Math Teacher Lounge episode: Howie Hua on making math viral
K—12 math instruction has come a long way from having students memorize times tables. Thanks to innovative instructors like Howie Hua, it’s gone all the way to TikTok. And it’s gone viral.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer recently talked to Howie Hua on Math Teacher Lounge—now a podcast!
Meet Howie Hua
Howie Hua is a lecturer at Fresno State. He teaches math to future elementary math teachers. That’s a good thing, because he doesn’t just make math “come alive.” He makes it go viral.
He has more than 32,000 followers on TikTok (@howie_hua), where his brief, punchy math explainer videos have garnered nearly 500,000 likes.
That’s why Bethany Lockhart Johnson was so excited to talk to him on the podcast, she says. “He is inviting us to think about how we ask questions in mathematics in ways that get people buzzing. His ideas and thoughts have gone viral and people are in conversation in a way that we long for them to be, out in the streets shouting about mathematics.”
(Fun fact: Hua can also throw a rifle 15 feet in the air, do a back flip, and catch it. Don’t believe us? Check out his TikTok.)
Questions are as important as answers
“I think people don’t want to watch a 20-minute YouTube video on something math-related. Maybe they just want a short one-minute explainer,” says Hua.
Even in one minute, Hua shines new light on math functions and concepts—and more.
“People want to understand what’s actually happening,” says Hua. “For example, I got so many nice comments when I explained the long division algorithm. I said, ‘Let’s visualize it.’ It’s not just connecting the permutation and the combination formulas. People want to know what’s happening rather than just ‘Use this formula to get an answer.’”
Dan Meyer shares a couple of Hua’s most popular TikToks:
- Test Talk: Reduce test anxiety by having students talk in a group about a test for five minutes before putting pencil to paper.
- How do you calculate … ? In his Mental Math Mondays series, Hua asks viewers to tell him exactly how they solve a given arithmetic problem. “One of my favorite hobbies is to listen to how people think about math,” says Hua. “So if you want to make my day, comment or stitch this video with how you would calculate 17 plus 18 in your head.”
Hua says that to ask “Hey, how would you think about this?” does more than give him insight. Asking questions helps build community, and shows people that there are many ways to arrive at an answer.
Says Hua: “It really goes to show that math is a creative subject. ‘Hey, can we find another way? What’s another way that we can do this?’ I tell my students, the beauty is in us, not the final answer.”
Join the challenge
Here’s Hua’s Math Teacher Lounge challenge for this episode:
- Walk around and find something that you can count, take a picture, and then ask around: “Hey, how would you count these?” See if their way is the same as yours—or if it blows your mind.
- Share your pictures and thoughts by tagging us (@MTLShow) and Howie (@Howie_Hua) on Twitter, and sharing them in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group as well.
Bonus: Did you do the daily Wordle before you read this post? You might have learned something about teaching math—listen to the podcast to find out why (and to hear why on earth Dan Meyer would start his guesses with “PYGMY”)
The Math Teacher Lounge podcast is available on all major streaming platforms and on mathteacherlounge.com. Math Teacher Lounge is presented by Amplify and Desmos. Visit Amplify’s website to find out more about Amplify Math.
Become an Amplify Classroom Fellow!
Are you an Amplify Classroom (formerly Desmos Classroom) superfan or a math educator who loves using technology to make learning come alive? If so, consider applying to join the next Amplify Classroom Fellows cohort, a passionate community of math educators who inspire one another and help shape the future of Amplify’s products!
If you have any questions, reach out to amplifyclassroomfellows@amplify.com.
What is the Amplify Classroom Fellowship?
The Amplify Classroom Fellowship is a professional learning community of K–12 math educators who:
- Use Amplify Classroom to empower students’ mathematical thinking.
- Share insights, strategies, and inspiration with peers.
- Care deeply about making math learning accessible and engaging for all students.
As an Amplify Classroom Fellow, you’ll receive:
- Invitations to unique professional development experiences, both online and in person.
- Opportunities to connect with the Amplify Classroom Fellows community of peers and Amplify teams.
- Early access to learn about new features before other educators.
We ask participants to:
- Share experiences through presentations, publications, and educator events during the school year.
- Connect and collaborate with like-minded educators and Amplify teams.
- Attend an in-person New Fellows Orientation event in mid-July 2026.
Interested in becoming an Amplify Classroom Fellow?
Applications for Cohort 9 will open next winter.
If you have any questions, reach out to amplifyclassroomfellows@amplify.com.
How problem-based learning can transform the math classroom
With test scores and student engagement on the decline, it’s clear that traditional teaching methods aren’t meeting the needs of all of today’s math learners.
One solution that’s gaining momentum is problem-based learning. By focusing on real-world problems and structured approaches, this approach develops critical thinking, reasoning, and application—skills that are essential for math success.
But making this shift isn’t easy. For math teachers and educators, it requires careful planning, a clear strategy, and community commitment.
That’s why we’re here to help.
The decline in test scores and engagement
The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show a sharp decline in math proficiency across grade levels. Only 26% of eighth graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in 2022. These results represent the largest score declines in NAEP mathematics at grades 4 and 8 since initial assessments in 1990. The pandemic didn’t help, but it’s not the only factor.
This downward trend is compounded by a sense of disengagement. According to YouthTruth’s report Making Sense of Learning Math: Insights from the Student Experience, only half of students feel that what they’re learning in math connects to the real world. Recent survey data also shows that less than half of U.S. students feel that they “often” or “always” work on interesting problems in math class.
When math feels irrelevant or intimidating, students disengage—and the learning gaps that follow can be difficult to close.
An opportunity to grow
But the data also includes opportunities. According to NAEP research, more than 70% of students report that they enjoy activities that challenge their thinking and thinking about problems in new ways.
Problem-based learning helps give those students what they want.
And in a world that relies increasingly on data, analysis, and innovation, students need to learn not just how to follow steps and apply formulas, but how to think mathematically. In other words, problem-solving skills need to be part of student learning. This is particularly important in elementary and middle school math, where foundational concepts are built—and where students have the chance to forget their identities as “math people.”
That’s why working to infuse problem-based math learning into your district’s instruction can help reverse negative math and engagement trends.
What does problem-based learning in math look like?
Let’s go back and define this approach more fully. Research shows that math instruction is most effective when it encourages students—individually or grouped with peers—to grapple actively with math problems. When instruction gives students the opportunity and freedom to solve problems, rather than dictating solutions and then having them practice, students are more motivated.
For example, instead of memorizing the formula for calculating area and then practicing it in a series of disconnected problems, students might tackle a problem-solving challenge like:
How much paint is needed to cover our classroom walls?” Or they might work on a broader question such as: “How can we design a park, taking into account constraints like space, cost, and accessibility?
At its core, problem-based learning values mathematical thinking and reasoning. Rather than focusing on procedures and memorization, problem-based learning encourages students to:
- Explore open-ended problems.
- Ask questions and make connections.
- Develop strategies to solve problems collaboratively.
- Build curiosity and perseverance.
- Reflect on their reasoning and process.
In the problem-based learning classroom, students are positioned as active participants in their math experiences, building a deeper understanding of concepts as they work through challenges. This is particularly critical for ensuring students don’t just learn math, but understand why it works and how to apply it. These approaches can transform math classrooms into spaces where students build both foundational and real-world math skills—and a healthy dose of math confidence, too.
Critical factors in making the shift
Integrating problem-based learning into traditional math teaching can feel like (and is!) a big change—in lesson-planning, mindset, and more.
To make it work for administrators, teachers, and students alike, schools do best when they focus on a few critical factors. These include:
- Clear vision: Understand (and communicate) why the shift matters and what it looks like in action.
- Leadership buy-in: Gain commitment from school leaders and administrators.
- Teacher support: Offer professional development, resources, and ongoing guidance specific to math instruction.
- Structured approaches: Establish a well-defined plan for implementing problem-based learning in math classrooms effectively.
What problem-based learning can look like in the classroom
While problem-based learning offers proven benefits, it can be difficult to integrate into the classroom without a clear structure. Teachers need tools and strategies to guide students through the process and ensure that learning goals are met.
A structured approach to problem-based learning in math should include:
- Defining the problem: Present a clear, engaging math challenge connected to real-world scenarios.
- Student inquiry: Encourage exploration, discussion, and different solution paths.
- Collaboration: Support teamwork to share ideas and reasoning.
- Reflection: Allow students to evaluate their process, solutions, and learning.
This structured approach not only improves students’ conceptual understanding, but also aligns with Amplify’s research findings, which show that students who engage in active learning outperform their peers in more traditional settings.
By embracing problem-based learning in math classrooms, educators can:
- Boost student engagement and confidence.
- Improve student problem-solving and mathematical reasoning skills.
- Help reverse declines in math achievement over time.
- Empower students to see the value and relevance of math in academics and in their lives.
Ready to learn more?
If you’re ready to explore how your school can make the shift to problem-based learning in math, our new change management ebook is the perfect place to start. It offers practical guidance, real-world examples, and a deeper look at the strategies highlighted above.
Download the ebook now to discover actionable insights and strategies to help make problem-based learning come alive in your math classrooms.
Winter Wrap-Up 02: Mathematizing Children’s Literature
While we’re hard at work producing the exciting fifth season of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we’re continuing to share some of our favorite conversations from our first four seasons. This time around, we’re revisiting our popular episode that connected literacy and math!
In this episode, we sit down with Allison Hintz and Antony Smith, authors of Mathematizing Children’s Literature, to talk about what would happen if we were to approach children’s literature, and life, through a math lens–and how we can apply those same techniques to classroom teaching!
Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:02):
Hi, I’m Bethany Lockhart Johnson.
Dan Meyer (00:04):
Hi, I’m Dan Meyer.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:05):
And we are so excited for another episode of Math Teacher Lounge. And as you know, podcast format; you’re listening now. I think one beautiful thing about the podcast format is that it gives us a little bit more time to have these rich conversations. And I promise I won’t do it, but I could talk to our guests for hours, hours! Authors Allison Hintz and Tony Smith have just released Mathematizing Children’s Literature: Sparking Connections, Joy, and Wonder Through Read-Alouds and Discussion. And today we get to talk to the authors. Allison, Tony, welcome. Welcome to the lounge.
Allison Hintz (00:53):
Thank you. We’re so grateful to be here.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:55):
We’re so excited to have you here. And I wanna say that my very first—was it my first math conference? Maybe it was my first math conference—up in Seattle, the CGI conference, and I’m all like, you know, wide-eyed and just like, “Can this be a place for me, this math community?” Re-envisioning my relationship with math and thinking about myself as a math teacher, what? And I went to your session on mathematizing children’s literature, and I was just so fired up. I was so wowed by your ideas, your energy, and your passion for students’ thinking. And I feel like as I read this book, I felt like I was hanging out with you. Like you were just so encouraging all the way through. Of educators, of other folks working with young people, and really guiding us how to listen with joy and with an open curious mind.
Dan Meyer (02:03):
Yeah. I would love to hear a bit about the genesis of this book for you folks. Like, I’m coming at this from a secondary educator lens. I’ve got small kids, so that’s also part of my interest here. But I love any book, any idea that seeks to merge what seems like two disparate worlds. Like it’s often the case that we feel like, well, there’s approaches for ELA and approaches for math, and they’re kind of separate disciplines. And these poor elementary teachers have to learn all of them and be experts at all of them. And here you both come along and say, “Hey, what if they are the same kind of technique?” Can you just speak to how this came about?
Allison Hintz (02:38):
Definitely. Tony, do you wanna take a try? Do you want me to start us off?
Antony Smith (02:42):
I can start. We oftentimes present and talk together and so we kinda switch back and forth. So that’s just how we are. So probably about eight or nine years ago, Allison and I, our offices were next to each other on our small campus. We’re both professors and we just happened to have a few children’s books that we looked at together and we were just thumbing through the pages. We really liked children’s literature. And we noticed that I would stop at certain points wondering about character motive or plot or sequence of events or language use. And Allison would stop at very different points in the book and notice number and concepts or something about mathematics. And that’s when we started to wonder, what would it be like if we were sharing a children’s book with a group of children and we put our ideas together? Where would we stop? What would we talk about? What would we ask children about in terms of their thinking and what they notice?
