going to be moral. We want to get students to the end goal of mathematical proficiency and a productive disposition at that.
But then I think as educators, the part that we have to really be thinking about is which is going to be productive? And there's some ways that maybe are unproductive or less helpful, let's say, in getting there. Something that comes to mind after you had shared the fluoride scenario is a personal story that my mom had told me once I was older. And my mom makes a killer spaghetti. We have no Italian background, but I love ... I had a bunch of friends who were Italian. I think they still are actually. I don't think they have ... And they're not any less Italian now. Yeah. They have some Italian heritage. And they used to actually give credit. They're like, "It's not as good as Nonna's but it's pretty good." Which I think is a huge compliment to our family coming from more the British Isles there.
But anyway, my mom had told me later ... I loved my mom's spaghetti sauce. Still love it. And my mom actually said it's interesting because her sauce actually tastes different than it did before I was around as a child, because what she started doing, Jon, was she would actually ... I did not enjoy vegetables as a young child. So she would take carrots and she would grate carrots very finely, get it in the sauce and she would get all kinds of vegetables in there. There was another vegetable that when she said it's in there, I was like, "Really? You put that in our spaghetti sauce?"

Jon Orr: Zucchini? Zucchini?

Kyle Pearce: It might have been. Honestly. Whatever it is it now necessary to have that same makeup and composition. Texture, I suppose. The thickness of the sauce. And it actually affects the taste in a positive way or at least we believe it to be positive. And it was all because she wanted to, again, use a bit of this moral trickery or this influence to ensure that I got this positive result or our family got the positive result of vegetables. Vegetables. Vegetables with all these vitamins and all these things that I wasn't getting in other foods.
So again, when we're thinking about this, how do we do this for our students in our classroom? Where at the end I love spaghetti. I wanted spaghetti. I wanted to have spaghetti almost every meal. And there was also this side benefit, this byproduct that I was receiving without necessarily realizing it in the moment. And once I found out ... This is the other part. I think this is the moral dilemma part is once I found out that's what she was doing I wasn't upset about it. I didn't feel like I was tricked or misled. It was done out of love and out of care.

Jon Orr: Yeah. And I think that right there helps with the moral aspect. If they found out about this trickery, are they upset? Because that's where it's like, okay, I'm upset because this trickery happened and it actually tricked me and now I'm upset about it, versus this one, you know what, I'm okay with it. That's a moral trickery versus an immoral trickery. And I think Kyle, it reminds me of other places. Kraft Dinner I think has this big kick on hey, you can buy Kraft Dinner that has vegetables built into the Kraft Dinner so that you're helping your kids eat Kraft Dinner. They slip it in there.

Kyle Pearce: I like that. It's built in.

Jon Orr: Yeah. It's built in. And it's like the Flintstones Vitamins things. We, in our family, we will grind up or blend up cauliflower with our mashed potatoes all in one, because it looks the same. It tastes ... The same texture so that our kids are eating, say cauliflower, right in the mashed potatoes, which they love. So thinking about that, Kyle, we're going to talk specifically a little later about what are we doing in math class right now in a Make Math Moments classroom that slips mathematics in there and keeps that positive and moral way. But let's talk also about some examples that we've seen that try to use psychology and help kids, like trick kids into doing math or influence kids in a math way but I think we could be doing this better.

Kyle Pearce: Yeah. I love it. I love it. First off, when we think about digital tools, okay ... And we'll go to our actual lessons. How we can structure lessons as well. I think that's really important for us to talk about because I think a lot of what you and I do, I think if you've listened to the podcast for a really long time, you know that Jon and I read and in particular listen to a lot of books that are both in education, but also in other aspects of human psychology and just behavioral science and things like that. And we try to use these tools as means to help both educators. So we use some of these tools in our podcast and some of the content when we're presenting, but also with our students. And one that pops out at me in education and math education is what a lot of digital tools use as a strategy to get students to want to engage with those tools.
Let's talk about the most basic math app is one that just drills and kills or just asks questions repeatedly over and over again. I hope that they just keep going. Maybe a mom or dad, or maybe that teacher will say, "Listen, you have to do 10 minutes of this a day and it's going to help you." And sure, things are going to be fine and students will learn something about it and great. But those types of apps are going to be less likely for a student to maybe want to pick it up on their own and engage with it. So we have these other companies that try to influence students and try to get them to play. And I don't know if we should name the particular app just in case. And it's not the only one.

