Teachers in America
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Teachers in America
Promoting a Positive Math Identity with Melody Jacklin
It’s hard for students to feel intimidated by math when their using it to make cookie dough.
Middle school math intervention teacher Melody Jacklin, from Michigan, shares how she’s helped her students build math confidence through hands-on STEM projects, like mixing cookie dough and creating 3D printed bubble wands. Tune in to hear strategies on creating relevant and meaningful math lessons, incorporating STEM challenges in math instruction, and getting students comfortable with productive struggle.
Teachers in America profiles K–12 teachers across the country. Hear firsthand from the people who are shaping young lives in the classroom every day. If you or someone you know would be a good candidate for Teachers in America, please email us at shaped@hmhco.com.
to remind yourself that it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to be a growing math learner instead of I'm not a math person. Well, you might not be good at math right now, but you can learn to be good at math.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Teachers in America, a podcast from HMH where we connect with educators across the country to bring you teaching tips and inspiration. I'm your host, noel Morris, and this season I'll be chatting with new and old teacher friends to learn how to ignite student interest. Today, we're talking about helping students develop a positive math identity with our guest, melody Jacqueline, a middle school math intervention teacher from Wayne Westland Community Schools in Michigan. Melody is currently on her 11th year of teaching and for seven of those years, she's had the joy of teaching math. She also serves as the middle school math content leader for her district and in 2023, she had the honor of being a winner of HMH's 180 awards. In today's episode, we'll dive into creating meaningful and relevant math lessons, getting students comfortable with making mistakes and engaging students in STEM projects like creating 3D printed bubble wands. Well, hey, melody, so great to have you on our podcast.
Speaker 2:Teachers in America Today's episode. We want to talk about building math confidence, but before we can even go to that conversation, we need to tell everybody who you are. So will you, in like 30 seconds or less, introduce yourself to thousands of listeners?
Speaker 1:Sure, so my name is Melody. I teach a seventh and eighth grade math intervention class in Michigan, so what I do is I take students who are not the strongest math learners and I help them build math skills and turn them into math rock stars.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Everything that ends in being a rock star is fascinating in my book. So when we think about building math confidence and we start with just that, as you know where we want to go to tell us about the foundation that you set in your classroom to really build from there.
Speaker 1:Sure. So what I do with my students is I start right off the bat with talking about kind of how everyone has their strengths and has their weaknesses in math. You know we tend to think about math as being like people are math minded or I don't have a math brain, or we hear adults all the time that talk about not being good at math and it tends to be more socially acceptable than not being good at other things. So I know my students are coming to me with kind of that mindset of I'm not a math person. You know, in the nature of my class I wish there was a way to kind of change what the class is or how students are scheduled in it. But they kind of come to me knowing that maybe they had low test scores or they're not performing, you know, at grade level. So I kind of really have the stigma that I have to break with my kids very early on, right from the beginning.
Speaker 1:So the way that I do that is I talk a lot about understanding that everybody has their strengths, you know, and I always tell them some of you might be rock stars with multiplication but are terrified of division. Some of you might be rock stars at decimals, but a fraction scares the heck out of you when you want to run in the other direction. But everybody is going to have it. Everybody is going to have their strengths and everybody is going to have their weaknesses.
Speaker 1:And we kind of start there and I always get kids that will say, oh, I'm not good at anything in math. And I say, well, I bet you there's problems that if I put them in front of you right now you would be able to answer those questions successfully. And we'll do a couple of really simple ones. You know, one plus two or five plus five, and and I go yeah, I know that, so you can do math. There's just certain skills that maybe you're not so great at. So I really work hard at the beginning to talk about. You know, my job is to find your strengths and help you use those strengths to build the skills that aren't strengths for you, and I find that that helps a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just, I mean just recognizing right that within any you know area, any discipline, we all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. So do you mind giving some advice? And I say this because I, I promise just the other day I know that I said, you know, math isn't really my strength, I'm a literacy person and part of it, melody, was because I I'm I'm leading right and I'm doing something and I'm supposed to always be able to quickly problem solve, right then. And math, I do have to take a step back and really look at it, understand it, and a lot of it I can't necessarily do in my head. So I'm a teacher, right, I come from that place and I know that I have said that, or I just said it in my current work. What's your advice? To get that out of yourself as a teacher, to not accidentally say that, not say I'm not a math person, I'm not gifted in math. What tell us what your advice would be? Just to sort of nip it in the bud as fast as you can.