Allison Hintz (03:42):
And so we started playing with these questions that we had and started approaching stories with multiple lenses to see what kinds of things would children notice and what kinds of things might they say. And we were also on our own journey in trying to understand how to plan for and facilitate lively discussions and classrooms that surface really complex mathematics. And it felt like stories were a place where that might be a fruitful context for hearing children’s thinking. We’ve worked with a lot of teachers and students in our region. We live in the Seattle area and we’ve applied for some funding over time that’s really helped us be in a lot of community-based organizations and educational contexts and libraries and pediatricians’ offices and classrooms, various classrooms, and see what’s interesting about this and what might teachers and children do with stories that would surface complex mathematics to think about together.
Antony Smith (04:41):
Over time, we came to the realization that if we wanted to hear children’s ideas, we had to stop bombarding them with questions. <laugh> Yeah. And at first it made it worse that we were asking them math and literacy questions at the same time. And so we realized that what we needed to do was to back off and to ask children what they noticed and wondered.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (05:01):
Can you say more about that and how that kind of evolved into mathematizing children’s literature?
Antony Smith (05:07):
We did work with a number of very thoughtful, talented classroom teachers and children’s librarians in public library systems who were just so masterful at asking open-ended prompts and questions, rather than kind of like the de facto reading quiz, that a read-aloud can become, which I’ve always disliked as a literacy educator. And we realized in our observing these read-alouds or interactive read-alouds or shared reading experiences that given the opportunity in the space and an adult who was actually listening, that children came up with all of the ideas we would have asked them about and more. So we didn’t have to be bombarding them with questions. They were already much more thoughtful than what would’ve been sufficient to answer our questions.
Allison Hintz (05:58):
And much like mathematics, it was really an iterative process. You know, we had some clunky read-aloud discussions where we were trying to accomplish so much and toggling multiple chart papers and different colored pens and all sorts of “how do we capture these ideas” and “do we separate ’em? do we keep ’em together?” And so it’s really been over time that with partners, we’ve learned these ways of having multiple reads of the same story that allow us to hear what children notice and wonder, and then to delve more deeply into their questions and their ideas through multiple reads where we might spotlight literary ideas that they notice; we might spotlight mathematical ideas that they notice. We might make purposeful integrations between those. But we found it to be most productive—and Kristin Gray really help us think about this—to have an open Notice and Wonder, get everything out much like an open-strategy share. We welcome here, record all the ideas, and it goes all over everywhere. You know, it can be a really not math-y noticing! And those are amazing! So there’s a lot of, um, yes, there is a ladybug on this page! The grandma is wearing green triangle earrings! Oh, your grandma wears green earrings! I mean, it all comes out.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:27):
Wait, have you been in my classroom? ‘Cause that’s exactly— <laugh>
Allison Hintz (07:29):
<laugh> And then, you know, we think of it a lot like if math teachers might use the 5 Practices for selecting and sequencing, or if you might move from an open-strategy share to a targeted share, how can we get out all the questions that children are asking and then step back from them, take some time to really think about what they’re telling us they’re curious about, and plan some purposeful, intentional subsequent discussions that can delve more deeply into their ideas.
Dan Meyer (08:02):
I’d love to go into that a little bit more if that’s all right. Um, I’m gonna speak from someone who doesn’t have an elementary background and I’m gonna voice some worries that I had, some anxiety. One anxiety I have like in a classroom or a curriculum is when there’s no room for student ideas. Right? When it’s like, oh, there’s just room for the curriculum author or the teacher here. That is a sadness. But I when I see an instructional environment like you’re describing here, where there is openness to all kinds of different student ideas, of different levels of formality, from different kinds of cultural fonts of knowledge or wherever, I also get a little bit nervous because that, like, increases the risk that a student might come to understand that “my ideas are not good enough,” whereas in the class with no room for their ideas from their home or their language or their hobbies, like, they’re not gonna internalize the message that, “that wasn’t good enough.” And so I’m really curious as you move from the open Notice and Wonder where kids share all of themselves with you, and then you move to a targeted focus on some sort of disciplinary objective, how do you navigate that tension and help students feel like their contributions are valuable, even though we aren’t taking them up per se?
Allison Hintz (09:18):
That’s such an important question. I mean, I think we’ve grappled with this broadly in math education. I think any time we’re thinking about which ideas we choose to take up to pursue to consider, we have a responsibility to think carefully about whose ideas are being taken up and heard and considered. And so one of the tensions I hear you naming, I think, Dan, is when we engage in lively discussion where children’s thinking’s at the center, how do we make sure to upend and interrupt kinda status norms that run the risk of being deepened? Um, and I think by paying attention to whose ideas are taken up as much as which ideas are taken up, and what’s the mathematics we wanna explore is one tension. Um, another tension I might hear you naming is, you know, the complications that teachers face with time and pressure and coverage, and which mathematics ends up getting worked on. And, um, you know, it’s something we’ve really had to struggle with in mathematics education, where we move to more discussion-oriented classrooms that are really centered in sense-making to know that it takes a lot of time to do this thoughtful, thoughtful work. Um, does that begin to get at some of the tensions you’re raising? Is there, is there more you’re thinking about?
Dan Meyer (10:53):
I think it’s really helpful that you kind of broadened the scope of the question beyond your book to “this is an issue that we are, you know, really challenged by and focused on broadly in math education.” And, um, I appreciate you bringing the element in of whose idea—not just which idea is taken up, but whose idea is taken up—is an opportunity where, let’s say, multiple people raise an idea that is towards an objective the teacher has, they have the opportunity to disrupt certain kinds of status, like ideas about status, in that moment. From your perspective, like, are there techniques to say, I don’t know, parking-lot certain kinds of questions and say like, “Hey, like these are awesome”? I don’t know. I just know that I see kids at like ninth grade. They are very reticent, often. They’ve internalized totally this sense of like, “I’m not gonna just, like, share about the pants the grandma’s wearing, you know; that will not be received well.” And so I’m just kinda wondering how that happens and like, what are the ways we can disrupt that? That process?
Antony Smith (11:54):
So thinking about that, Dan, from the teacher’s perspective, in those kinds of scenarios where you wanna honor each child’s contribution, a couple of things that come to mind: One is that by, you know, initially by modeling what I as a teacher, something that I notice or wonder about, helps kind of set the expectation for what kind of response would be encouraged. And it’s broad, but it gives an example. And then also we really try to record or to chart all of the ideas that are shared so that we can revisit and honor those together. And then either later or on another day, if we choose one or two of those to explore in some way within a more focused read, then another thing that we do is have the idea investigation afterward that continues that thought, but goes back to being as open-ended as possible, so that those students or children who maybe didn’t have their idea as the one that was focused on by the group could go back to that or explore some other idea of their own, so that the idea investigation isn’t a lockstep extension activity, which is why we don’t call it that. So they could again bring in their own perspective. But I have to say from the teacher’s point of view, there is that moment of potential panic <laugh> because there is that power transfer when you’re asking children to help steer where this is going. And if you really mean it, you have to let them steer a little bit. And that can be terrifying. And, um, I always think of one teacher, Ashley, we worked with who read an adorable book, Stack the Cats, by Susie Ghahremani. And in that book, there’s a point where there are eight cats and they’re kind of trying to be a tower of cats and they fall and they’re sort of in the air on that page. And she asked her first graders—she stopped, and she asked, “How, do you think, how will the cats land?” And for about a minute and a half, the entire <laugh> class, was silent. They had their little papers; they had chart paper; they had clipboards; they had everything they needed. But that unusual phenomenon of a group of six- and seven-year-olds actually just sitting and thinking and not being peppered with activities was really stressful, but amazing. And then, after about the 90 seconds, they started out into their exploration of how the eight cats might land. They just needed a minute to think. And it’s so rare that we’re able to let children have that.
Allison Hintz (14:40):
In that same moment, Ashley, who’s a learning partner to us, she turned to us kind of quietly, like, “Should I pose a different question?” And <laugh>, we’re like, “No, let’s stick with it. Let’s see what happens.” So I think it creates this space too, this thinking culture, right? And this culture of “what does that mean to really pose a rich task?That’s open-ended, where there’s multiple access points?” Those eight cats could land in so many different ways. And there was broad access, there was a wide range of all the cats landing, and one’s on their feet, ’cause cats always land on their feet <laugh>, and there was every combination. And so, um, I think what’s really interesting—and to me, this brings back to your wonder, Dan—is, you know, “What’s the risk in openness?” And there’s always risk in openness. Um, it’s scary as a teacher, right? If I’m not the authority of knowledge and I don’t have control over where we’re gonna go, it might get into places that I didn’t anticipate. Or I don’t really feel as solid in the math as I want to. Or I don’t know what it sounds like to stick with silence and wait time, to know if my students are really in productive struggle or if that question was a flop. And so, um, I think this is some practice space for young mathematicians and teachers of mathematics, and just teachers, to explore with that openness and kind of the risk of the openness required for complex thinking to emerge.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:12):
You know, it feels like the way you’re both describing this, it really is a culture shift, right? I kept feeling like I was given permission to be a beginner as I read this book. Like I was really…I loved how you said, I believe it was you, Allison, when you were in the class, you had a couple index card that you kept on your clipboard and that as you walked around, you were like, “Hey, if I don’t know what to ask, I ask one of these questions.” You know? And just this idea that, that, like Dan was saying, there is that loss of control, but that’s also a way to create this culture where students ideas are valued and we are allowing students to really generate the questions, which I thought was such an important idea to explore.
Allison Hintz (17:00):
We started this work long ago, super-excited about math-y books. And we saw a lot of potential in them and we still do. But the limitation we saw is that math-y books, they, they put forth a certain mathematics to be curious about. In some ways they tell you what mathematics to think about. So we started asking ourselves what would happen if we considered any story a chance to engage as mathematical sense-makers. And we started playing with non-math-y books and we got to a place where we could consider every story an opportunity to engage in mathematical thinking. And so we started noticing things over times, oh, these books tend to be really math-y. We call those text-dependent. We’d have to pay attention to the mathematics to understand the story. Whereas this pile of stories, these, they’re not overtly math-y. You could really enjoy the story and not pay attention to mathematics and have an amazing conversation. But what would happen if we thought of about this story as mathematical sense-makers and how might it deepen our understanding of the story? And then this other teetering pile of books, these are books where, you know, children didn’t tend to engage as overtly as mathematicians in it, but there’s opportunities in this story to go back to something—to a moment, to an illustration, to a comment—and think as mathematicians. And those were more about illustration exploring. And so, as we notice these different kinds of books, we really broaden what we thought about. And I think one of the things we really wanna think about in community through this book is what happens if we approach any story, every story, as mathematical sense-makers, because stories are alive in children’s lives, in homes and communities and in schools. And it’s a broad opportunity that we wanna take up. I was thinking, as I stay in this strait for just a moment about book selection, before we move into that process, um, Bethany in a previous MTL, you talked about representation.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:12):
Mm, yeah.
Allison Hintz (19:14):
And do you remember when you shared the image of hair braiding?
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:19):
Yes. Vividly, yes. <laugh>.
Allison Hintz (19:22):
Yeah. And can you say just what that meant to you? What that….
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:27):
Yeah. Well, it was from a conference; Sunil Singh had used it and was talking about the artistry in mathematics and beauty in hair braiding. And, um, particularly, he was showing this particular image of this Black woman with her hair braided in profile and looking at the angles and the symmetry. And I shared that, you know, I spent so many hours in the beauty shop with my aunties and my mom and my grandma and continue to, to this day, that it just, it struck me immediately as familiar. And it struck me immediately as seeing an image that was reflective of my lived reality, projected as valuable and worthwhile for consideration in the world of mathematics. Which is not what I felt as a student of mathematics as a young adult or child. So it was this beautiful moment of, for me, the power of when we see images and we allow opportunities for re-envisioning what may be a common practice for that student, or may be something that they see every day.
Allison Hintz (20:44):
And in that same way, that image that was put up, we wanna think really carefully about representation in the stories that we select. And when we think of stories as mirrors or windows, we really wanna be mindful in story selection of whose stories are told and whose stories are heard. And when you said that you would sit down to listen to a story and you felt at ease or that you saw an image and you saw yourself that can be and should be something we really think carefully about when we select the stories that we select.