Jon Orr: It's a game. It's a game where you're on a mission.

Kyle Pearce: It's one that comes to mind. Yes. It's one that comes to mind. And I know even my kids sometimes want to play this game. It is a game where you do things in the game but when you get to the next part of the game, a new game pops up or this big roadblock comes up and the roadblock is math. And it's in order for you to keep going to play the fun game-

Jon Orr: You can't go down this pathway. Yeah.

Kyle Pearce: Yes. You have to do this question, which has nothing to do with the game. There's no relevance of the topic either. So it's not like, "Hey, you were in a scenario where there were five people and there was a pizza there." That would be a game based app. This particular app is more gamified. I guess it's a bit of both. There's a game, but it's not a math game. And then you have to do math in order to continue in this game. And kids tend to like it. But I often wonder about the effectiveness of how students feel about math after engaging with this game for a long period of time.

Jon Orr: Yeah. So think about the implications of what's happening here. I'm playing this game and I'm having fun and I'm interested in this storyline and I've battled this character or I've jumped across this bridge or I solved this little problem. And then all of a sudden, in order for me to keep going, I have to get through this math problem.

Kyle Pearce: I have to find the mean of these seven numbers.

Jon Orr: Right. Or I have to multiply this two digit by two digit number and put the answer in a text box until I get it right in order to keep going in the game. So think about what's happening here is that kids are enjoying this storyline or this game and then all of a sudden, there's this roadblock that says, in order for you to continue having fun, you have to do this math question. And that's the barrier to you having fun right now. Because like you said, Kyle, it's not embedded. It's just this barrier that comes up. And I want to have fun, but I have to do math first.
And what kind of message are we sending to our kids that math is still the bad guy here? Math is preventing me from fun. And when we were chatting earlier ... For me playing video games, imagine we reimagine Super Mario. Super Mario Brothers, the original game. Think about at the end of the world, 1-4, there was always the castle, right? You had to battle the castle and get through the castle. You had to jump over the Bowser ... I don't even remember what these things are called. Spikes all over. He's guarding the princess and you have to jump over or jump under and get the drawbridge. But I imagine you're trying to-

Kyle Pearce: This Bowser, right? Are we talking about Bowser?

Jon Orr: Well, Bowser's the very end. There was a whole bunch of little castles along the way. But imagine that you're playing this game and all of a sudden, instead of Bowser or instead of the boss at the end of the level, there's this math question that pops up and it's jumping around and I have to do that instead of jump over ... Let the drawbridge go. We have to do math. Math is now the bad guy in the game. What message is that sending to our students that said, "You know what? You could have fun here, but math is preventing you from doing that."?

Kyle Pearce: Right. Totally. And on the opposite end of the spectrum ... That's one example and there's many other examples of approaches like that particular game. But actually it brings a quote to mind. Actually, I heard it first here. I don't know if it was him who created it so I apologize if it's not properly cited. But I heard this quote. It's like chocolate covered broccoli. Where you're just trying to hide the math under the chocolate. And this was Matt Murphy from Zorbit's. Zorbit's is an app I'll talk about in just a second because they approach it very differently than this other app we just referenced and we tried not to name, but I think a lot of people probably know of one like it. And when you think about that, we don't want students to think the game is the chocolate and the math is the broccoli.
Now, my son loves broccoli so maybe a different food item there, but something that let's say is less favorable.

Jon Orr: Brussels sprouts.

