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Are your multi-language learners struggling to engage in math class? You’re not alone. Many teachers recognize the issue but feel unsure how to help—especially when language becomes a barrier to grade-level math content.

In this team episode, Yvette, Jon, and Kyle unpack a real conversation with a school team working to increase math achievement for multi-language learners. The problem was clear from the data—but the solution wasn’t. Instead of rushing to tell teachers what to do, the leadership team leaned into a dilemma protocol that brought teacher voice and system alignment to the forefront.

Listeners Will:

• Hear how one school is confronting equity gaps in math instruction
• Learn how leaders can use dilemma protocols to surface actionable next steps
• Explore how visual modeling helps remove language barriers in math
• Reflect on the leadership mindset needed to create sustainable math improvement

If your school or district is serious about improving math outcomes for all learners—including those acquiring English—press play and consider how your system is set up to support or stall change.

Attention District Math Leaders:

Not sure what matters most when designing math improvement plans? Take this assessment and get a free customized report: https://makemathmoments.com/grow/ 

Ready to design your math improvement plan with guidance, support and using structure? Learn how to follow our 4 stage process. https://growyourmathprogram.com 

Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Yvette Lehman: Today we’re going to unpack a, let’s say maybe an opportunity for growth that many educators face, which is how do we engage our multi-language learners in the math classroom? How do we increase achievement for our multi-language learners? I know, you know, here in Ontario, and I’m sure across many parts of North America, we’re striving for equitable access to high levels of math education. And that includes our historically marginalized students, particularly our students who are at the

early stages of language acquisition. So we have a school that we support that is on this journey. They’ve looked at their benchmark assessment data and they’ve identified that the group of students that they’d like to consider when it comes to shifts in instructional practice are their multi-language learners. They have two part piece of data. They have their benchmark assessment data and then their walkthrough data. And they’ve determined that this is a group of students that they’d like to support.

Jon Orr: Hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what are the, so you think about this group, like when we’re meeting with them, like share, share to the, you know, the math moment maker community, you know, where’s this neat, like they’ve identified this, but what are teachers saying? You know, like, what, are they seeing in classrooms? Like, what are the teachers saying? Like, this is an issue because, or, or this is the thing I’m struggling with. You know, what, what are you hearing from this particular group?

Yvette Lehman: think it’s probably what many teachers face, which is, of course we want to engage our multi-language learners, particularly learners that here in Ontario we would say are like step one, step two. So they’re in those early stages of language development. We suspect that, you know, the language is the barrier to access the grade level content.

You know, so it’s like, we just know that there’s a disconnect here that the student is capable, but the language is interfering and they’re not able to, let’s say, engage with the content in the same way as their grade level peers. So maybe they’re struggling more with word problems or multi-step word problems when they’re engaging in mathematical discourse in the classroom. Of course, maybe they aren’t able to provide entry for students. And so I think all educators would see this problem and say to themselves,

Of course, I want all students to see themselves in the math classroom. Of course, I want students to be able to interact with the grade level content, but it’s hard work, you know, to really be able to identify some strategies that are going to support achievement and engagement for these learners.

Kyle Pearce: Mm-hmm. I love it. I love it. So how and where might we start in a district where we obviously these ideas, these challenges are likely on the radar of all leaders out there. And you want to start making that shift because one thing I’m sure isn’t going to be great is just to announce we’re going to do these things and everyone will magically do them. Like where do we begin? How do we start deciding

Kyle Pearce: what that might look like and sound like, especially, and we talk about this a lot on our podcasts, as well as with our district leads, like how do we keep it attainable? Because if we go too large, too lofty, too fast, then obviously that can lead to some people sort of fading on the strategy and on the approach.

Yvette Lehman: That’s actually the conversation I had with the principal this week. And so, you know, this is where they are. They’re in this like problem aware phase, right? They know that there’s a problem. They know that they want to target or, you know, the line we always use is like the system they have is not currently getting them the results that they’re hoping for. So they need a change. I actually used that line with the principal yesterday. I was like, okay, if we’re not getting the results we want for our multi-language learners, what are we willing to change?