Speaker 1:I think, reminding yourself that everybody is learning, where nobody is really like perfect at anything, nobody's an expert at anything, so you might not necessarily be a math person but to remind yourself that it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to be a growing math learner instead of I'm not a math person. Well, you might not be good at math right now, but you can learn to be good at math. So I think just reminding yourself, if you're feeling that urge to say I'm not a math person, to remind yourself I'm a math learner instead of I'm not a math person, and I think that that can really help shift the mindset of, instead of shutting it down and saying I can't do math, but say, well, I can't do math yet.
Speaker 2:Right, and plus. I mean, if you're in a math class, you don't want to hear your teachers like I'm not a math person. It's like, oh, I'm in the wrong place.
Speaker 1:Yes, but sometimes you know the way that teaching is right now. I mean, sometimes we have teachers that are really strong in certain subjects and maybe not so strong at other subjects, and they're doing the best they can. But I think that conversation has to be with both students and staff, because there are so many adults that don't consider themselves math people, and I think it's just as important with adults as it is for kids to remind everybody that you know, maybe you're not a math person yet, but you can get there. You can be a math person. So maybe that's the advice. Maybe the advice is, instead of saying I'm not a math person, add the word yet to the end of that sentence Everything yet.
Speaker 2:So that's great philosophy. I mean great advice, just in general. Just add yet to it, and immediately. That should boost your confidence. Hey, teacher friends, if you're an HMH user, did you know you have access to teachers corner on Ed included with every HMH program? Teachers corner is a community of teachers, learning experts and coaches gathered in one place to support you with a new kind of professional learning by size, teacher selected and teacher driven, with on demand sessions, lesson demonstrations, program support and practical resources. Teachers corner let's you choose how you interact with our content. I like to think about it as inspiration. On demand, what do you think? Your students? You know biggest challenges are at the beginning of the year, and where, what have you seen shift? But what's a new challenge? You know, middle of the year, going into towards the end of year.
Speaker 1:So I think the biggest challenge that I have seen is I get my students in seventh and eighth grade. So they have had six or seven, eight years of current previous math learning experience and we actually just talked about this in the training I was at. Today Our kids are so conditioned to get the right answer in math. You know it's with math there's a problem. There's a right answer and it's the speed with which you can get the right answer is a lot of times promoted as the most important thing. It's you need to get the right answer, you need to get it quickly. These are the steps to follow to get the right answer. So what we find is when students get to middle school, they are afraid to take chances and take risks and make mistakes, because if they don't know the right answer right away, they don't want to try, because they don't want to look silly from not knowing the answer. They don't want to make a mistake. You know, and middle schoolers have lots going on socially and being judged is a very high concern for middle school students. So one of the things that I have has been a real challenge for me is helping students understand that it's okay to make mistakes in math. I've actually. I tell my students that there's an entire branch of math that is error analysis. You know our workbook that we use. We use the math 180 workbooks and there are exit tickets in the math 180 workbooks that are here's a student's work find their mistake and explain how they could correct it. So I really try to try to tell my students, remind them that this is part of math. It's so much a part of math that we actually have a whole branch of math questions and math work that is analyzing these errors. So it's, you know you're going to make mistakes, it's going to happen. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you're all going to be perfect all the time and I tell them I'm not going to be perfect all the time. I know I'm here to teach you math. I'm going to make mistakes too. It's okay, it's part of it.
Speaker 1:So I think you know that has really been my biggest challenge is learning how to break students of that fear of making a mistake or getting something wrong. And another way that I have, besides explaining to them that that is part of math, another way that I have kind of learned how to break that or started to learn to break. That is, we actually do wrong answers only questions in my class. So I'll do like number talks is my do. Now is a lot of the time and I give my students one once a week.