Kyle Pearce: Yeah. Brussels sprouts or whatever it is that you don't enjoy or the student doesn't enjoy. We don't want that dynamic because it's almost like it actually almost accentuates that negative relationship with mathematics. You're comparing in contrast, yes, this is so much better and math is so much worse. It almost makes it even more explicit. And we don't want that for students, despite the fact that maybe they'll do more math. I feel like it's almost like when you're at wits end and you're going, "I just can't get students to engage," so we resort to an app like that, where at least they'll do something. It's better than nothing. And I totally get that. I understand that you might feel that way as an educator. Matt Murphy and the team there from Zorbit's ... Jon, you and I have met and had conversations with their team. Awesome team of people. Their head's in the right place in terms of what they're trying to do because they actually have a game based app that where the game is about the math. The Zorbit is this little space alien going from planet to planet and it's constantly running into these challenges, which are all math related. So it's not separate. There is no chocolate covering here. They try to make the experience, the productive struggle of the mathematics, built into the game, which I think is fantastic.
And there's a side benefit too, Jon. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this to you. I don't know how deeply you've gone in the app, but my children were young and they had been using this app for a little while when they were younger. And when you're in the app, something I like about it is that they also introduce different models and strategies and they're trying to elicit different models and strategies. So you'll see they're counting something and everything's in rows of tens or rows of five. So it's 10 frames are creating. And then the number line will come up for another activity.
There's all kinds of things built in, but it's to serve the purpose of getting to the next place in the game, which is going to bring you to yet another problem that you need to solve. There's an artist trying to take shapes and make them fit over on the canvas. It's an odd composite figure and you're trying to take these shapes, which are actually little pattern blocks and they're taking them to try to take the pattern blocks to complete the canvas over here. And that's the challenge. That's the point of the game. And I think they do that really well. It's not the only app out there that does that, but it's definitely something that really helps us to ensure that math isn't the villain in the game. Math is actually the tool in the game. It's the solution.
It is the thing that's going to actually help you get to the next place rather than hold you back from doing the fun part of the game. It is the fun part of the game. And I feel like that's a great use of moral trickery with that Zorbit's app. Whereas that other app and apps like the other one we were describing is actually using ... I don't want to say it's immoral. It's not immoral, but I would say it's a less effective, less helpful, less productive way of using this influence or trickery or behavioral psychology to the advantage where we're trying to get students to learn the mathematics.

Jon Orr: Yeah. Good examples there for sure. So the question becomes how can we slip good thinking, good mathematics, building that relationship, good mathematics connections with our students, but keep it in a moral way and not capitalize on just perpetuating stereotypes or this myth that math is evil? Because I think you can do it that way. So it's like, what can we do to keep this pathway going and also give kids this goodness that we know is good, this mathematics? How can we help kids with that mathematics understanding, but slip it in so that they don't know that they're doing math? Like the Flintstones Vitamin. Like the salt and the iodine mixed together. Like your mom's spaghetti. Let's get that in there so that we don't know, but let's try to make sure we avoid using it this way over here. There's lots of examples.
Also people have been doing this for apps and educational consultants have been doing this for the last few years. Moving into gamification. How can we help kids gamify? I know that's what that app we referenced before and Zorbit's is trying to do. But there's those gamification sites that are awarding prizes and candies and rewards, maybe these little icons with a points system. So I think there's still that element there that's like, I'm going to try to trick you into doing more math by giving you prizes. I think this happens in classrooms all the time, right Kyle? It's like, we're going to play this game for this prize. And I think that's a form of this influence or this trickery that we can do with students. And I think, as I said, it happens a lot. And I know that if we brought my wife down here right now and told her about that, she would flip out as a Montessori trained educator highly against any prize for doing this thing. This external motivation is going to eventually fail. When I don't want the prize then does that mean I don't have to do any more mathematics? I feel like there's still better ways to trick kids into doing more math and good math.