Yvette Lehman: because clearly what we’re currently doing is not getting us the engagement or the achievement we want for this particular group of students. And so when I met with the principal last week who is in this problem aware stage, I said to him, know, there’s research out there around, you know, universal supports for tier one, best practices around supporting multi-language learners in the math classroom. But to your point, Kyle, do we want to just show up at the meeting and…

Yvette Lehman: tell everybody this is what we’re doing or have already decided that this is going to be the move without any input from educators.

Jon Orr: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the battle. Like that’s the battle, I think as leaders, leading professional development and recognizing where gaps exist and trying to provide support to address those gaps for, for student achievement and student, student deeper understanding in terms of mathematics. And it’s how do we bridge that? How do we, how do we support educators in shifting instruction?

to try to close that gap, but not just say like, do this. And that’s what we really wanna unpack here today.

Yvette Lehman: So the recommendation that I brought forward and I’m curious to follow up with this team and see where they landed is to engage basically in a dilemma protocol. And so not to come in with the answer, but to come in with the dilemma. it’s like, I’m, and I remember when we talked about that book, Farther Faster and Far Less Drama from Janice Fraser. And she talked about like, bring the minds to the table. Allow people to be part of identifying the solution rather than coming in and dictating the solution.

Yvette Lehman: And so what we recommended for this particular instructional leader is, know, bring your leadership team to the table. So their math leadership team at this school has representation from different grade levels. Bring the leadership team to the table with the Dilemma Protocol. And what we’re hoping comes out of that initial meeting is at least a desire to want to find a possible solution that they can all commit to.

Jon Orr: Right. Right. Like, like if you don’t, and I think what you’re saying is like, that is one technique to try to create desire, which is basically saying like, need like my, my current problem is not necessarily your current problem, but we need to make both of our problems the same problem. So then we can both go down the same or start to attack a, with a solution to that problem. And, too often I think.

Jon Orr: we’re trying to in math improvement and we’re talking about professional development is, is do what we don’t want our teachers to do in math class, which is basically say like, we’re going to teach you about solving two-step equations today, but we’re not going to create any sort of hook. We’re not going to create any sort of desire or need or curiosity around why that set of procedures or even like, even, even like kind of like, behaviors around the mathematics for assault, you know,

for learning today’s learning goal actually makes sense to you. Like, the gap is too wide and we tend to do that in professional development is not create the need, like not create the emotional draw, the data draw. Like, why does this make sense? And why does it make sense in two ways? Why does this make sense for solving my like intellectual dilemma?

Like my, this makes sense because of research. This makes sense because actually like it solves this issue in my class that, that, know, my, my, my, my slow side, my methodical side of my brain, like actually can, can grasp onto, which is more like analytical. It’s like, this makes sense because of these reasons over here. But you also have to say like, this makes sense because of my emotional reasons, which is your quick side of your brain. Like your brain like reacts and it’s like, that’s the fear side of your brain. It’s like.

We have to hit both of those things because when you’re thinking about designing professional development and the dilemma protocol helps do this, it helps bring out what is the issue and are you seeing issues in your class and maybe the problems you’re seeing are related to this problem here and let’s solve both of these problems at the same time. It takes time because you’re saying like, well, it’s easier if I just do this. Well, true. I could just teach.

Procedures easier to students too, but we don’t want to do that, right? Like if you’re listening to this podcast, you’ve already bought into that Have you bought into that with educators when you’re helping them understand the problems in the solutions as well?

Kyle Pearce: Yeah, I mean, I think our educators all have to feel like they have ownership and they have like a stake in the work before they’re going to be motivated, you know, in order to do the work. Even though, you know, I think at its core, we all know if we add different things to our classroom routines or we change the way we deliver certain content, that’s going to have a positive impact. But it has to align with sort of the current pebble in my shoe.

right? And that’s, think, one of the most incredibly difficult parts of this work is being able to take that time and ensure that everyone is on the same page so that we can recognize that this path that we’re trying to encourage all of us to go on is actually going to help shake out those pebbles that you’re likely experiencing in some way, shape or form in your classroom. And I think that piece there can be so critical in order to gain gaining that like mass of

educators across the system willing to do that necessary work and thinking and all of those pieces that are important in order to gain what we call buy-in, which is often lacking, right? Everyone’s always saying there is no buy-in and that’s how we get buy-in is to make sure that we are all on the same page. We have alignment. So what does that process look like and sound like?