Speaker 1:We do a wrong answers only question and I'll put something simple that most of them should know the answer to. Like you know 100 plus 200. And the idea is you have to give me a wrong answer but you have to be able to explain the mistake that was made to get that wrong answer. So you know, I'll get students that tell me it's 20,000. And I'll say what they do and they'll say, oh, they multiply it instead of added, excellent. Or if we flip it and make it 10 plus five, they'll tell me the answer is five and I'll say how did they get that answer? And they say, well, they subtracted instead of added. And really forcing kids to to make mistakes intentionally makes them then more comfortable with making them accidentally. And I find that through that process and I just started doing that last year and I find that since doing those types of questions regularly in my class, my kids are less afraid to make mistakes when they don't know the answer.
Speaker 2:Do you think that helps them? I mean, this is a two part question. One, does it help them understand how sometimes a mistake is because you're moving so fast and you're making an error with the operation or the process. You know what you do first and next, and the second part of that question is how is that helping have that conversation around productive struggle and understanding the value of effort plus being comfortable making mistakes? Yes, great question.
Speaker 1:So you know, one of the things that we'll talk about when we talk about these errors and things like this is the kid will say you know, especially with division questions, I'll give them a simple division question, like 10 divided by five, and a lot of kids will say, oh, they would have gotten the answer of 15, because they added and we'll talk about well, yeah, if you just looked at it quickly, a division symbol can absolutely look like a plus sign if you just glance at it really quickly. So we talk about with something just that simple. We talk about like you really have to look at the question, you really have to pay attention and look at the details, because if you're just speeding through, you might easily make that mistake because you're not paying attention. You're just trying to get it done quickly. But if you slow yourself down and really look at the details, you might not make that mistake again or in the first place. So I kind of use those little tricks to remind them it's really important to slow down. We also I'm also very intentional with when we do our number talks.
Speaker 1:I don't give them the answer right away. I put the problem on the board. I give them time to think through their answer and then we collect their answers and then I have them explain their strategy for getting their answers and I only tell them the right answer at the very end, once we've had all their discussions and I've heard all their thoughts. Then I tell them the answer, and what it does is it reinforces the process. So my students are taking time to think about what their strategy is and what their process is.
Speaker 1:And what's really interesting is I'll have kids that just want to be the first one to answer and then they'll get their. They'll put their answer on the board and I know it's a wrong answer, but I don't tell them and I don't show any way that it's a wrong answer. I just put it on the board and I'll get kids that'll start to other students that will give their answers and that first student you can see them just looking at the board, going wait a minute. And then they'll tell me wait, I'm changing my answer. I think it's that and then I'll ask them I don't erase their answer, I cross it out and write their new one. So then I'll come back to them and say this was your original answer.
Speaker 1:Can you tell me what you did to get that answer and why did you change it? And nine times out of 10, it's I did it too fast and wasn't thinking about it. So it's another reminder to slow down, and I think the best thing we can do for our students is reminding them, especially with math, that the process is more important than the answer. The journey is more important than the destination. We really have to focus our students on understanding that the process and taking the time to learn the process will eventually help them get to that answer. It's okay if it's not fast.
Speaker 2:So in that second part too, about the productive struggle. So now they're working by themselves or they're at home, or it's state testing time. What have you put in place in the classroom or in your delivery from that I do to you do have you put into place for the student to self-regulate, to self-talk, to persevere through, to keep going even though when you've hit, when you think you've hit the wall, but yet you still know that you have to keep giving more?
Speaker 1:So I actually, with my students, I do weekly STEM activities. We do like STEM or Hands on Math, and a lot of times they are just like STEM challenges, really simple, like tower building, simple, simple challenges. But what I found is that that productive struggle, those problem solving skills, a lot of my students are coming to me without those skills and I knew that they needed them, so I was trying to figure out how to teach them. So what I do with these activities is I give them a challenge and then I say this is it, these are your parameters. Go. And it's really interesting because the students will start to.
Speaker 1:I have a favorite story. It was a paper table challenge and I forget the website that I got this from, but it's out there. It's called the paper table challenge and the idea is you give students I think it's eight sheets of newspaper and a piece of cardboard and tape and they have to build a table and that table has to support weight. We use dictionaries, but they have to use the cardboard for the tabletop. They can't use it for the table legs. You tell them this and they're looking at their materials, their flat materials, and they don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1:And the very first time I gave this activity, I had a student that after two minutes of trying, something went this is impossible. And she just kind of looked like she was gonna give up and I walked over and said well, can you tell me what you've tried so far? So she said well, we tried this, we tried this. And I gave her a little hint. Nothing that gave an answer away. But I gave her a hint and she kind of looked at me and I said I want you to think about that hint for a minute and I see what you can do with that. And she said okay. So I walked away and I came back a few minutes later and she was trying something else and by the end of class she was. Actually they had built the strongest table, her book had built the strongest table they had. I think they got 10 dictionaries, a binder and a laptop on top of their table without collapsing.