Kyle Pearce: Yeah. I love it. I love it. And some people might even argue and I've heard this argument before where they're like, "Well, wouldn't that be helping them to get ready for the real world because the reward is getting paid?" All of these things. But the reality is look at statistics and is it working for everybody? I mean, we don't necessarily live in a perfect harmonized society where everyone is using money as a motivation. So I would just say, to your point, and that Montessori point, especially when it comes to learning, we want to build lifelong learners and we want them to do it because there's this feeling of success. Why do we play sports? It's not just for a student or an athlete to become the MVP or to win the championship. It's about working hard and seeing growth and feeling good about the things that we do.
And that's true for anything that we learn or anything that we do. And the more we do that ... Especially younger, but even as students get older, things do get competitive. We totally get that. But let's not rush. Just like we don't want to rush to the algorithm, we don't rush to competitiveness.
I also want to mention another app that actually does a really good job with the reward system. Keeping it what I believe and I know Jon you believe is a really healthy balance to reward, but not take away from that personal satisfaction of learning. And that is Knowledgehook who right from the get go, we loved that they did this thing called the mathalon. They have a full mathalon and a half mathalon. So stealing from the idea of a marathon. Where if students work through and actually complete all of the challenges throughout that particular grade level that they are in, if they do half, the class will get a banner.
And then anyone who does the half marathon ... Mathalon I should say, gets to sign it and you put it on the wall. It's something you can look at and remind you of the hard work that you've done. And then if you get through the whole thing, then they would send you an actual mathalon medal, which is really cool. Just this idea, again, that okay, it is a reward, but you're not doing it just for a medal, but it's really nice. It's like at the end of a hard season of playing baseball or hockey or whatever the sport is that you're in, in football, and having that to remember how hard you worked and the effort and the payoff of all that hard work. I think they do a really great job with that in keeping that in line so that we're not going off sides with making it all about points or all about getting it done, but more about being happy about the hard work that you've put in.

Jon Orr: Yeah. And I think the question comes down to, like we've said a few times now in this episode, is if we're going to use our different methods of influence with our kids, I think the question we want to ask ourselves ... Because you're going to do this on a regular basis in the classroom. And you just want to ask yourself this question. I think this is the big message here today. Is if I'm going to use any influence with my students ... I'm going to nudge them along using a certain technique to get them to do something I want. Ask yourself, is that technique or is that way that I'm trying to do this, does this help with this view of mathematics? Does it help align with the goals I've set for myself and my students to view our math class or does it hinder on that?
Because some of them will and some of them won't. And so for example, Kyle, if we move into say lesson design, I know that what we've been doing for the last few years with the Make Math Moments framework is along that one path where we're trying to use an influence style to get kids to lean into math. And there's been often times where students will say partway through the math lesson, be like, "Are we doing any math today, Mr. Orr?" They don't know they're doing math when we were using the Math Moments framework. It sometimes feels that way. And I think we've carefully designed that framework so that in our math lesson creation, we're easing kids into this realm of mathematics. We've set it up so that we're getting kids that are going to be very curious. This is where our curiosity path comes from in our sparking curiosity stage of the framework. Is we want kids to lean in and ease them into it slowly. And so by the time we're in it, I'm already in it and I didn't even know it. I'm going to keep going. And I think that's a great way that we've been using to slip in mathematics, but then slowly bring it up. So these low floor situations and high ceiling situations are a way you're really slipping Flintstones Vitamins in.