Dan Meyer (21:21):
It’s a wider path for representation of different kinds of people in literature, because people’s stories seem so much more present and towards the surface of their lives, versus, say, the abstractions and numbers and shapes in mathematics. It feels like more of a struggle to find ways to show people, hey, like you’re here, this, this place belongs to you. So in all these reasons, I think it’s really great you folks are using literature, which has this history of humanities, literally humanities, as a vehicle for mathematics. That seems pretty special here.
Antony Smith (21:56):
We both go to libraries and bookstores and look through books as often as we can, but also our partner, a children’s librarian, Mie-Mie Wu, helped us go through—when we would meet, she would bring three or four hundred books at a time.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (22:13):
When you described her wheeling in the cart, oh, I wish I been in that room! <Laugh>
Antony Smith (22:18):
And the cart was, you know, probably three or four times bigger than she was sometimes. And we would go through hundreds of books and look at them and listen to her thoughts as a skilled librarian sharing with families, diverse families, and what catches the attention of a three-year-old sitting with her grandfather. And that was really a valuable, helpful experience. And it’s a partnership that continues. So in Last Stop on Market Street—and this is in the book; we talk about this, this children’s book quite a bit—in this story, CJ with his Nana, his grandmother, are riding the bus to the last stop on Market Street in San Francisco, to go, as we will find out, to help serve in a soup kitchen to help the community. And the teacher, Susan Hadreas, had the children record their ideas. She charted them in an open Notice and Wonder read. And one of the ideas that a young boy noticed was that CJ on the bus…a man with a guitar starts playing the guitar on the bus and CJ closes his eyes and it says CJ’s chest grew full. And he was lost in the sound and the sound gave him the feeling of magic. So this boy said, “I wonder, what does that feel like if you’re feeling the magic? What’s that?” And that was one of many ideas in the open Notice and Wonder, and Allison will talk about the math lens read, but first Susan went back and read with them. She had that idea, she circled it on the chart paper, and another day that week, she said, let’s go back and visit this story we really liked. And remember, we wondered what feeling the magic was like. Let’s go back through and let’s keep track of all the feelings and emotions that CJ had across the journey to the soup kitchen in this book. And so they did another read of the story; they were very familiar with it, of course, but they noticed new things and they also, every few pages, stopped and she helped chart all of the emotions that CJ experienced from envy to excitement to sadness. There’s a huge range in this book. And it was fascinating.
Allison Hintz (24:36):
I think one of the things that the children noticed was that CJ’s feelings were shaped by community. And that he shaped and shaped…he was shaped by and helped shape his community. And so the ways that he felt across the story were impacted by the other characters that he comes across. The guitar man on the bus. The bus driver who can pull a coin out from behind someone’s ear. The lady with the butterflies in the jar. Nana helping him to see the rainbow. And the students started, you know, being curious about that. How do we shape and how are we shaped by community? What communities are we a part of? This class is one community. I’m in many communities across my life. And they started to quantify the number of people in the story. So Mrs. Hedreas went back for a math lens read, and she said, let’s just keep track of and pay attention to how many people are in CJ’s life in this day. Because I can hear you starting to think about quantity. This class at the same time in other areas of the day had been working on counting collections, how to keep track, so they got out their tools. Some people pulled out ten frames, some people pulled out clipboards. They had a wide range of things they could use to help them keep track. They developed their own strategy, keep track however you want. She did a quicker read through it, flipping the pages, and then they get into these debates: <laugh> “We already counted that person!” “But they took their hat off and put it down to collect money!
Antony Smith (26:10):
“What about the dog?”
Allison Hintz (26:11):
“That’s the same person!” “Yeah, there’s a dog pound in his community!” <laugh> “Do animals count in our community?”
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (26:17):
I love it!
Allison Hintz (26:17):
“Yes, they count!” Uh, and so we went through and quantified and there was really this understanding as you saw these people throughout the story that communities can be of different sizes, but community has impact. And you have responsibility in your community to show up and to lean in and to know that bringing your full, authentic, vulnerable self, you shape people and they shape you. And what communities are people a part of. And it turned into this really interesting discussion about quantity and helped us think more about quantity and community. I think a really important moment for us and for that class was the transition from being people who almost did mathematics to a story, like counted things on a page, um, count acorns on a page in an autumn book, to being mathematicians who thought within the story.
Antony Smith (27:17):
And then two idea investigations that came from that —not at the same time, of course, but with the same group of children—one was they identified an emotion of their own and wrote and drew about that. And also, who helped them address or get out of or acknowledge that emotion. And then the other idea investigation was that all of the children drew or kind of mapped out a community that they were part of. Whether it was their neighborhood or their classroom or their soccer team or whatever it was. And so then those investigations strengthened the connections of those concepts to the lives of those children.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:05):
Well, I, actually wanted to ask you about idea investigations. Because I feel like that was such an important invitation in your book. And the way I understood the idea investigation is you’re really paying attention to what’s coming up in your other reads. Right? And then these are opportunities to extend the thinking, or like you said, to extend a particular aspect: What’s your community? Can we map your community? Or what’s a particular emotion? And it was in such contrast to what I think I have probably done in my classroom more than once, which was like, “Oh, we read this story about seals. So now my story problem is gonna be about seals, right? <laugh> Like in the story, you know, Jojo, the seal had five balls. <laugh> So if Jojo still had five balls and two of them bounced away…” You know, or whatever. Right? But that’s not what an idea investigation is. Right?
Allison Hintz (29:03):
Yeah. I think this is where we also had some stumbles and can totally relate to what you’re saying as previous classroom teachers as well. We have come to a place where we are pretty in favor of a super open-ended idea investigation that takes up the things that have surfaced in the multiple reads and making sure it’s a rich task with many, many ways children can engage with that. There’s many, many, many right answers or ways to engage. Less is more there. So we moved way away from, like, even a worksheet that might have an idea from it to blank paper and math tools and places to get into some productive struggle around some of the complex things that were raised.
Antony Smith (29:59):
A challenge with worksheets is that they put a frame around children’s ideas. So either there are only three lines to write on, or there’s only a small box to draw in. Whereas a blank page really opens up the possibility. Um, and so—is it Ann Jonas who wrote Splash!? sorry, I don’t have it in front of me—the book Splash!, about animals that end up in and out of the pond, including a cat that is not happy about ending up in the pond, an idea investigation after that for very young children was, with the list of the different creatures displayed at the front of the room: On blank paper, hey, draw your own pond and decide how many of which and each type of animal you want in your pond and then write about it. Just on blank paper. And so that allowed some children to draw, like, three giant goldfish. But other children drew 17 frogs and three cats. And, and just, it lets children follow—
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:02):
It was theirs, right? It was theirs.
Antony Smith (31:04):
Their idea. <laugh> And that comes partly from, I think, as Allison mentioned, we both were classroom teachers before moving into academia. And I remember giving children worksheets, particularly math worksheets, where they weren’t necessarily bad, but right at the bottom, it says like, explain your strategy. And it gives two lines.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:23):
Right! <laugh>
Antony Smith (31:25):
The only thing a seven-year-old can write there is “I thought.” Or “I solved it.” <laugh> And that’s not where we need to go.
Dan Meyer (31:34):
Yeah. If I could just ask the indulgence of the primary crowd here, like, I’m trying to make sense of all this. And I just wanna like, offer my perspective. My summary statement of what’s going on here. I’m trying to—I love how you both came here—
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:45):
<laughs> How ya doin’, Dan? How ya doin’?
Dan Meyer (31:47):
<laughs> I’m, ah, A, I’m loving this a lot. Um, B, I came in here loving how you folks are broadening the work of primary education to kind of find commonalities between these sometimes seemingly disparate kinds of teaching in ELA and math. Love that, I wanna say. But I think you folks are describing, with all these teachers you observed and your own work, is the work of attaching meaning to what students might not realize yet has meaning. Or they might think it only has one kind of meaning. But you, the teacher, with their knowledge, realizes that there are many more dimensions of meaning that can be attached to those thoughts. And I’m hearing that from you folks, when you describe A, what math is and the power of a teacher to name a thing as mathematical. Like, “Oh, you didn’t think math was that, but math is noticing; math is wondering; math is asking questions,” for one. But also this work you’re describing of how, like, first the task has to invite lots of student thoughts and then to say like, “Oh, I see that there’s a similarity to these two.” And to raise those up for a conversation or to ask a question like to extend one person’s, one student’s question a little bit more. But it’s always…I’m just hearing you folks attaching more meaning than the student might have originally thought. I appreciate the conversation. That’s really interesting.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (33:03):
Well, and now that the book is out, I think it’s gonna keep evolving, right? Now that it’s gonna be in the hands of teachers and librarians and educators and caregivers, it’s exciting to see kind of where it goes next. Which actually brings us to our MTL challenge. Dan Meyer, do you wanna share?
Dan Meyer (33:22):
Math Teacher Lounge, we have a challenge for the folks who listen and we’d love for them to hop into the Facebook group Math Teacher Lounge, or hit us up on Twitter at @MTLShow and just, like, kind of exercise beyond listening, exercise the ideas you folks are talking about, some kind of a challenge that can help us dive deeper into your ideas. So what would you folks suggest for our crowd, for our listeners?
Allison Hintz (33:42):
I would love to invite people to playfully experiment with a favorite story, with a story that’s new to you. I would love to invite listeners to sit with a story maybe on your own, and just ask yourself as a mathematician: What do you notice and wonder in this story? Don’t feel any pressure. Maybe sit with a child or some children and listen to what they notice and wonder. Like, really listen! Don’t ask questions! But hear their questions and place children at the center and consider multiple reads. Consider continuing to pursue their questions. And we have a planning template that might support people in kind of sketching out some ideas if you’re open to playing with that too.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (34:34):
And we will post—
Dan Meyer (34:36):
That’s awesome.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (34:36):
—a link for that planning template in our Facebook group and on Twitter as well. So thank you so much for that resource, because I think it’ll definitely help. It could help you, like you said, it could help you kind of organize your thoughts or help you think about this work in a new way. So thank you for that resource and thank you for the amazing resource that is Mathematizing Children’s Literature. I am so excited to continue to engage with you both and with listeners as they dive into this book. If folks want to engage with you more, where can they find you? How can they reach you?
Allison Hintz (35:12):
Well, we’re on Twitter.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (35:14):
Great.
Dan Meyer (35:15):
What’s your home address? <laugh>
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (35:24):
Wait, let me try that again. <laugh> ‘Cause it does sound like I’m like, <fake ominous voice> “Where can they find you?”
Allison Hintz (35:29):
4-2-5…. <laughs>
Antony Smith (35:32):
At the bookstore!
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (35:34):
Y’all, if folks want to continue this conversation or share these ideas or the math challenge, how can they tag you? How can they, they reach you on the World Wide Web, besides the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group?
Antony Smith (35:50):
Yeah. Well, we are both on Twitter, and we’ve been trying to promote the hashtag #MathematizingChildrensLiterature. It’s very long, but once you type it once, your phone or computer…
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (36:01):
Easy. Yeah, those click, right? Is that what it is now?
Antony Smith (36:03):
<laugh> The other is that we do for our project, we have an Instagram account that is @MathematizeChildren’sLiterature.
Allison Hintz (36:11):
We care really deeply about hearing from people. You know, we think our ideas are constantly evolving and that there’s such exciting room to grow. And we just felt compelled to share what we were learning now so that together we could learn and build vibrant experiences for young children and teachers and families through stories. So we want to hear from people! We wanna learn about stories that are important in your lives and what children say, and grow these ideas together.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (36:42):
And credit to Dan, you told me you went and ordered a bunch of the books they have on the suggested read list.
Dan Meyer (36:48):
Oh my gosh.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (36:49):
You read ’em to your son.
Dan Meyer (36:50):
I got such a side-eye from my significant others around here for what I dropped on Amazon in one night! <laugh> Uh, all these books I didn’t have. Some of them I did. We are not fully illiterate around here! We do love the written word at the Meyer household! But there were a bunch that that I grabbed. I’m morseling them out day by day.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (37:09):
Wait, at bedtime I read my one-year-old One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab. <laugh> And let me tell you, he had vigorous pointing and “Da? Da da da da?”
Allison Hintz (37:22):
<laugh> Aww, da da!
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (37:22):
So hey, we’re on the road. <laugh> <music> Deeply grateful, not only for your work and your beautiful book and your work, but also for the invitation to dive into the world of children’s literature in a way that many of us have not before. And it’s fun! Thank you, Tony. And thank you, Allison. And thanks for hanging out in the lounge.