Speaker 1:And I said to her I said do you remember 20 minutes ago when you told me this was impossible and now you won? What happened? And she said well, you told me to think about what I did already. So I started to think about what I did. That didn't work and then I got an idea from thinking about what didn't work. That gave me an idea of what maybe could work. So I've kind of used that with my students since then to remind them that mistakes lead us to success. Failure leads to success. So I always remind them if you're feeling like you can't do something, take a breath, look at what you've tried already and see if that gives you any ideas to move forward.
Speaker 2:It's so important in the real world too, because in today's working for so much is testing and trying and looking, and always you know you want to not let that, like it can't be done, like not to get in your way, even if you are observing that and not jump in right away and think that the person is done.
Speaker 2:Usually what I find from that style of learner is they're not going to let that frustration, not let them finish, because there is a intrinsic motivation of I will not turn something in, I will not figure this out, but that outburst is needed In their style. That outburst is needed to just get it out, get it out of the way. Potentially here a teacher send, like you did, a lifeline or just a little bit of a nudge, but there's others who would work that out around them, or a friend in the classroom would see. How are you thinking about STEM? Not just from that perspective of what you've noticed, it being a benefit to your predictive struggle and problem solving, but actually like building it into your lessons, because not every lesson might have. You know, here's a STEM activity, so are you naturally just going through a lesson and finding opportunities Like and how did you learn to do that?
Speaker 1:So a little bit of both. The beauty of the class that I teach is that it's really flexible, and I don't have. You know, we use the Math 180 program, but we have some kind of flexibility within that as well, so it doesn't always. I started trying to find activities that were curriculum driven and then, when I really took a step back and thought about it, my thought was well, the goal here is to teach problem solving skills. So if I can tie it to curriculum, beautiful. But it doesn't always have to be curriculum driven. It can just be a break from the curriculum if it needs to be.
Speaker 1:And understanding that problem solving and perseverance are still math skills. They're actually part of the mathematical practice standards. Those are still math skills, even if it's not curriculum skills. But my students will ask one of my favorite ones we do it. We're actually going to do it this week. It's our very first one we do.
Speaker 1:We do a pattern block challenge. I pull out the little pattern block shapes and I give them challenges that they have to, you know, build a vehicle or build a castle or build an animal, or we'll start to throw in math vocabulary and I'll tell them make me something that's symmetrical. And we talk about what is symmetrical mean and you know, and I'll show them examples of, is this symmetrical? Is this symmetrical and we talk about, we have a nice little conversation about it and 20 minutes into this project my kids will go how is this math? And I'll say, do you under? Do you know what geometry is? And they'll say, yeah, geometry is like shapes. And I said, what are you working with? And they go shapes. And I go there, you go, there's your math, right, you know. And and it kind of helps, and my class is supposed to be building foundational skills for my students. Well, in eighth grade they're working on transformations and rotations and dilations of shapes. So for them to be able to transform shapes, they need to understand what the shape is and what it looks like and how to work with it and what it looks like if you turn it sideways. So those kinds of of activities, while they seem simple and fun, are really teaching them some of those visual geometry skills.
Speaker 1:So where I can, I try to tie it in. We do my favorite activity and the kids' favorite activity. I've pretty much pigeonholed myself to into a place where I have to do it every single semester. Is we do a cookie dough activity and it is a fractions lesson. So we'll do a lot of work with decimals and then we'll talk about fractions and we do converting decimals to fractions and then, right in the middle of that, we do this fractions activity. We talked about dividing fractions and multiplying fractions.