Jon Orr: Right. Yeah. So before we get into those specifics, I want to draw another parallel here to the math class because when you think about

dynamic teachers, you we’re trying to, we know that that’s one of the goals of all the teams that we support is how do we create that flexible teacher in the classroom that makes, you know, great decisions and they have the content knowledge to make that happen. They have the understanding of where the student is on the learning journey and the trajectory of this learning goal. Like that’s a, sometimes we, you you use that term like master teacher. It’s because we’ve spent time unpacking all these things. There’s experience, there’s learning that’s happened in all aspects of teaching mathematics.

And that really you’ve got that master teacher making those flexible moves. Our leaders have to have that too. Like there’s the parallel there, right? That’s like thinking about like, if I’m constantly thinking about buy-in, you want your teachers to be like, what are the pebbles in the student’s for this learning goal? And what are the moves I can make as a teacher to get them to learn this at a deeper level or connect the procedural to the conceptual understanding?

There’s a lot there, we know that, and it takes time when we focus on that for the teacher to transition that into the student experience. As leaders, we also have to have that same strength. It’s just in different areas. Like we have to go like, what is the pebble? Because that’s what you’re talking about here, buy in Kyle, right? What is the pebble that the teachers experience? And how do I make that connection? And what are the…

What is the thinking that I have to do to create the transition for that teacher? Like, we have to continually think about the pebbles our teachers are experiencing when we’re supporting them. And we have to talk to them all the time and understand those pebbles because if you’re not, you’re that teacher who’s not engaging with their classroom at, you know, they’re standing at the front just saying, this is what to do. We have to get in there and experience these pebbles with our teachers so that we can develop strategies for them to actually over create the alignment that you’re really looking for towards the solution.

Yvette Lehman: you’re describing, John, makes me think about we had a conversation with one of our districts yesterday about instructional leaders at the school level. It’s like instructional leaders at the school level need two things. And this could be one person who has both or maybe you need more than one person because you need a strong facilitator, somebody who understands how to motivate and empower and emerge commitment from the team that respects teacher voice and is responsive to the classroom experience.

but you also need somebody with a math background because otherwise, where do we bring in best practice? Where do we bring in research? How do we know what’s been done before in other environments that’s been impactful for multi-language learners so that we can lean on that knowledgeable other? And sometimes we were saying yesterday, sometimes the instructional leader can wear both hats, but sometimes maybe they can’t and maybe they don’t have the math background. They’re a principal who hasn’t taught math in their past.

Who’s their partner? Is it an expert teacher? Is it a learning support teacher? Is it a coach? Is it a colleague from another building? Who is going to bring in the math lens to the conversation? Now, I know we have some listeners right now who are thinking, but I wanna know the solution. So let’s explore a solution.

Jon Orr: Yeah. Like we’ve talked theory, we’ve talked philosophy. yeah, for

Kyle Pearce: Yeah. Wave the magic wand. Here we go.

Jon Orr: sure. But it’s like, think about like where we positioned it, right? We’ve got a problem here that we’re trying to help solve. Now let’s talk, we’ve talked about, you know, theory and the way to think about these types of problems. Now you’re right. Let’s get into the specifics of what this team did.

Yvette Lehman: Yeah, and there aren’t, you know, there’s not one solution. You know, there are a variety of strategies that can support engagement for multi-language learners in the math classroom. But the one that, you know, and they’re not at the point, they haven’t emerged yet. I’m still waiting to hear, but it’s like, if this were me, you know, and I just can speak from my own experience on what we’ve done in the past to engage multi-language learners.

I feel like modeling based supports is a really great place to start. And it makes me think about Kyle, when we were implementing context for learning, we love that resource. It’s such a great resource, but it is very text heavy and it’s auditory for the learner. So you are essentially creating a context by reading a story. And we recognize because we are from a very linguistically diverse.

region that there was no way we would be able to give access to all learners if we were relying solely on text. And so remember, you know, we would find videos to set the context or if we couldn’t find a video, then we would, you know, remember we had our popsicle sticks with the little frog images on them and we had the race to go across the board and we would actually take the frog and move him along.

Yvette Lehman: the race because we

knew that in order to engage all learners, we were going to have to create visual supports. We were going to have to actually act out and model the mathematical context that the problem was living in.