Allison Hintz (37:48):
Thanks for having the lounge!
Antony Smith (37:49):
It’s been fun!
Allison Hintz (37:52):
Thank you both.
Stay connected!
Join our community and get new episodes every other Tuesday!
We’ll also share new and exciting free resources for your classroom every month.
Meet the guest
Allison B. Hintz: Dr. Hintz’s research and teaching are in the area of mathematics education. Her focus on mathematics came about during her years as a fifth grade teacher – it was alongside her students that she developed her own positive identity as a mathematician! Today she studies teaching and learning, specifically facilitating engaging discussion. Her research and teaching happen in partnership with educators and children in formal and informal settings and focuses on beliefs and practices that support all children in lively mathematics learning. She is a co-author, with Elham Kazemi, of Intentional Talk: How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions.
Twitter: @allisonhintz124
Antony T. Smith: Antony T. Smith is an associate professor of literacy education at the University of Washington, Bothell. He works alongside teachers to create engaging literacy-mathematics learning experiences through exploring and discussing children’s literature. He is committed to the concepts of motivation, engagement, challenge, and creativity in literacy teaching and learning.
Twitter: @smithant Instagram: mathematizechildrensliterature
About Math Teacher Lounge: The podcast
Math Teacher Lounge is a biweekly podcast created specifically for K–12 math educators. In each episode co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson (@lockhartedu) and Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) chat with guests, taking a deep dive into the math and educational topics you care about.
Join the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group to continue the conversation, view exclusive content, interact with fellow educators, participate in giveaways, and more!
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Oregon ELA Review for Elementary (K–5)
National Reading Month: Making reading in elementary schools fun
Happy National Reading Month!
Of course, every month is reading month—and every day is reading day!
But March makes National Reading Month official, and we’d like to help you celebrate.
- “Brain Builders” is an animated video series you can share with your students to help them understand what the brain does in order to read—placing reading science in the hands (and brains!) of students.
Your kids will join Minh on his journey as his babysitter, Tamara, helps him cultivate a love for reading—while also learning a bit of cognitive science. The series includes 13 episodes that you won’t want to miss!
- ”Reading Buddies” makes learning to read fun (with the help of a talking dog, of course). Created by a pair of performers during the COVID-19 quarantine, the show became a smash hit when The Reading League came on to help it grow.
The series is based on the Science of Reading—but that’s not why students like it! They get to follow and practice along with Dusty the Dog as his person, Dott, teaches him to read. All the while, the kids are learning the underlying components of skillful word reading such as phonological awareness, letter names/sounds, and blending sounds.
And for a little good old-fashioned coloring, we’ve also created this literary reference sheet for your students to bring alive with their own imaginations.
We hope you enjoy celebrating your kids’ brains and creativity!
More to read and learn
From Amplify’s Science of Reading: The Podcast:
Find out how “Reading Buddies” came to be (and managed to outpace “Sesame Street”)!
Meet Margaret Goldberg, co-founder of The Right to Read Project, to get her take on Brain Builders and the importance of the comprehension strand of the Science of Reading.
Request a free sample of CKLA.
Science professional learning resources for teachers
We hope you’ll take some time to rest and recharge this summer! But we also know how hard you work—even when school’s out—to do the best you can for the students in your science classroom.
Without the constraints of the school schedule, summer can be a great time for teachers to work on professional development!
That’s why we created this handy list of professional learning resources, mined from our trove of blog posts and webinars, for you to dive into this summer.
Science and literacy integrations
How should you approach the integration of science and literacy, and why is it important in the first place? Get all the answers in these posts and webinars:
- K–8 Literacy & Science Instruction Integration (webinar)
- ”Instructional strategies for integrating literacy into your science classroom” (blog)
- ”Integrating writing skills into science instruction” (blog)
- ”Integrating literacy in the science classroom” (blog)
- ”Science or literacy instruction? You don’t have to choose!” (blog)
- Finding Connections to K–8 Science & Literacy Educator Roundtable (webinar)
Next Generation Science Standards
These resources will help you learn about the Next Generation Science standards by grade level—and discover how to make them come alive in your classroom:
- Establishing a Culture of Figuring Out in Your Next Generation Science Classroom (webinar)
- Embedded and Immersive Engineering (webinar)
- Grade K–5 Science Program & Curriculum Overview—NGSS Curriculum
Phenomena in science
What’s phenomena-based learning in science? A method of exploring the everyday and observable that can also deliver extraordinary results. Learn more here:
- “The power of phenomena in the science classroom” (blog)
- What Is Phenomenon Based Teaching & Learning? (webinar)
- Phenomenon Based Learning in NGSS Curriculum (webinar)
- Supporting Student-To-Student Discourse in Science (And Beyond!) (webinar)
More to explore
S3-04: Using AI and ChatGPT in the science classroom
In the latest episode of the Science Connections podcast, we explore AI in education and its impact on students. Listen as I sit down with teachers Donnie Piercey and Jennifer Roberts to discuss ChatGPT and how we can use it to build science and literacy skills in K–12 classrooms while preparing students for the real world.
And don’t forget to grab your Science Connections study guide to track your learning and find additional resources!
We hope you enjoy this episode and explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page!
Jennifer Roberts (00:00:00):
If a kid graduates from school without knowing that AI exists, they’re not gonna be prepared for what they face out in the world.
Eric Cross (00:00:07):
Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host, Eric Cross.
Eric Cross (00:00:12):
This season of the podcast, we’re making the case for everyone’s favorite underdog, science. Recently we’ve been highlighting the magic that can come from integrating science and literacy. So if you haven’t checked out those recent episodes, definitely go back in your feed after you’re done with this one. This time around, we’re going to deep dive into what artificial intelligence means for literacy instruction, and how science can be a force for good, in responsibly exposing students to AI. To help me out, I’m joined by two extremely accomplished educators. Jen Roberts, a veteran high-school English teacher from San Diego, who among many things runs the website LitAndTech.com. And I’m also joined by fifth-grade teacher Donnie Piercey. In addition to being Kentucky’s 2021 Teacher of the Year, Donnie also has an upcoming book about bringing AI into the classroom. Whether you’ve never heard of ChatGPT or whether you’re already using it every day, I think you’ll find this a valuable discussion about the intersection of science, English, and technology. Here’s Jen and Donnie.
Eric Cross (00:01:17):
So first off, welcome to the show. It’s good to see you all. What I wanna do is kind of start off by introducing both of you. And so we’ll just go K–12. So <laugh>, Donnie.
Jennifer Roberts (00:01:30):
Donnie goes first.
Eric Cross (00:01:31):
Donnie’s gonna go first. Donnie out in Kentucky. Just a little background. What do you teach; how long you’ve been in the classroom; and what are you having fun with right now?
Donnie Piercey (00:01:38):
Yeah, so my name is Donnie Piercey. I’m a fifth-grade teacher from Kentucky. Live and teach right here in Lexington, Kentucky, right in the center of the state. I’m the 2021 Kentucky Teacher of the Year. But I’ve been teaching elementary school for the past … I think this is year 16 or 17. It’s long enough where I’ve lost count, and I can’t even count on fingers anymore. My friends like to joke that I’ve taught long enough where now I can count down. You know, it’s like, “All right, only so many more years left.” But yeah, teach all subjects. Science definitely is one of the subjects that I don’t just try to squeeze into my day, but make sure that … it’s not even a devoted subject, but one that I definitely try to — don’t just have that set time, but also try to do some cross-curricular stuff with it. So definitely the rise of AI in these past few months, which feels like years by this point, has definitely played quite the role, in not just changing the way that I’ve been teaching science, but really all my subjects. So, excited to chat with y’all about it.
Eric Cross (00:02:47):
Nice. I’m excited that you’re here. And Jen?
Jennifer Roberts (00:02:51):
Hi, I’m Jen Roberts. I teach ninth-grade English at Point Loma High School, and that’s where I usually stop when I introduce myself. But for your sake—
Eric Cross (00:03:00):
I will keep introducing you if you stop there. <laugh>
Jennifer Roberts (00:03:04):
I am nationally board-certified in English Language Arts for early adolescence. I am the co-author of a book called Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning, from Stenhouse, with my fabulous co-author Diana Neebe. Shout out to Diana. I blog at LitAndTech.com about teaching and technology and literacy and the intersection of those things. And I’m looking forward to talking about how AI is showing up in my classroom and the fun things I’m doing with it.
Donnie Piercey (00:03:31):
And one of us is actually secretly a robot, and you have to guess which one.
Jennifer Roberts (00:03:35):
Have to guess which one. Yes. <laugh>
Eric Cross (00:03:37):
That would be super-meta. And you were the CUE — Computer-Using Educator — outstanding teacher or educator? Whatever. Either one. Of the year.
Jennifer Roberts (00:03:45):
I was the CUE ’22 Outstanding Educator. Yes. And I’ve won a few other things as well.
Eric Cross (00:03:53):
The gaming backpack.
Jennifer Roberts (00:03:54):
I’ve won a gaming backpack recently! Yes. I once won an iPad in a Twitter chat.
Eric Cross (00:03:58):
What?
Donnie Piercey (00:03:58):
What’s a gaming backpack? Hold on. We need to talk about that.
Jennifer Roberts (00:04:01):
We will talk about that. <laugh> And then, I was once a finalist for county Teacher of the Year. That’s as close as I got to Donnie. Donnie was the Kentucky Teacher of the Year. He got to go to the White House and stuff. That was exciting.
Donnie Piercey (00:04:13):
<laugh> I mean, to be fair, there’s only three million people in Kentucky, and about what, 50 million people that live in California? <Laugh> So odds are definitely stacked in my favor, I think.
Jennifer Roberts (00:04:23):
So you’re saying we’re even there? Is that, is that what you’re going for?
Donnie Piercey (00:04:25):
Yeah, evens out. Evens out.
Eric Cross (00:04:27):
So I’ve been looking forward to talking to you both for a while now, and talking about artificial intelligence. It’s like the big thing. And both of you, at different ends of the spectrum and in my life, have contributed to this. Donnie, you’ve been sharing so much great information online about how you’re using AI in elementary. Jen, you are the reason I got into education technology years ago, right when I was becoming a teacher. And so being able to talk with you both about it excites me a lot. So first off, for the listeners who may not have any experience with it — and there’s still a lot of people out there who have not been exposed to it, haven’t got their feet wet with it yet — I’m hoping we could start off maybe with an explanation of … we could do AI, ChatGPT, I know that’s the big one. But simply explaining what it is, just for the new person. And whoever wants to start off can tell us about it. Or maybe we’ll start … we’ll, let’s actually, let’s do this: Let’s continue going like K–12? So Donnie, maybe you could … what’s your pitch to the new person of, “Hey, this is what it is”?
Donnie Piercey (00:05:31):
All right. So, AI, artificial intelligence, probably the way that most people are exposed to it, at least since November when it launched, is through ChatGPT. Where if you Google it, you know it’s made by a company called OpenAI. The best way to describe what it is … when you go there for the first time, make an account, it’s free. You have like a little search window, looks like a Google search bar. And instead of searching for information, you can ask it to create stuff for you. So for example, like on Google search, you might type in a question like, “Who was the 19th president of the United States?” Where on ChatGPT, instead of just searching for information, it creates stuff for you. So you could say, you could ask it to, “Hey, write a poem about the 19th president of the United States.” Or, “Write a short little essay comparing, I don’t know, Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King Jr.” And it would do that for you. You know, that’s most people’s first exposure to AI, at least in these past few months. Instead of … you know, it’s artificial intelligence, but it’s not just chatbots. There’s lots of other AI that exist out there.
Jennifer Roberts (00:06:47):
And I think that’s the thing: that people don’t realize how much AI is already in their lives.
Donnie Piercey (00:06:51):
For sure. Yeah.
Jennifer Roberts (00:06:52):
You know, they just haven’t seen … the term that I see being used a lot now is “generative AI.” AI that can produce something. It can produce writing, it can produce art, it can produce a script, it can produce a character. But the AI that has been helping you pick what to watch next on Netflix and the AI that’s helping Google help you get where you wanna go on Google Maps faster, those are forms of artificial intelligence as well.