Kyle Pearce: Yeah, exactly. And we've said it right up in our keynotes that we've done recently. We'll do a task with the group and the group is estimating. We followed the curiosity path, which is a really, really critical part of the three part framework that we use to spark curiosity. And there'll be a moment where there's people estimating and you can see people are getting pretty into it. And we'll pause and we'll be like, "Ha, ha. We tricked you." We're joking with that because, again, we're using this moral trickery. We know that humans enjoy this predicting, estimating. It's like the gummies or the gumballs in a jar. That contest. That has been around for I don't know how long, but everybody loves taking a stab at how many gumballs are in that jar.
It is human nature. So what we're doing is we're harnessing that human nature in a positive and productive way because we want students to at the end of that experience to go, "Wow, I just did some pretty awesome math." And they probably stuck with it a lot longer than they would have had we not designed the lesson leveraging the framework. So with that, if you've never explored ... Here's something crazy, Jon. We were at a keynote recently. And during the keynote, you said ... I didn't notice this, but you told me this after and I was a bit shocked. But we were introducing ourselves. I usually introduce you and share some of the things you've done in the past. And I say in the past, because mrorr-isageek.com is something you don't update anymore. We do everything over on Make Math Moments. That's a site that you created 15 years ago. Something like that.
My site, tapintoteenminds.com. We don't put any new content on it. It's over a decade old. And when you were introducing myself and you put that as one of the things I had done in the past, someone in the audience was like, "You're the same guy?" And what we realized through that experience was that there are so many people out there ... Because this person was a podcast listener. They told us after, "I've been listening to your podcast for so long. I had no idea that you were the person who had tap into teen minds." And I was like, "Well, do you use any of our three part framework off the website or the tasks that are all on the Math Moment site that are all designed with the curiosity path and the three part framework?" And the educator said, "No. I use all the things off of tap into teen minds."
I'm like, that's all the stuff I ... When we talk about all the things that we wish we would've did differently, those are a lot of the things that are on that site that were slowly transferring or transforming with this three part framework. So for those who are listening, if you haven't yet checked out the three part framework in depth, you definitely want to check it out at makemathmoments.com/framework. It's a little mini ebook. You can download it. Read through that. Get a sense of what this is all about. And then head over to our tasks section. We have over 50 full units of study that follow the framework with problem-based lessons, usually starting off the unit, but then we have math talks in there, purposeful practice. People often ask us about what do you do after a problem based lesson? It's all mapped out for you right in the framework, but then also through our 50 plus units.
So if you haven't tried one yet, or at least explored it yet, you've got to head over there. Check it out over at makemathmoments.com/tasks and give that a look. And when you think back to everything that we've discussed here on this particular episode about influence, and whether you want to call it influence or trickery and doing it morally. Trying to do it for the greater good, whether it be in your math class or in other aspects of your life. What are you going to do now with this information? How can you as you plan forward to this next school year, or maybe you're just starting your next school year ... Thinking about how can I craft this experience to try to leverage human behavior? That we know ... Psychologists and researchers show and tell us that humans do and respond certain ways to certain things.
How can I do that in a way that's going to allow students to dive more deeply into the math for the right reasons? And then also when they're done, that they look back at that experience and they feel like it was a worthwhile one. Just like when I look back and I say, "Hey mom, thanks for putting the vegetables in that spaghetti sauce because not only did it taste good and I still like it, and I want you to keep making it that same exact way, but you were helping me to be a healthy person at the same time. And I really want to thank you for that." How do we do that more in our math class? And I think starting with the framework as your starting point is definitely a good first step.

Jon Orr: Kyle, I think you've summed up perfectly what we were trying to convey here in this particular episode and I'm super excited to hear and see what the Math Moment Makers do without how they can view, say influence in their class. And if you are a district leader, a math coach, maybe a superintendent or a principal, and you're thinking about your school or your district and going, "You know what? What are my teachers doing in this realm of influence? Are we using some of these ways that we probably could pivot towards more of a moral influence and also developing that great relationship with mathematics?" Feel free to check out our district mentorship program. That's exactly what Kyle and I have been doing a lot lately with our district calls is helping them see what types of resources they're using, what types of ways that they're using questioning in their class that follow the framework or not follow the framework so that we are creating these great relationships for mathematics with our students and ways of influence that help them develop that identity for themselves in mathematics.
That's what we're doing in our mentorship program is helping districts do that. And if you're looking for that help, or maybe some ideas, we would love to chat with you about your goals and help you achieve those goals using these techniques. So you can reach out to us over at makemathmoments.com/district and book a time to chat with myself or Kyle or our district lead, Gerald, who would be great and just be happy to talk to you about say what's happening in your district.

Kyle Pearce: I love it. I love it. Friends, hold yourself accountable. Make sure that you're chatting with partners, colleagues. Maybe just jotting something down in a book or maybe leaving a comment on the show notes page over at makemathmoments.com/episode192. That would be a great place to leave some of your feedback. Even better leaving a quick, quick feedback or reflection over on Apple Podcasts in the ratings and review section would be huge to help other math moment makers find this podcast and also benefit from the learning that you are enjoying here today.

Jon Orr: If you're looking for show notes and any links to any of the resources or books or ideas we've talked about here in this particular episode, head on over to makemathmoments.com/episode192. Again, that's makemathmoments.com/episode192. You can also grab the transcript from this episode over there right now.

Kyle Pearce: All right my friends. Well, until next time, I'm Kyle Pearce.

Jon Orr: And I'm Jon Orr.

Kyle Pearce: High fives for us.

Jon Orr: And high five for you.