Speaker 1:So we do this cookie dough activity where I give them a recipe and I have three different options of just regular, like safe to eat, edible cookie dough Three different options. I pull out math manipulatives and we do a whole day where we work on halving and doubling the recipe. So it's practice with whole number division and multiplication and fraction multiplication and division and it just it happens to just fit right into our curriculum because we do a lot of work with multiplying and dividing fractions. So we do that and then the following week I bring in all of the ingredients and they make their half recipe in class. So we actually make the physical cookie dough and they love it, but it ends up being a fractions activity.
Speaker 1:That is probably one of the most real world activities I could give them and we talk a lot about like how many of you have used recipe, how many of you cook at home or have families that cook at home, and a lot of them will ask me well, why do I even need to have a recipe? And I said well, for example, I live at home with just me and my husband. If a recipe says it serves eight, there's two of us. I don't need to make enough food for eight people when there's only two of us, so I can cut that recipe in half and make it make sense for us, or I'll tell them if you're having a party and you need to make more, you need to learn how to double it. And it's really fascinating how many of them are like well, then come back to me later and say oh, I did this at home.
Speaker 1:I made this at home. So it ends up being this really lovely real world connection to the curriculum that we're working on and I think it helps them contextualize that fraction division of multiplication piece when they can actually see it with measuring cups. So I-.
Speaker 2:When you think about waste, I mean there's so many like your budget saving, the cost saving. I wish these are things that I wish I would have been better at listening to, because they weren't necessarily when I was in high school. I can't remember them being part of math right, Because it wasn't in when I was in middle school or high school, it was in life skills, but I remember going. I probably should have paid more attention to what's the asses, what's the cost, is this a better price versus this and all of that looking at ingredients. What a great real world. Just moment, right, and you weren't right. I would say you're gonna be known as the cookie dough teacher. Please, you know you wanna get Ms Jacqueline, and if she does, not do the cookie dough.
Speaker 2:You need to ask her what is wrong with her, why she's not doing it.
Speaker 1:It is the question I get asked the minute. Kids walk in my door every single semester Cause if they don't have me, their friends had me and we're walking around with their cookie dough on cookie dough day last time and we have so much fun with it we said it looks like a cooking show. When we walk in, I put tablecloths out and they all have their little cooking still mixing stations and we love it. But yes, I think I will forever be known as the cookie dough teacher.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is which.
Speaker 1:I'm okay with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like how cool is that? Now my producer gave me some notes and all I see is 3D printing. Yes, I would say, Do you have a 3D printer?
Speaker 1:I was just gonna lead into that cause it's another perfect curriculum connection that we have found. So our science department actually has a couple. We have a construction tech department we're like a woodshop class that she has a 3D printer and then one of our science teachers applied for a grant and got 3D printer. So I am fortunate enough in my building to have a 3D printer. That is in my, not just in my building, but we have an office that connects my classroom to the science teacher that got this grant. So the 3D printer just sits between our rooms so I do have access to a 3D printer.
Speaker 1:So another curriculum connection activity that we did was I actually used the 3D printer and Tinkercad to have kids design projects that they then 3D print. And it ends up being the perfect connection because the program that we're doing our curriculum is we're doing the decimals and integers curriculum. So we talk a lot about and the measurements on Tinkercad are given in decimals. You can set them to do decimals. So we will talk about measuring in decimals and recognizing decimal lengths and it helps with placement on a number line because if I tell them that their maximum height, we did bubble wands this semester so I had students design a bubble wand.
Speaker 2:Actual bubble wands, like I can bring a bubble. Actual bubble wands yes.
Speaker 1:So cool so I had them design. I had gotten that activity idea from an ed tech conference that I went to and somebody said they did it and I went that's brilliant, that sounds great. So we talked about what are the features of a bubble wand, what should it look like? And we talked about it has to have a handle so that you can dip it in the bubble solution. It has to have holes for the bubble solution to sit in. And we talked about should it be? Is a bubble wand that's an inch and a half thick going to produce good bubbles or does it need to be much, much thinner? So we had a lot of conversation around what that should look like.