Donnie Piercey (00:07:21):
Yeah. I mean, even those, when you get that that message in Gmail, and instead of having to type out that response that says, “Yeah, that sounds great,” you can just click the little button that says, “Yeah, that sounds great.” I mean, that’s been in Gmail for years, but that’s artificial intelligence too.
Eric Cross (00:07:39):
Absolutely. So why is it important, do you think, for educators to, to be familiar with it? Like, why are we all so excited about it?
Jennifer Roberts (00:07:47):
So, educators need to know what kids are into, and kids are obviously into ChatGPT. And anyone who’s an educator right now has probably already had something cross their desk — or more likely their computer screen — that was written by AI and passed off as a student’s own work. And that is, of course, the great fear among teachers everywhere, that this is what kids are just gonna do these days and they won’t be able to catch it and children won’t be doing their own work and this and this. But I think the big reason teachers need to know what’s going on is because teachers need to be futurists. Our clientele will live in the future. We teach kids, kids will become adults, adults will live in the world. And so if we’re not thinking about and trying to predict on some level what’s gonna happen 5, 10, 15 years from now … we might be wrong, but what if we’re right?
Jennifer Roberts (00:08:38):
And if we’re not at least trying to think about what is their future world gonna look like, then we’re not serving our students well. I did a whole night talk on that. So I think ChatGPT is part of that. I teach seniors. I had this moment of realization I felt a few months ago. I’m like, “This is gonna be the world they graduate into. They need to know what this is before they leave me.” If I don’t teach them how to use this well, and not the way they’re using it — which is to copy and paste the teacher’s assignment and drop it into ChatGPT and take whatever it spits out and turning that in without even looking at it — if I don’t teach ’em how to use it critically, if I don’t teach them how to write effective prompts, if I don’t teach them how to use the AI as a tool, as a collaborator, then they’re gonna graduate into a world where they lose out to people who do know how to do that. And I think the advantage goes to kids who have access and knowledge of what’s in front of them and what’s available, and can use all of the tools at their disposal. Because when you’re writing in school and you write with a collaborator, that could be considered cheating. But when you do that out in the adult world, that’s considered doing a good job. <Laugh> Being a team player. <Laugh> You know, adults don’t work alone for the most part. And adults are expected to churn out beautiful, perfect content no matter how they got there. So if I’m not teaching my kids how to use this, they’re not being ready. They’re not gonna be ready to be the adults that I want them to be.
Donnie Piercey (00:10:07):
A hundred percent agree. And I also believe … as you know, I teach elementary school. I also don’t think anybody is saying that on the first day of kindergarten, you hand a kid a Chromebook and load up an AI chatbot or ChatGPT and say, Hey, this thing’s gonna do all your work for you for the next 12 years; just coast through life. You don’t have to think creatively. You don’t have to learn how to develop a paragraph or learn how to write a speech or develop an idea. Like, I don’t think anybody’s saying that, because as an elementary school teacher, there’s many days when I’m like, “Y’all, we’re just putting the Chromebooks away today and we’re just gonna go old-school. We’re just gonna maybe just jot down five quick ideas and stand up and present those ideas to the class.”
Donnie Piercey (00:10:54):
Because while AI definitely will, like you were saying, Jen, play a significant role in the lives of our students who are, not just graduating, but the 10- and 11-year-olds in my classroom this year. A significant role in their lives. It’s also really important to recognize that we’re not saying that this means that “Hey, kids don’t have to work anymore.” They still have to put forth that effort. There’s still — one of the ways that you become a good writer is by trial and error. And sometimes that trial and error comes through talking to a teacher or talking like you were saying to a peer or collaborating with a peer and saying to them, “Well, this sentence here, this paragraph here, really doesn’t make sense.” And I do believe one of the ways — especially as AI starts to become more fine-tuned and starts to be embedded more and more in tools like Google Docs and Microsoft Word — is it’s almost going to be a tutor to students.
Donnie Piercey (00:11:56):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Where I could very easily see in a few years, or maybe a few months, who knows what Google or any of these other big companies has rolling out, where a student could highlight a paragraph that they wrote simply, and then say, “Hey, proofread this for me,” or “Check for coherence.” Or even just ask a simple question: “Does this paragraph make sense?” Because you can already do that. You can copy a paragraph over into a chatbot and say, “Hey, does this make sense?” You know, “Rate my idea from one to 10,” and it’ll do that for ’em.
Jennifer Roberts (00:12:26):
We did that last week <laugh>.
Donnie Piercey (00:12:28):
Yeah. Right. I mean, that’s the thing. That technology exists now. It’s just not totally embedded yet. But based on what I’ve read and what I’ve seen, that’s gonna happen sooner rather than later. And it’s really, really important that we teach our students that, “No, you’re not just gonna use this, this tool to cheat, but you can use this tool to help you become a more creative student.”
Jennifer Roberts (00:12:50):
This is the use case in my classroom. Can I talk about that? You ready for that?
Eric Cross (00:12:53):
Please.
Jennifer Roberts (00:12:54):
OK.
Eric Cross (00:12:54):
Please.
Jennifer Roberts (00:12:55):
So my ninth graders are writing a comparative analysis essay, where I took them to the student art gallery and I made them pick two pieces of completely unknown student art and take notes on it, so they could go back and write this essay. And as soon as we got back to class, I said, can ChatGPT write this for you? And they all kind of froze ’cause I didn’t tell them what ChatGPT was. And they weren’t sure if they were allowed to know or not. And finally one of them kind of bravely raised his hand and said, “No.” And I said, “Why not?” And he said, “Well, the AI hasn’t seen the art. How can it write an essay about art when the art is completely original that we just went and looked at?” I said, “It’s almost like I planned it that way, isn’t it?” And they laughed nervously. And then I said, “Does that mean it can’t help us with this assignment?” And they said, “Well, no — of course it can’t help us, because it has not seen the art.” And I said, “Well. …” And I open ChatGPT, and I typed in what they were trying to do: “I need to write a comparative analysis essay comparing two pieces of student art on these reasons. And I need to choose which one did it better, basically. Can you help me with an outline?” and ChatGPT produced a lovely outline. And I looked at that with my students and we looked at it together and I said, “This is what it gave us. Would this be helpful to you?” And they’re like, “Yeah, that would be helpful to us.” So we — to be clear here, I was the only one using ChatGPT in the room. They were not actually using it. We were using it together. I copied and pasted the outline that it gave us and put it in their learning management system where they could access it so they could use the outline that the robot provided, and then they could use that to make their own writing better. So then I let them write for a little while, and, after they’d written for a little while, I said, “Does anybody wanna let me share your first paragraph with ChatGPT and see what it thinks of how you’re doing?” And a brave student raised his hand and we took his paragraph and we put it in ChatGPT, and it spit back advice. We said, “This is what I have so far for my first paragraph. Do you have any advice for me?” And we gave it the writing, and the first piece of advice it gave back was very generic, you know, “Add a hook,” you know, like kind of thing. But after that, it started to get more specific about things he was actually doing in his writing. And it started to give him some feedback. And we looked at that together as a class. And I said, “Does any of that feedback help you?” And he said, “Oh yeah, absolutely. I’m gonna go add some revisions to my paragraph.” And other students did too. They looked at the feedback he got and used that to improve their writing. And so everybody went and revised. And I said, “Look, if you take what the robot gives you and you copy and paste it, and you turn it in as your own work, it’s gonna get flagged for plagiarism. And that’s not gonna go well. But if it gives you writing advice the same way I would give you writing advice, and you decide that advice is good, and you take that advice and you incorporate it into your own writing yourself, then the robot’s making you better, but you’re still the one doing your own writing.” And the writing they turned in from that assignment was, was better. It wasn’t written by ChatGPT; it was still about the student art that they found in the gallery. But I showed them a path. Like, it can help you with an outline, it can help you with feedback. Right? These are fair ways to use it that’s gonna make you better. And they really liked that. They really liked — no one had shown them that before. The idea that you don’t just take the teacher’s prompt and give it to it … like, these are new uses to students and worked well.
Eric Cross (00:16:17):
So right now, you both just laid out these ways that you’re using it. And I do this with people that I’m trying to introduce to ChatGPT or AI. ‘Cause I get excited. Anyone could write a 500-word persuasive essay on the use of color in The Great Gatsby or The Outsiders, and they can get something back within seconds. But for a lot of educators, it might feel like the sky is falling.
Donnie Piercey (00:16:43):
Oh, understandably! Understandably. I mean, that totally makes sense.
Eric Cross (00:16:49):
What would you say to them? Donnie, go ahead.
Donnie Piercey (00:16:51):
Yeah. Well, I feel like every teacher kind of goes through the same experience when they see like a generative chatbot. I mean, all these major companies are gonna start incorporating AI, the generative AI piece. And a lot of times, when they see it for the first time, two things. First they’ll say “Oh, but I’ll know that that’s not my students’ writing.” Which, frankly, I think is a good thing, because that tells me that the teachers know their students’ writing. They’ve seen them write in person. They’ve conferenced with them one-on-one. And if a student were to turn something in to me, who I know might be a struggling writer, maybe it’s not their strength, and all of a sudden they’re turning in this10-page dissertation-worthy thesis written at a PhD level, I’m like, “All right, man, you’re nine. Can we talk about where this came from?” <laugh> But I also don’t think that at like the heart, I don’t feel like kids want to cheat. I really don’t. I feel like sometimes like kids are in a situation where they’re like, “OK, I’ve got nothing left. I gotta get this assignment done.” And when those kind of things happen, that’s when we as teachers, we have those one-on-one conversations. Even when I showed my students ChatGPT and even some of the AI image-generating stuff for the first time, and I talked to them about, “What do y’all think about this?” Because, you know, they’re under 13. In my district, ChatGPT is blocked for students. Staff, we have access to it. And that’s just because one, it’s so new, and at the same time, we need to figure out, “What’s the best way they can go about using this tool?” But when we were talking about it as a class, you know, I didn’t want to ignore the elephant in the room. So I asked them, I said, “Hey, do you feel like this is something that you all would use to. …” I mean, I used the word. I said “cheat.” And to be honest, the majority of the students in my class, they were taken aback. They’re like, “What? You think we just would cheat all the time?” Right? <Laugh> And I’m like, “Oh, well good. I’m glad to know that integrity is still alive and well.” But yeah, that’s definitely my thoughts on it, as far as not only the student integrity piece — I think that that’s the big thing that you need to just bring up with your students. Because again, I like to think that I’ve seen my students write enough that if they were going to turn something in that wasn’t their voice, or it didn’t sound like them, like I could have that conversation. And don’t be surprised, too, if in the next … I don’t know, one month to a year, there’s lots of AI detectors that exist. A lot of them are these like third-party things. You can go ahead, but I would not be surprised if in the next year or so, like you start to see those AI detectors be built into Google Docs, into Microsoft Word, into even Canva. And honestly, it’s almost like a fail-safe button for teachers, that we could say “All right, this is telling me that this is 99% probably written by AI.” So you can have that conversation with a student that way.
Jennifer Roberts (00:20:03):
I mean, if you’re worried about it, Formative, right now, will even tell you if something is copy-and-pasted into the boxes that they give you for students to write in. I find that kids who cheat are desperate, you know. Especially at the high school level. They’re panic mode. And, and usually their panic comes from, “I have no idea how to even start this assignment.” And so part of what I wanna use ChatGPT for is to lower that barrier for them. Like, you’ve got an assignment, you don’t know where to start. Tell the robot, tell ChatGPT, about the assignment and ask it for a list of steps. You know, ask it for an outline. Ask it for a time management plan. I see so much tremendous potential for this to help many of my students with IEPs who have executive functioning issues.
Donnie Piercey (00:20:49):
Oh, a hundred percent, right?
Jennifer Roberts (00:20:51):
Yes, a hundred percent. This can be their personal assistant who, you know, instead of me sitting with them one-on-one and saying, you know, “This is the task you need to do, let’s break it down into these six discrete chunks,” the artificial intelligence can do that for them. And it can do that for teachers too. <laugh>
Donnie Piercey (00:21:09):
Jen, I was just thinking about, how long until we see like the phrase artificial intelligence written onto a student’s IEP? I could see that happening very, very soon.
