“I’m not a math person.” I’m sure that is something you two have heard more than once. But have you ever heard someone say, “I am not a reading person?” It seemingly is socially acceptable to be bad at math, but there may be more to it, including the underdiagnosis of dyscalculia.

The research shows…
Dyscalculia is less well known, and there are fewer screening and diagnostic tools (Jaya, 2009), but its prevalence is similar to dyslexia- 5-7% of the population (Menon et al., 2020; Price & Ansari, 2013; Santos et al., 2022).
Add to that an estimated comorbidity of 35-70% with other neurological disabilities, including dyslexia, and suddenly there are a staggering number of students who are at risk of failing math when early identification and intervention can mitigate the problem in many cases (Kisler et al., 2021; Litkowski et al., 2020).
In the last 20 years, there has been a push to address illiteracy through early identification with universal screeners, but the same focus has yet to be there for innumeracy. Even with the increased need for math skills due to technology, there have yet to be national campaigns to address the problem (Bryant, 2008; De Visscher, 2018; National Center for Education Statistics, 2022).

Dr. Sandra Elliot, Ph.D., has spent over four decades working in education as a Special Education teacher, a five-time principal in Florida and Colorado, and a district-level administrator. She is now making it her mission to champion increased awareness of dyscalculia.

This week we bring on another 2023 Make Math Moments Virtual Summit speaker: Fawn Nguyen!

Fawn is on the Math Advance Team at Amplify Desmos Math. She was a math coach for a K-8 school district for three years. Before that, Fawn was a middle school teacher for 30 years. Fawn was the 2014 Ventura County Teacher of the Year. In 2009, she was awarded the Math Teacher Hero from Raytheon. In 2005, she was awarded the Sarah D. Barder Fellowship from the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth.
Fawn will share why understanding the impact of your past choices in the classroom is necessary for your growth, how learning how to visualize mathematics allows educators to break free from the rush to the algorithm, and how to teach with the website visualpatterns.org the right way!

Join us for a lovely chat with Kendra Jacobs about mathematizing our world around us and bringing it into our classrooms.

Listen in and learn the one simple thing you can do in your classroom to get students to enjoy mathematics instead of despise it.

Kendra is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, facilitating ‘Teaching Children Numeracy’ and ‘Numeracy for Diverse Learners’.

She is the founder of Mathematizing 247, where her mission is to inspire and empower elementary teachers to create engaging, joyful, and equitable math opportunities.

She works as a part-time classroom support teacher, alongside educators to support strong numeracy instruction that nurtures the development of joyful, independent learners.

On today’s show, we’re bringing on Sunil Singh, a colleague, friend, and fellow Ontarian from the math education world for a second time.

Sunil, the author of three books (Life of Pi, Math Recess, and Chasing Rabbits) with his fourth on the way (Sonic Seducer), joins us to share his unique insights into effective teaching and learning of mathematics.

In this episode, Sunil highlights the significance of rich, narrative-driven mathematical content in facilitating engaging teaching experiences. He unveils the two essential pillars for becoming an effective math teacher, while also unraveling why the number 70 is weird and its potential to captivate students’ attention.

Sunil guides us through the strategic elements that school districts should prioritize when shaping professional development plans for math educators. He introduces the concept of developing a K-Lifetime mathematics program, emphasizing the importance of cultivating lifelong mathematical curiosity.

In today’s episode, we had the privilege of sitting down with author, speaker, educator, Rick Wormeli. Rick is a true trailblazer in the field of education, and he brought a wealth of wisdom and experience to our conversation.
In this engaging discussion, Rick delved into some thought-provoking ideas that challenge conventional teaching practices in mathematics. He passionately emphasized why assigning a large number of problems might not be the most effective way to help students learn and why it’s crucial to understand that the person doing the editing is the one truly engaging with the material.
Rick also shared his insights on the power of intentional purpose in assignments, the importance of cultivating empathy for students new to math, and the interconnectedness of pedagogy and mathematics content.
Furthermore, Rick introduced a bold notion—that teaching the same course year after year may not be the most effective approach for educators or students. His unique perspective on this topic invites us to reconsider the dynamics of teaching and its impact on student outcomes.
Prepare to be inspired and challenged as Rick Wormeli takes us on a journey of rethinking math education. It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss, so let’s dive right in!

Pam Harris is here and she’s changing the way we view and teach mathematics. She is a mom, a former high school math teacher, a university lecturer, an author, and a mathematics teachers educator.

In this session Pam is going to share how and why you need to use problem strings to get your students thinking and making connections among strategies. She’s also sharing insight into her 2023 Make Math Moments Virtual Summit session: Talking About Talking.

On this episode we speak with Jason Garner, a veteran 5th grade teacher of 15 years. Jason joined us on episode 127 and we’ve brought him back to provide an update on his journey.

After spending the last two years being more intentional in his problem based lessons Jason seeks guidance on how to help students stick with problems a little longer when they lack the prerequisite skills needed to succeed. Join us to discover Jason’s big a-ha moments and hear the answer to this common math classroom issue.
This is another Math Mentoring Moment episode where we chat with a teacher like you who is working through some problems of practice and together we brainstorm ways to overcome them.

In this episode, we’ll dive into a conversation with Dr. Kristopher Childs, a Mathematics Educator, Presenter, and Speaker from Orlando, Florida. Kris joins us for an insightful conversation about shifting professional learning opportunities for districts, schools, and teachers.

Join in and you learn what truly engaging mathematics professional learning needs to look like, why equity is just a buzzword in education rather than something we actually care about, and why real change needs to start with you!

In this episode we bring back Shawn Hershey, a math interventionist teacher and department chair from Pennsylvania. Shawn joined us back in episode 223 and we discussed how to strengthen his math team. This time around Shawn is seeking advice on how to create alignment across his school’s K-12 grade bands. He has seen individual pockets of success in his school but knows that if his teachers are working toward common objectives that alignment will strengthen their team and the students they work with.

This is another Math Mentoring Moment episode where we chat with a teacher like you who is working through some problems of practice and together we brainstorm ways to overcome them.

Today we speak with Robert Barth, a high school math teacher from the South side of Chicago. Robert shares his experience with teaching with the original flipped classroom model and how he’s morphed it over the years to incorporate Peter Liljedahl’s work on Building Thinking Classrooms and the Make Math Moments “Real” Flipped Classroom approach incorporating teaching through task.

Listen in as Robert wonders how to engage students who give push back when working in groups and sharing their thinking. You’ll hear about teacher moves you can make to motivate students who seem to be unwilling to engage and how to balance your class time between “group thinking” and “individual thinking”.

This is another Math Mentoring Moment episode where we chat with a teacher like you who is working through some problems of practice and together we brainstorm ways to overcome them.