Speaker 1:So then I gave them parameters and I said your maximum height has to be. I think I said 120 millimeters was what the height had to be. So then it becomes kind of a decimals on a number line activity for them, because if their height is 119.5, they have to understand that that's less than 120. Or if they're looking at a height that's 135.3, you're probably a little too high, it's a little too tall. So it really helps them kind of contextualize that understanding of where decimals fit in line with whole numbers and in the past I've had them do things where they have to kind of add pieces together. So if I have students that are, they put their handle down and their handle is a certain length and then they add their actual wand piece to it and they have to understand that those two measurements are gonna combine for their total height. So it helps them add and subtract decimals as well, because they're having to put those pieces together and those measurements together within their constraints. So it ends up being a really nice curriculum connection too.
Speaker 1:So, we've done all kinds of-.
Speaker 2:Super cool, super cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we did have. I did print all of their bubble wands. They did their designs. I printed them all and they loved it. I actually pulled the because our 3D printers on a cart. I actually pulled it into my classroom and my kids at the beginning of class, before the bell ring, during passing time, they would all come in and they would just stand in front of the 3D printer and watch it print until class started and they just loved getting to see that process. But yeah, I printed them all. We brought it, we made bubble solution, we took them all outside for like 20 minutes and let them just be kids and play with bubbles.
Speaker 2:So and it was great. Do you mind me asking, like within your materials and your budget, is that type of material expensive, or how are you planning out how many activities you can do on a 3D printer?
Speaker 1:So that was part of what led us to the decision to do the bubble wands this semester, the very first project we did. We had them design, we did it around Memorial Day and we had them design many scaled down parade floats and we did it as like a Memorial Day parade. Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:So we had them design parade floats and I'm sorry I say we, my instructional, our building instructional coach and I work together for our STEM activities every week. So we had them design parade floats and then we printed them and it was really cute. We got the little scooters from Jim and we connected them all and we put their parade floats on the little scooter and we did a mini parade around the school. But it used a ton of filament because the floats were relatively large. So we tried to kind of scale back and, in order to preserve filament, tried to think of something that was maybe a little bit smaller.
Speaker 1:The roles of filament, depending on what brand I mean, they range from like $30 to $50 a roll and I can print the bubble wands. I did 60 bubble wands and I think I went through a roll and a half of filament. So it's not. If you do a small project, it's not terrible. We, thankfully in our district, have access to a lot of grant opportunities. So I actually had applied for a grant for materials for our STEM activities and was awarded a grant that I used to buy several rolls of filament for the year.
Speaker 1:But I try to be conscious of how much filament I have and try to plan small projects around that. But even within a small project, the kids are just happy to get something that is printed. You could, you know, if a teacher wants to try a 3D printing thing or a project but doesn't have the actual 3D printer, you can still have students design projects on Tinkercad's, a completely free program. Kids can still design, even if they can't do the print. It's just more fun for them to have the print.
Speaker 2:So what? What careers are your students talking about? And have you heard any? You know from the beginning of the year I'm not a math person. I don't have a math mind too. Now they are thinking about, or seeing potential in, a career where you know everything uses math. But you know that there will be a need for that math discipline.
Speaker 1:So we actually, hilariously enough and I haven't gotten the results yet because we're still in the process of doing it our students are district wide. Our middle school students are doing a career exploration activity with our math kit with our math students, where we're having them explore careers that use math and then later in the year we're going to have them pick their careers that they would like and research how math is used in those careers. So we actually are working on that district right now. But for my students I see a lot of students who want to be athletes, they want to be YouTubers. You know we have we live in this age where there's all these there's so many possibilities of careers for our students. I have a lot of kids that want to be marine biologists, which is surprised but pleasantly surprising. I also, when I was a child, wanted to be a marine biologist. So it makes me really happy every time they talk about it. But we talk about every time we talk about careers. I try to ask them well, how do you think math would be used in that career? You know, when we did cookie dough they go, I forget that cooking uses math. Oh yeah, all the time, you know, we talk about.
Speaker 1:A big one that we talk about is finances, where I've had students in the past that say, oh, I'm going to be a football player, I don't need to learn math. And I said then who's going to handle your finances? Because you're going to be making a lot of money and you're going to want to make sure that you're handling that money appropriately. And I had a student one year that said I'm just going to pay someone, do it. And I said and you're going to trust them not to not to take a bunch of your money, don't you think you should probably know a little bit so that you would you know if they're messing with your money too much? And he said oh yeah, I guess so, but I try, anytime a student talks about I'm going to do this, I don't need math, I'm really quick to point out to them, either to point out where they're going to use it or say, well, hang on a second, think about it.