Jennifer Roberts (00:21:20):
Right? They should be able to use that. And then, also, of course, all of its amazing beneficials for teachers. I had to completely rewrite a unit of my curriculum. I knew what I wanted to do. I had some ideas of things I wanted to put in there. And I resorted to, I went to EducationCopilot.com and typed in my stuff that I had: You know, what standards I wanted to cover, what outcomes I was hoping for mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it generated an eight-week unit for me. And I actually told it then to go back and do it as a 12-week unit so that I’d have more stuff in there to go and cherry-pick to decide what I really wanted to do. But it gave me ideas. It gave me places to start. It saved me an hour of just brainstorming. And I don’t think that was cheating. I still got to go in and decide which ideas were valid. And I still got to … you know, I mean, I’m a teacher. Can I get accused of cheating? I don’t think that’s a thing. It’s—
Eric Cross (00:22:18):
That’s collaborating! It’s collaborating!
Donnie Piercey (00:22:20):
Collaborating! It’s a feature! It’s a feature.
Jennifer Roberts (00:22:22):
It’s Tony Stark talking to Jarvis. You know, they’re figuring it out together.
Donnie Piercey (00:22:26):
Oh, when you use the AI, Jennifer, do you call yours Jarvis? In my class we call him Jeeves. ‘Cause remember Ask Jeeves?
Jennifer Roberts (00:22:33):
I think Eric calls it Jarvis.
Eric Cross (00:22:35):
Yeah. Jarvis is gonna be the AI’s name when, when I can get that fully functioning. There are some things that you had said, I just wanna circle back on. Donnie, Jen — so what I heard was like, best intentions. The part you said about integrity and students wanting to cheat … even the mindset that we go in assuming our students, what they would want to do and assuming best intentions, really kind of frames how you look at this kind of technology. And then Jen, you kind of brought up why students cheat, and realizing that either they don’t feel equipped, or maybe it’s time management, or something else. But most people — and I believe this as an educator — most students want to learn, and they want to be able to perform and achieve. And when they cheat, it’s because they didn’t feel like they could, for whatever reason. Whether it’s it’s outside factors, whether it’s something internal, motivation, whatever it is.
Jennifer Roberts (00:23:24):
Or they were very disconnected and just didn’t care.
Eric Cross (00:23:27):
Sure.
Jennifer Roberts (00:23:27):
This is just busy work the teacher’s giving me, so I’m gonna give it very little of my time and energy. But I think, yeah, it can be that. But if the kid cares about it, if they wanna learn, they wanna learn, you know?
Eric Cross (00:23:40):
Right.
Jennifer Roberts (00:23:40):
This is the day of the internet. Any kid can learn anything they really want to learn. And we see that all the time in our classes. The kid who has zero interest in what I’m teaching in English, but he is an expert coder, and that’s what he wants to spend his time learning. He’s like, “Can I read this C++ book as my independent reading book?” And I’m like, “You know, actually, you can. Go ahead.” <Laugh>
Eric Cross (00:24:01):
Yeah. And for both of you, saying that this makes content more accessible … and I think Donnie, or Jen, you said something about IEPs. I actually put in having it write an IEP to see what would happen. I gave it a prompt for a student’s ability level and I asked it to create a plan. And then I asked it to create a rationale. And it did! And it was good! I went through and vetted it. And right now … you know, a lot of it is funny, ’cause the conversation I’m having with different teachers is kind of like the Wikipedia one. Remember when Wikipedia first got out and everyone was like trying to discourage everybody from using it, because, well, it could be changed by anybody? And now everyone’s like, “Oh, check Wikipedia, and then steal the sources, ’cause they’re already done for you.” Like, the mindset has shifted since then. And I was talking to someone and they said, “Well. …” And I said, “We can use AI, it could be a tutor, these other things. …” And they said, “Yeah, but what happens?” And then insert apocalyptic scenario. Like, what happens if you don’t have access to wifi? And it reminded me of, for some reason, cooking classes. So in the 1700s you probably had to be able to farm to be able to generate your food. Right? Like, you had to get it from somewhere. But if you take a culinary class now, you just go to the grocery store. And someone might say, “Well, but you should know how to farm, ’cause what if there was this worldwide apocalypse and nobody could go to the grocery stores?” <Laugh> And you’re like, “Well, balance of probability though.” You know, it’s like we’ve been really been living in these iterations of life, and I think this next step for some folks … like, we don’t even realize, even like something like bank statements, right? So many folks are paperless. And there’s always a what-if scenario. What if you need it and the internet goes down. But we get so used to to to technology advancing and making our lives different. This kind of seems like that next iteration. And I wanna ask you this question: Are we looking at like the next calculator? The next internet, with this tech? Or do you think it’s too early to say?
Donnie Piercey (00:26:01):
Well, I’ve seen a lot of people compare ChatGPT to a calculator. I’ve seen that pop up on social media. There’s, “Oh well, no, this is like when the calculator was invented. Everyone was up in arms about how ‘that’s not what math students should do.’ Math should be pencil and paper, math should be this.’” However, you can give a kid a calculator and you can give ’em a word problem and they can punch in all the numbers, but they could do the wrong operation or they could put the decimal point in the wrong place, ’cause the student is still the one who’s controlling what’s on the calculator. Where with AI, all you gotta do is just copy it and then paste it into the bot and it’ll spit out whatever the question asked it for. Whether it was, you know, a 500-word rationale or proof for something in geometry, or if it’s analyzing data on a chart, it’ll do all that.
Jennifer Roberts (00:27:00):
Yes. But it’s not that magical. It’s back to what Eric did with the IEP. He put in a prompt and then he knew enough to ask for a rationale and then he knew enough about IEPs to critically read the results he got and make sure they actually worked for what he needed. He had to know all that. He was an expert using it to do an expert thing. My husband’s a computer scientist; he got ChatGPT to help him write an app, and it was a new programming language to him, and he could put in the data and he could ask for things that I would’ve never thought to ask for. But because he knows the language of computer science, he knew what to ask for. And when it gave him results that were bad, he could see that, and he could say, “Yes, but do it again, but without this,” or “make this part more efficient.” He, again, knew what to ask for. So I think the generative AI is, as a partner with humans, a powerful thing. But if the human doesn’t know what they’re doing, yeah. You’re still not gonna get great results.
Donnie Piercey (00:28:03):
<laugh> And I think that’s why I’m coming at this from the elementary school perspective, right? Because in K–5 students are still learning, like, “Hey, where does the decimal point go?” They’re still learning, you know, if you’re dividing by a two-digit number, where does the first digit go, if you go in the old long-division algorithm? And so they’re still acquiring that base-level knowledge that … I don’t know, maybe this is similar to in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum says, “It didn’t take any knowledge to attain,” you know, “they stood on the shoulders of geniuses,” that whole thing. Like they had to acquire the knowledge for themselves, was his whole point. And so that’s why I don’t think it’s exactly the same as the calculator. It is definitely going to change things, in a similar way that the calculator did. But to me it’s just a whole new animal. And I don’t know if it’s going to be like the next internet, Eric — if you’re gonna get little devices that have AI built into it, like a Star Wars kind of thing, like a droid or something that follows you around — all that would be kind of cool, not gonna lie. But whether it’s something that you’ll access through the internet, something that’s built into your TV, that part I don’t know. But I do know that there’s a reason why all of these apps and all these companies are investing so much — not just energy, but time and money into it. Because they’re recognizing. “OK, this really has the potential to change things.” But if used well, and used safely, to change people’s lives for the better.
Eric Cross (00:29:41):
So I definitely hear that you both agree with the statement that if AI ChatGPT was used in the classroom, it could be a force for good. And literacy development. And I wanna shift gears a bit and then come back to the AI. So with that said — and we’re gonna get into some best practices in a minute — in Science Connections right now in this season, we’re making the case for how science can do more in classrooms and in schools. And so I’m I’m curious about what both of you think about the role in science fostering a better future when it comes to AI and education. And this season we’re really talking a lot about literacy. You know, in schools, so often it’s taught in a siloed way. And Donnie, you’re doing multi-subject. Jen, you’re single-subject: English. And we’ve really been trying to make this case for how science can actually support literacy, and these skills that students are trying to develop. So we’re going a little old-school, kind of diving into your content specialty, but maybe even pre-AI, or maybe AI has a component in this. But Don, maybe we’ll start with you. How has science been a way that has been helpful for your own literacy instruction? I know you do a lot of science, because I see your Google Earth stuff and the thing you did with the solar systems back in the day. And I think —.
Donnie Piercey (00:30:54):
Oh my gosh! You remember my <laugh> … wow.
Eric Cross (00:30:58):
That was amazing!
Donnie Piercey (00:31:00):
We haven’t done that since the pandemic. But I had my students go out, and using Google Earth, we built a scale model. Each of the students partnered up and they planned out on Google Earth a scale model of the solar system. They picked an object from around their house and we talked about like, “Don’t pick something bigger than a beach ball, or else, you know, your Neptune’s gonna end up like 10 miles away.” But you know, they just picked like a small ball, like a basketball, soccer ball, something like that. Or football, for international friends. And then we calculated the size of every other planet. And then on Google Earth, using their front lawn as where the sun was, then we went and we calculated where other planets would be, and then we actually drove to those locations and like held up the objects that would represent Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, and all that. But it was a lot of fun.
Eric Cross (00:31:59):
And is that still accessible? ‘Cause I know you have some websites that you put resources out there.
Donnie Piercey (00:32:03):
Yeah. Yeah, I can … I wanna say on my Resources page — Resources.MrPiercey.com — I’ve got a link on there to a couple of student examples that I can share. And if not, when we get off this call, I’m gonna go on and put them on there <laugh> so people can find it. I’ll even throw on there just the assignment itself. So if you wanted to copy that and do that with your students, you could.
Eric Cross (00:32:27):
Donnie, the reason why I brought that up is because I saw that you had posted that or shared it a long time ago, and I just thought it was the coolest thing that you could totally do with middle-school students or high-school students. Jen, when I became a teacher, you said, “We’re all teachers of literacy.”
Jennifer Roberts (00:32:43):
<laugh> Yeah. I think we forgot to tell them that I was one of your professors.
Eric Cross (00:32:47):
Yes. <Jennifer laughs> One of the people who’ve definitely influenced and shaped my teaching. And that statement has never left my mind: that we’re all teachers of literacy. And I want to ask you, at the high-school level, how can science educators, or how can science — how have you seen it, or how does it, support literacy, when it’s done right?
Jennifer Roberts (00:33:09):
Like I said, I think we’re all teachers of literacy, but I think literacy is bigger than just reading and writing. I don’t think someone is literate if they can’t talk somewhat knowledgeably about what’s happening with climate change. I don’t think someone’s literate if they don’t know what’s going on in the world. And I think so much of what’s going on in the world has to do with science. We’re doing that all the time. If I could teach English just by giving kids articles about science, things to read, that would make my day. Right? We would never read another piece of fiction again. It would all be, you know, what’s happening to the ice sheet in Greenland. My students thrive on reading non-fiction. And then whenever that non-fiction touches on science is even more interesting. And whenever I can get them writing about data, particularly their own data that they collected, I think that’s building those science literacy skills as well. So I think science and English blend together very, very well. I think the literacy aspects of that are fantastic. There are more subject-specific vocabulary words, advanced vocabulary words, in science than any other discipline. And I don’t see why those shouldn’t come up in English as well. You know, my seniors will do a unit at the end of the year on the new space race. Unless I replace it with a unit about generative AI, which I’m seriously considering doing, ’cause I think they really need to learn about bias in AI algorithms and things like that. And I would like to have them read a whole bunch about that stuff. And I wanna give them the open letter that all those CEOs signed that said that AI research should slow down, and make them part of that live conversation about what’s happening in that field. So science comes into that. You know, when we read Into the Wild, we start talking about a whole bunch of scientific concepts. And when it rains in Southern California, we pull up weather maps and look at radar and talk about that and how that works.
Donnie Piercey (00:34:59):
That’s like once every 10 years, Jen? <Laugh>
Jennifer Roberts (00:35:02):
Well, actually, this year it rained a lot. It rained a lot in San Diego. Which is actually very high-interest for them. ‘Cause they wanna know, is it gonna be raining at lunchtime?
Eric Cross (00:35:12):
Jen, you said something … you have your students writing about data?
Jennifer Roberts (00:35:16):
Oh yeah.
Eric Cross (00:35:17):
Can you tell me more about that?