Kyle Pearce: Right, right. And sometimes that would be something as simple as finding an image, you know, and with Context for Learning, noting, you know, the original Context for Learning, which, you know, was a little bit, we’ll call it pre-internet and so forth, you know, they would have posters that you could, you know, hang on the wall, but they were still pretty small. So we’d go and just find, again, an image that could help us to…

models some of what was going on in that context and in that story because of course if the students weren’t following the context then all that work behind building and crafting a context that works would be wasted for that particular student right they would still be lost so these are some of the things that we can really work together on with our district and with our our supporting teams in order to try to figure out like where are those

bottlenecks in the learning journey, right? For some of these students and let’s try to identify what they are. We might not have the answer on how to fix them yet, but if we can identify them and then we can all recognize that these are common challenges that we’re seeing in our classrooms, that certainly opens the door to what we know the research would likely, you know, be saying anyway, right? Which is maybe in this particular case, visual supports or modeling.

Kyle Pearce: you know, and some of those details that would be helpful for us to focus on as a system to help move forward and ensure more students can access the mathematics.

Jon Orr: What I like as well about the dilemma protocol that, you know, that leads to, you know, these types of supports and these types of solutions in this, in this context for sure, is that with the dilemma protocol, what you’re doing is you’re shining a light into the decision-making process for math improvement. like that’s in a way, like that’s a different way to think about it than saying like, I’m trying to create buy-in. then, or for I should, I should get voices and I should make sure that I’m addressing the pebbles and make sure our pebbles are alive.

Like that’s one thing we talked about that. But the other part is this idea of distributive leadership. This idea of like, I need to bring more people into just how we make decisions and show structures on how we make decisions here for math improvement so that they will live longer than me. They will live past my reign and or my role when I move on to a new role or if I switch.

like we’ve talked about this before too, and we talk this a lot with our teams that we support is how are you solving the fragility math, like the math fragility problem that exists inside your system, your school or your school district. Oftentimes the math program lives on one person’s shoulders, two people’s shoulders, and they make decisions based off what they think, they, they’re bringing that knowledge, that maybe they’re that, what you were saying, that dual role, they’ve got the skilled facilitator, but they also have the math content knowledge. Like that’s our math coordinators. This is our.

Sometimes our math coaches, this is our admins at the district level think about mathematics is that oftentimes everything’s decided there. We need to do more of the distributive leadership, which is about bringing people into the decision-making process so they can see how we do what we do and how we make decisions from all aspects, whether it’s about trying to solve a problem at a school specifically to address an area of need that they’ve recognized like this example.

Or it’s about designing what math improvement will look like across the system. We have to bring more people into that decision-making world. Because if we’re not, what we say here too is, we didn’t create this phrase, but basically, leaders create leaders. Great leaders create leaders. And if we’re not doing that, we’re not trying to solve sustainability problem of the math improvement efforts we’re making. Your flywheel is going to have to start all over again.

the moment you step away from that role. And we’ve seen it time and time again when teams don’t solve for that problem. So that’s what I really like about the dilemma, the dilemma protocol here that this team is putting into place.

So I guess my big takeaway here, other than the dilemma protocol that I just highlighted and thinking about the specific moves this team is taking into a place is that thinking about trying to create buy-in, I want you to not ask about the buy-in anymore. I want you to ask about like, am I making moves on distributive leadership? How am I making moves on

on helping align the pebbles that we have with our teachers and the work that we’re trying to do. Like that alignment is more important than saying buy-in. So I’m not digging the buy-in term. When we hear that from folks, I want you to think about those other things as well. And if you need some support in thinking or rethinking the buy-in term and thinking about how you’re providing that support or solving pebbles in shoes of teachers so that…

You can create sustainable math programs. Then reach out to us. This is what we do. We help teams and we support teams to create math improvement plans that are sustainable, aligned, to create traction for many, many years to come. So you can reach out to us over at makemathmoments.com forward slash discovery. Book a call with us. We can talk about what your math program looks like and what it could look like next year and the year after that. If you’re not ready for that.

And then we encourage you to head on over and grab our assessment. So we’ll send you a report of the six key areas that we would recommend making some improvements on. You can do that over at makemathmoments.com forward slash report.

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