Speaker 1:Where do you think you're going to use math? And I actually had an activity that I did with them last year. At one of my bulletin boards I cut out a bunch of shapes and I had them think about careers that they thought, used math regularly and then I knew they were all going to write down a accountant and math teacher. So I turned it into an exit ticket and I said here's the thing If you turn this in with a, if you turn your little, your shape in with a career on it, you're going to get one out of two points. But you'll get your full two out of two points if you can come up with something that no one else in the class has written down today.
Speaker 1:And I'll tell them everyone's going to write math teacher, so don't even think about it, don't even write it. We know, and I'll tell them everybody's going to put banker or accountant. Don't write it down, you want your two points. So then they start to get really creative with it and I had some kids that said that, looked at me and said what about interior designers that going to use math? And I said, well, what do you need to know to be an interior designer? What do they do on a daily basis? And I said, well, you know, they figure out how much you know they like paint and they put furniture in a room. And I said don't you need to know the size of the room to be able to fit furniture in it? And they said oh yeah. And I said don't you need to know the size of the furniture so that you know if it's going to fit in the room? And they said yeah. So we kind of started to have these conversations about yes, you're absolutely right, you will use that math in that career more than you think you will. And I think, especially with my middle schoolers, we're just starting to talk to them about what careers they want, planning their high school path toward the career that they want. So I think just having those open, honest conversations with students and allowing them to think about, pushing them to think about how is that going to be used.
Speaker 1:My favorite favorite story I have about math in the real world is I had a student once we were learning fractions and I had a student who looked at me and said I don't need to know how to use fractions. My brother works at a fast food restaurant or he works at McDonald's. He says he doesn't use fractions ever and without missing a beat, I looked at him and I said do you know what a quarter pounder is? And he said, well, yeah, it's a burger on the McDonald's menu. And I said and do you know what a quarter means mathematically? And he said, well, no, and I said a quarter is one fourth.
Speaker 1:And I wrote it on the board and I said does this look like the menu item, you see? And he goes, yeah. And I said so, there's fractions right on the McDonald's menu, honey. And he just he kind of looked at me with these big eyes and went oh my God, I didn't even realize, right? So it's just finding those opportunities to point out to students you are going to use this here's how but also taking the opportunity to not just tell them, but let them kind of discover that for themselves.
Speaker 2:So, as we wrap up, melody, I mean this has been just fascinating talking with you and learning from you. You teach math 180, which is one of our programs at HMH. It is intervention, it is to redirect how students think about math, think about themselves in math learning and accelerate. And what I know is that you were a recipient of one of our 180 educators of the year award. So, first of all, like, who nominated you? Like what? What was the experience when you learned? How did your students react and what do you think about your teaching differently now than before you got that reward?
Speaker 1:I will tell you I I don't actually know who nominated me. Apparently I had been nominated by multiple people and I think my, my principal might have been one of them. She kind of she told me about it and I said I don't even know where that came. I didn't even know that wasn't a word that you could win. I don't know what, how that happened, how that came about, and she kind of gave me a look when I said I didn't know. So I think she might have been one of them. The students were really excited. It was kind of it was just a really fun big day because my ELA counterpart so the math class that I teach my ELA counterpart also won the read 180 award last year as well oh cool, okay.
Speaker 1:So it was kind of a. It was a really exciting day for us because everybody came in and the kids were all. They were balloons and celebration and the kids really thought it was, was it exciting? And I kind of, when I found out about it, I looked at them all and I said I don't know if I really deserve this. Like, we're still learning math 180. We're still. This is our first.
Speaker 1:It was our first year with it and I said, you know, I still don't necessarily feel like an expert here. I feel like I'm, I'm still figuring this out. And my kids said, yeah, but you're doing your best to make it work for us. You're really, you're really trying to make it work. And we were. You know, when I was in meetings with with HMH lots last year and talked to the math 180 team a lot and we were constantly improving and doing a lot of that work, and my kids, my students, were just so sweet about it and they were like, well, yeah, you absolutely deserve it, you're doing a great job with it. So it was, it was very, very sweet.