Jennifer Roberts (00:35:19):
So, this is something we’ve done with the ninth grade team for a long time now, is writing about their own data. So it started with a unit about stereotypes and stereotype threat. And they would collect data individually and then they would enter that data into a Google form and then we would give them the spreadsheet of the aggregate data from the whole ninth grade. And then we morphed that unit into one about academic honesty, and they filled out a survey at the beginning of the unit about their feelings about academic honesty and about experiences with academic honesty and cheating and homework and things like that. And then we would do the unit. We’d do all the readings in the unit. And they’d have these “aha” moments about things that were happening at other schools. And then at the end of the unit, we would give them back their own aggregate data and ask them to write about whether or not academic honesty was an issue at our school. And then to support that answer with evidence from their own dataset. So they had that spreadsheet to comb through and figure out, you know, where am I gonna stand on this? We give them the multiple-choice questions we gave them as the graphs, in Google Slides, so that they could write about them and talk about them, too. So yeah, getting kids to write about data. And the the sentence frames we gave them were sentence frames out of, They Say, I Say, from the chapter on writing about science. And <laugh> as they write this stuff, they’re like, “I feel so smart writing this way.” And I’m like, “I know, ’cause you’re writing about big important topics!” Right? And writing about their own data come to think of it is another great way to make an assignment both very personal to them, but also make it ChatGPT-proof, you know, if you’re looking for something that kids can’t just hand to the robot, the robot doesn’t have that data set.
Eric Cross (00:37:08):
Absolutely. And Donnie, at the elementary level, do you, do you make connections between science and literacy? In your class? You talked about with math, definitely with the solar system, but now, I’m curious, what are your newer projects? What have you been working on lately?
Jennifer Roberts (00:37:23):
What’s up now, Donnie?
Eric Cross (00:37:24):
Yeah, what are you doing?
Donnie Piercey (00:37:25):
Oh, man. Well, let me think. I’m just trying to think of some fun projects that we’ve done this year. Science that we can tie in Literacy and also some student creation. Just recently we had a … so I’ve wanted to expose my students to famous scientists that weren’t just white dudes from Europe. So for this year, what I did — and I actually used AI for this — I went into ChatGPT and I asked for 64 famous scientists and it listed them all off. And then I asked it, like, how many of these were white? And I think it said like 61 of them. You know, it had like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and a couple of other … I didn’t know who they were. So I’m like, “All right, so we need to make this more diverse and make this more equitable.” ‘Cause you know, with the student population in my classroom, try to find equal representation to make sure they can see themselves in some of these scientists. So, eventually got it narrowed down to where I had about 64 scientists. Half are women, half are men from all continents except Antarctica. I assigned these scientists to my students. Some got two; some got three. And their assignment was to go and one, do some individual research on this person, find out what they were famous for, what they were most well-known for, turn it actually into a persuasive piece, where I said, “Hey, you’re gonna have one slide.” And I’ll tell you why I gave him one slide in a minute. On that one slide, you’ve gotta convince the person who sees it that this scientist is the most important scientist since the dawn of creation. I said, “You could use images, text — I don’t care if they were famous for something that you didn’t even understand what it was. It’s a persuasive piece. You’re 10. Go all out. Add gifs, do that whole thing.
Eric Cross (00:39:21):
This is awesome.
Jennifer Roberts (00:39:21):
I wanna do this project.
Donnie Piercey (00:39:23):
And if you picked up on the number 64, and I did this in March, so what we did was throughout the weeks of March Madness of the women’s and men’s NCAA tournament, whenever a game was going on, we had another round of voting. I just paired ’em up. I was gonna like seed them, like 1 to 64 — that’s just way too much work for me <laugh>. So I just kind of did random kind of thing. But all the students had to do — they just saw the slides side-by-side, and the only question they had was, “Based on what you see here, who is the most important scientist? This person or this person?” And it eventually came down to Carl Sagan going up against Marie Curie.
Eric Cross (00:40:04):
OK, that’s a good matchup.
Donnie Piercey (00:40:06):
Yeah, well, the Marie Curie slide, they just liked the radium piece. So they added like some green glowing gifs. And I said, “Guys, it doesn’t always grow glow green.” But whatever. Anyway, eventually Carl Sagan, in case you wanted to know, according to the 10-year-olds in my classroom, is the most important scientist in the history of the world. So I don’t know if I agree with that per se — I think maybe Newton or somebody else might have had something else to say about it — but fun assignment. It was a unique way to expose my students to a bunch of ideas. I remember the student that I assigned Newton, the only thing that that she knew about Isaac Newton was “Didn’t he get hit in the head with an apple?” And I said, “Well, not exactly, I think you might have read or maybe seen too many like old-school cartoons or whatever.” But she ended up doing some research. She’s like, “Oh, I’ve heard of that before! That equal and opposite reaction thing.” Didn’t know what it meant. I had another student that just got really … you know, if you’ve ever been on one of those YouTube kicks where it’s just, you go like nine levels deep onto like, “What does this theorem mean?” Student sits in back of my classroom, I walked by one day and he’s just watching something on like the fifth dimension and what it might be. And I said, “Oh, your scientist got you started on that.” So definitely was a lot of fun. Unique way to combine reading, writing, but also expose my students to some ideas. And we’re definitely gonna do it again. I’ve actually done this assignment before. I picked 64 random elements on the periodic table. But their only slide that they have to make is “What’s your element? What is it used for? And then, why is this the most important element since the dawn of creation?” <Laugh> And, you know, there’s always that student that gets hydrogen. They’re just like “Sweet!” Right? They get excited about that one. <laugh>
Eric Cross (00:41:59):
Explosions.
Donnie Piercey (00:42:00):
Yeah. But then, for that kid who likes a challenge, or that student with the “gifted” label, you give them, like, einsteinium or palladium. Some of the more challenging ones. And they go all out with this. I didn’t use AI for that one, but it was kind of fun, and I figured it’d be neat to share an idea that another teacher could try.
Eric Cross (00:42:20):
Well you probably have at least two teachers right now that are gonna go and try that. And we’re both looking at you. So.
Donnie Piercey (00:42:24):
Go for it.
Eric Cross (00:42:25):
Thanks for that idea. I’m imagining my students coming in with jerseys with “neon.”
Donnie Piercey (00:42:29):
Oh yeah. <laugh>
Eric Cross (00:42:30):
“Neon” on it. Just all ’80s out.
Donnie Piercey (00:42:33):
The game behind it, too, is you tell kids — again, this is just so the 10-year-olds in my class don’t get their feelings hurt — but I say, “Hey, and if your element gets knocked out, you just have to start cheering for whoever beats you in the tournament.” So by the end, you kind of got half the class cheering for one and half the class cheering for whatever.
Jennifer Roberts (00:42:53):
So the only thing I got outta that whole story that I’ve got for you is, as a child I met Carl Sagan. That’s all I got.
Donnie Piercey (00:43:02):
For real?
Jennifer Roberts (00:43:02):
For real.
Donnie Piercey (00:43:03):
So did he talk with that cadence and tone?
Jennifer Roberts (00:43:06):
Yes.
Donnie Piercey (00:43:06):
Like in real life? Wow.
Jennifer Roberts (00:43:07):
Yes. My father was one of the cinematographers on the original Cosmos. And I got to go to the set a few times.
Donnie Piercey (00:43:14):
That’s incredible!
Jennifer Roberts (00:43:15):
I did not appreciate what I was seeing as a child. But as an adult, I’m like, “That was cool. I was there.”
Donnie Piercey (00:43:20):
“You can see my shadow off in the distance.”
Jennifer Roberts (00:43:23):
I mean, maybe that’s part of why I’ve always had an interest in science. I’ve always had fantastic science teachers. Every science teacher I ever had was amazing.
Donnie Piercey (00:43:31):
I credit mine to Mr. Wizard. I don’t know if you ever watched Mr. Wizard and Beakman’s World?
Eric Cross (00:43:35):
I remember Mr. Wizard. Yep. Yep. I definitely remember Mr. Wizard, Beakman’s World, all those. That was on Nickelodeon back in the day. I had to get up early to watch that one. But there’s a YouTube video—
Donnie Piercey (00:43:44):
Six am!
Eric Cross (00:43:44):
<laugh> It was! It was super-early! But there was one, Don, I don’t know if you’ve seen this on YouTube, but it said “Mr. Wizard Is Mean,” and it’s just clips of when he’s—
Donnie Piercey (00:43:56):
Yelling at kids!
Eric Cross (00:43:56):
Chastising. Or being really direct. It’s just one after another.
Donnie Piercey (00:44:02):
He always asked ’em a question and if the kid, you know, didn’t answer it right, he’d be like, “Well, you’re not right, but you’re wrong.” You know, whatever. <Laugh>
Eric Cross (00:44:14):
I have to make sure I’m not subconsciously saying Mr. Wizard quotes when I’m talking in the classroom, when things are happening. But yeah, that video’s hilarious. So I just want to bring us back to AI, and ask this question: Do you think science has a special role to play when it comes to teaching kids about AI responsibly? Does science have a special role in that?
Jennifer Roberts (00:44:36):
I think the responsible piece of AI I wanna teach my students about is the part about the bias in the algorithms and the bias in the training. And I want them to understand how it works, well enough to make informed decisions about how it impacts their lives.
Donnie Piercey (00:44:56):
Hmm.
Jennifer Roberts (00:44:57):
Because I do have concerns about a tool that was trained on the internet. And the answers it gives you is the average of the internet. And do we trust the internet? And the answer from kids is always, “Well sorta, no.” <Laugh> So I want them to understand the social science behind that.
Donnie Piercey (00:45:18):
Yeah. And just along that same point, having the students recognize that just because, you know, you copy-and-paste a question in, the answer it spits out might not always be correct. So, teaching them that just like you would with a source that you find about a topic that you’re researching, you’ve gotta fact-check.
Jennifer Roberts (00:45:44):
It’s just like being a good scientist. A good scientist wouldn’t always accept a single result or the first result. You know, you would look at multiple angles. You would try things different ways. Last week I took the article my seniors were reading about victim compensation after 9-11, and in front of them, I gave ChatGPT, I said, “Are you familiar with this article by Amanda Ripley? And ChatGPT came back and said, “Oh yes, this was written in the Atlantic in 2020 and it’s about these things, blah, blah blah.” And my students looked at that and went, “That’s not the article we read.” And I said, “I know. It got it wrong. That’s amazing!” Yeah. And I was so happy that it got it wrong! ‘Cause I wanted them to see that happen.
Donnie Piercey (00:46:21):
And I guess one of the big science questions there, or one of the big science components there, is that idea of inquiry. Right? It’s almost like you have to teach students how to ask those deep questions about what AI spits out.
Eric Cross (00:46:35):
All of those tips are great. And it leads me to this last question I want to ask. New teachers that are out there — it actually doesn’t even matter; new teachers, experienced teachers, all of us are kind of new at different levels of this race. We’re all kind of starting it together. I mean, it hit mainstream. We’re all getting exposed to it. You all really dive into it. When tech comes out, I know you two really like, “OK, how can we use this to transform education and do awesome things for kids?”
Donnie Piercey (00:47:04):
Usually, when new tech comes out, “How can this make my life easier?” is usually the question. Yeah.
Jennifer Roberts (00:47:09):
“How can I save myself time with this?” Yes.
Donnie Piercey (00:47:11):
“How can this result in me watching more TV and you know, less grading,” sometimes.
Eric Cross (00:47:16):
And I start there like you, but then I end up more time that I fill with another project. And I need to learn how to stop doing that. I’m like, “Oh! I got more free time! … to go take on this other task.”
Jennifer Roberts (00:47:28):
Oh, all of my tech adoption is driven by “how can I work less?”
Eric Cross (00:47:32):
So you’re you’re talking to a new teacher, teacher’s getting exposed to this, they’re starting the school year or they’re just getting their feet wet with it. What advice would you give them about AI, incorporated into content or even just best practices? Where you’re at right now in your own journey, and someone’s asking you about it —what would you share with ’em? And Jen, I want to start with you.