Speaker 1:And I guess, you know, going into this year, having won that award, I think going into this year, I have a lot more confidence with this program because I really I kind of felt like I was. You know, I had jumped right in and was doing what I could with it and trying to figure out how to fit it into my schedule and what pieces to use and what pieces not to use and how to schedule because we only have 56 minutes per class, so trying to figure out within a class period how do we get that timing just right. And I did a lot of playing around with it and I felt like maybe I'm kind of getting somewhere, I think I'm maybe getting the hang of this, and then winning that award really just kind of boosted my confidence to know that, yeah, maybe I am onto something, maybe I am figuring this out more than I think I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you totally are and I commend you for you know just the authenticity of saying I don't know if I deserve it and that's part of the reason for that award right.
Speaker 2:Like it is to reward that you are deserving, it is jumping in, it is seeing the opportunity, it is knowing who your learners are and loving everything about working with intervention. But one of the things I love from this episode, melody, and talking with you, is that you have seen yourself in the curriculum and potential and possibilities of where the curriculum can be extended or where it's like, okay, we're working on this concept, but that activity is not in here, so I'm gonna add it in. That is phenomenal teaching any day, regardless of any program, and so I commend you for that and just wanna share and ask you as we wrap up, thinking about teachers who are in their mid-year of their first year, or those future teachers why math? Why should I consider teaching math?
Speaker 1:That is a great question and full transparency. When I was in school, I actually did not want to teach math. My major is language arts. That was all I wanted to teach. And I had a college academic advisor that said, well, you're only three classes away from a math minor, you should think about it. And I said thank you for the advice, but no, thank you, I don't wanna teach math. Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I wanna spend the rest of my life doing math. No, thank you. And he said well, I really want you to think about it because I think it would be good for you. So I obviously did it.
Speaker 1:And then I avoided math jobs like the plague. I didn't want to apply for anything. I was like, yes, I have this degree, but I don't wanna teach math. And I finally had an experience where I was doing a long-term subbing position in an eighth grade math class and I just kind of went for it and embraced it and I realized within a week and a half that like, oh, this is where I should have been my whole life. I don't know. So, and I always tell my students the story too, and I say so this is me telling you that sometimes the universe just kind of pushes you where you're meant to be and listen to the universe when it tries to push you in a certain direction.
Speaker 1:But and part of what I fell in love with with teaching math was that math is more than just problem solution. Math really is. I mean, we talk about math as problems. They're math problems. Every other discipline has questions and math has problems, so it's really focused on problem solving.
Speaker 1:And I was at a math leaders training today actually and somebody said something about they view math like art, where math you can be creative and actually the most creative people are the ones that come up with the best solutions for things.
Speaker 1:And I think, just reminding myself that math is problem solving and there's room to be creative and there's room to have fun with it, and then instilling that fun in students and helping them understand that math isn't some scary thing that they should hide from or say they're not good at. Math can be fun and it can be creative and it can be interesting. And I've just had a lot of fun finding creative ways to make those connections for them and to help them see the fun in it. But I also think as a teacher. I think math has been one of the most rewarding subjects that I could teach, because kids come to me struggling and because they come to me with this mindset of I can't do math. And to watch them break that throughout the semester and to watch them find their confidence and come out of that, I think is one of the most rewarding things about being a math teacher.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. Thank you for being who you are. Thank you to the coach or the professor who was like you should do this and just thank you for being a guest on Teachers in America. I know many teachers out there, even if they don't teach math, are gonna take lots of great ideas away from this, Thank you and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:This has been a blast. Thank you, chris, of course.
Speaker 2:If you are someone you know would like to be a guest on the Teachers in America podcast, please email us at shaped at hmhcocom. Be the first to hear new episodes of Teachers in America by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you enjoy today's show, please rate, review and share it with your network. You can find the transcript of this episode on our shaped blog by visiting hmhcocom. Forward slash shaped. The link is in the show notes. The Teachers in America podcast is a production of HMH. Executive producers are Christine Condon and Tim Lee. Editorial direction is by Christine Condon. It is creatively directed and audio engineered by Tim Lee. Our producer and editor is Jennifer Carujo. Production designers are Mia Fry and Thomas Velazquez. Shaped blog post editors for the podcast are Christine Condon, jennifer Carujo and Alicia Ivory. Thanks again for listening.