Jennifer Roberts (00:47:53):
So, the first thing I did is I was in the middle of grading, you know, 62 essays from my seniors about Into the Wild, when ChatGPT became a thing last November. And I wanted to see what would happen. So the first thing I did was take the prompt that I had given my students and gave it to ChatGPT, ’cause I had just graded a whole bunch of those essays and my brain was very attuned to what my rubric was doing and what I was expecting as the outcome. So I could take what ChatGPT gave me as that quote unquote “essay” and evaluate it critically. And I was ready to do that. So my first advice is take something you’re already asking students to do and ask ChatGPT to do the same thing. So that as you look at the student results, you can compare that to what ChatGPTgives you. If what you’re finding is that ChatGPT can generate something that would earn a decent grade from you, you might need to change that assignment. And it doesn’t need to be a big change, but it might need a tweak or something, so that it, it does rely on the student voice, the students to do something more personal. I’m finding very helpful in my classroom is having my kids do projects where they are recording themselves on — I like Flip. So they’re writing a scene together and they’re having to record the scene together. And I’m emphasizing more of the speaking roles than the writing roles necessarily. So yes, first, take something you’re already doing, paste in to ChatGPT, see what the results are, see how that fits with what your students are doing, and then do that for every assignment you give and just sort of see what comes out of that, and see which assignments are failing and which assignments are working. ‘Cause that’s gonna give you a sense, when you do see one of those results from your students, you’ll be able to recognize it. But it’ll also help you tweak your assignments and decide, “How can I make this a little more original or a little bit more authentic for my students?” And if the robot, if the AI, can’t generate a response, what could the AI do that would be helpful to your students? Would be my next question. So can you use the AI to help them generate an outline? Can you use the AI to help them generate a list of steps to help them get started? And when you’re comfortable enough doing that by yourself, then don’t be afraid to open it in front of your class. If it’s not blocked at your school site, which I hope it’s not. Because I think the advantage goes to kids who have access to this in the long run, or at least see what it is and know what it is. Right? Because if a kid graduates from school without knowing that AI exists, they’re not gonna be prepared for what they face out in the world. So give them a chance to see you using it. Model effectively using it. I have a blog post about that. I just wrote it. LitAndTech.com. You can check that out. “Introducing 9th graders to ChatGPT.” How it went, right? There’s a chart there you can have. It’s my very first draft of this, but it seems to be very popular. So, you know, show students how it can be used as their mentor. If I can’t come read your paragraph because I have 36 kids in my classroom and I cannot stop and read everybody’s first paragraph, can you, if you want to, give your first paragraph to ChatGPT and ask for advice? And will that advice be helpful to you? So showing students how it can be used responsibly is, I think, something every teacher should be doing right now. And don’t hold back just because you’re afraid you’re gonna be teaching them what this is. They know what this is. Right?
Donnie Piercey (00:51:13):
They know what it is.
Jennifer Roberts (00:51:13):
Especially if you teach high school. They know what it is. I’ve had parents thank me for showing them how to use it responsibly. You know, this can actually be a really useful tool, but if you’re trying to make it do your work for you, it will probably fail you. If you’re trying to use it to help you do your work, it will probably be helpful. Sort of the way I’m breaking it down for them at this point. You want the great metaphor? The great metaphor is if you build a robot and send it to the top of a mountain, did you climb that mountain? No. If you build a robot and ask it to help you get to the top of the mountain, and you and the robot go together, did you climb that mountain? Yes.
Eric Cross (00:51:53):
I like that. I’m thinking through this. I’m processing that now.
Donnie Piercey (00:51:57):
Me too.
Eric Cross (00:51:59):
Yeah. I just imagine a robot holding my hand climbing Mount Everest and I’m like, “Yeah, I did it.”
Donnie Piercey (00:52:04):
If I got a robot though, like I would have to dress it like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2. Like I would just have to.
Eric Cross (00:52:10):
Of course.
Donnie Piercey (00:52:10):
Of course.
Eric Cross (00:52:13):
Donnie, same question. Advice. Teachers getting immersed into it. Tips. What would you say?
Donnie Piercey (00:52:20):
So, I would definitely agree with everything that Jen said. Just, if anything else, to familiarize yourself with it. Almost like pretend like it’s a student in your classroom and it’s answering questions, just so that way you can see what it can do. And you’re kind of training yourself, like, “Oh, well, if I ever need examples, exemplars.” If you’re in a writing piece and you don’t wanna sit there and write out four different types of student responses — you know, advanced writer, beginning writer, whatever — great way to to do that is you just—
Jennifer Roberts (00:52:48):
Oh yeah. We did that.
Donnie Piercey (00:52:48):
—copy the prompt in and give a beautifully written piece that a fifth grader would be impressed with. Boom. It’ll do it for you. In my classroom, the way that I approach it is I kinda look at AI as almost like this butler that I don’t have to pay. That if I need it to do something for me, it’s just bookmarked. I can click it. And I mean, sometimes I just talk to it like it’s a person. And it’s almost like, in the chat window, I’m just rambling at it, what I’m trying to do. And it’s almost like I’m talking to a coworker, and I’m trying to hedge out some ideas for a lesson. Simple example: For a science lesson, if you’re trying to come up with … let’s say you’re a fifth-grade — or, sorry, I teach fifth grade. Say you’re a seventh-grade science teacher. And you’re trying to teach the students in your class about Newton’s third law of motion. You know, every action [has an ] equal and opposite reaction. Look around your room. See what you have. Maybe look around and you’re like, “All right, I got a whiteboard, microscope, I’ve got magnets, a cylinder. …” And you just copy all this stuff into ChatGPT. Say, like, “Hey, I have all of these items. Cotton balls, peanut butter, whatever.” And say, “I’m trying to teach students Newton’s third law of motion. Give me some ideas of some ways I could teach it using some of these materials.” And it’ll do it! It’ll give you like five to 10 ideas!
Jennifer Roberts (00:54:15):
And then tell it what your students are into. Like, my students are really into basketball. Can you work that into this lesson?
Donnie Piercey (00:54:21):
Yeah! They’re into the Avengers! Hey, find some way to tie Spider-Man into this. You know, that was a pun that didn’t go so well. But, you know <laugh> figure out some way that you could incorporate this and it’ll do it. And Eric, like you said, it won’t be perfect. Right? But if anything else, if you’re a starting teacher and you’re trying to brainstorm ideas — try it.
Eric Cross (00:54:44):
And Donnie, as you were saying that, I was thinking — first, I imagined Spider-Man shooting cotton balls with peanut butter all over them — and then my mind went to having students have these items, like you were saying. And then they create labs, working alongside AI. To do inquiry. To create a lab about something, and then going and performing and collecting data. OK, that’s — now I wanna go do that tomorrow!
Donnie Piercey (00:55:10):
Listen, it is so easy to do. If you have an extra computer in your classroom. … We were talking about Jarvis and Iron Man and Tony Stark earlier. Make a new chat in ChatGPT. Tell it, “I want you to pretend that you are Tony Stark. Only answer questions as if you are Tony Stark.” Or “Pretend you’re Jarvis.” Whatever. “Stay in character the whole time. I’m going to have sixth grade students come up to you and ask you questions about science or forces of nature, and only answer questions like you’re Iron Man.” And guess what? You keep that station in your classroom. Students are working on a project — you know, in elementary school, a lot of times we’ll have that, “ask three before me” — you’re supposed to ask three friends before you go and bug the teacher. Well, maybe one of those “three before me” can be that little computer station, where they go up and ask Tony Stark a question, and then it answers them as Jarvis or Iron Man. I mean, we’re really just scratching the surface with all this AI stuff. And as more and more companies and more and more creatives are gonna start to realize everything that it can do, we’re gonna start to see it more and more. And hopefully we as teachers can really figure out how to use this tool to, of course, help students, but also help them be creative and explore and learn on their own.
Eric Cross (00:56:35):
That’s amazing. And just both of you are just dropping gems right now. And I wanna wrap up by saying — and I’ve said this before on earlier podcasts I’ve done — but at this phase in my life, the people that I’m the biggest fans of are teachers. And it’s true. I don’t mean that in a cliche way. When I watch celebrities and things like that, when I watch professional sports, that doesn’t fill me the way it used to when I was a kid. At this point, as a professional, I get inspired by other educators who are just doing awesome things. And when I think about educators who are doing that, you two are on that list of people that make me better. And when I get better, I can do better things for my kids. And so, one, I want to thank you for staying in the classroom and continue to support students. They’re so lucky to have you both. The second thing I wanted to say is, Jen, I wanna start with you. Where can people — and I know we said at the beginning — but where can people find the stuff that you put out? You got blogs, your social, your book.
Jennifer Roberts (00:57:28):
I got lots of social. Twitter, I’m JenRoberts1 on Twitter. And then my blog is LitAndTech.com. And then I’m on lots of the new social too, the Mastodons, the Spoutables, the Posts — those kinds of things — as just Jen Roberts, because I got in early and I got my real name without a 1. And there was some other one I’m on recently that I’ve forgotten about. But there’s lots of ’em. They’re fun. And I’m Jen Roberts. You can find me there.
Donnie Piercey (00:57:56):
And I’m SergeantPepperD on AOL, if anyone’s interested.
Eric Cross (00:58:00):
If you wanna hit Donnie up on AIM. <Laugh>
Donnie Piercey (00:58:03):
SergeantPepperD.
Jennifer Roberts (00:58:04):
You know, speaking of rock stars and people who do amazing things, I did write a blog post about using ChatGPT in the classroom, but I hear Donnie wrote a whole book.
Eric Cross (00:58:13):
Oh yeah. So, Donnie! Donnie, that’s a great segue. Thanks Jen. Donnie, how do people find out more? And can you tell us about this book you wrote, that’s coming out in the summer?
Donnie Piercey (00:58:22):
Yeah, so the book I wrote is called 50 Strategies for Integrating AI Into the Classroom. It’s published by Teacher Created Materials. They reached out to me. They had seen some of the stuff that I was doing, not just with ChatGPT, but also some image-generating AI stuff. You know, I got featured on Good Morning America, which was kind of cool. And they saw that and they said, ‘Hey, that looks really neat.” Reached out to me and asked me to write a book. And the idea behind the book, that launches this summer, it’s just 50 ideas, 50 prompts, different things that, as a classroom teacher, that you can do. So, you know, I think there’s so many AI books that are out there now. A lot of them are big ideas, which I think are important. Definitely important discussions that need to be, have around, the ethics of AI. What’s the role that AI should play in the classroom. But I just wanted to write a book, kind of like the discussion that, that Jen and I were just having, which is like, “Can we just share a whole bunch of ideas, different things that we could try with our students?” So definitely check it out. And I appreciate you giving me a shout-out too. That was cool, Eric. Thank you.
Eric Cross (00:59:35):
Of course. Definitely. And Donnie, your Twitter is again. …
Donnie Piercey (00:59:39):
Oh, @MrPiercey, M R P I E R C E Y.
Eric Cross (00:59:44):
Follow Donnie. Follow Jen. Tons of stuff on there. Both of you, thank you so much. For your time, for talking about students and how we can take care of them, science, literacy, AI. I hope we can talk about this again. I feel like even if in just six months, we might be saying different things. In a year, the landscape might completely change. And that makes it really fun. But thank you both for being on the show.
Jennifer Roberts (01:00:04):
Thank you for having us, Eric.
Donnie Piercey (01:00:05):
Thank you so much, Eric. We appreciate it, bud.
Eric Cross (01:00:10):
Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Jen Roberts and Donnie Piercey. Jen Roberts is a veteran English teacher at San Diego’s Point Loma High School and author of the book Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning. You can keep up with her at LitAndTech.com. And Donnie Piercey is a fifth-grade teacher from Lexington, Kentucky. He hosts the podcast Teachers Passing Notes. Stay up-to-date with him at Resources.MrPiercey.com. And let us know what you think of this episode in our Facebook discussion group, Science Connections: The Community. Make sure you don’t miss any new episodes of Science Connections by subscribing to the show, wherever you get podcasts. And as always, we’d really appreciate it if you can leave us a review. It’ll help more people and AI robots find the show. You can find more information on all of Amplify’s shows on our podcast hub, Amplify.com/hub. Thanks again for listening.
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Meet the guests
Jen Roberts is a Nationally Board Certified high school English teacher with 25+ years of experience teaching Social Science and English Language Arts in grades 7-12. She has had 1:1 laptops for her students since 2008 and is the co-author of Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning. A Google for Education Certified Innovator since 2011, Jen was named the CUE Outstanding Educator in 2022. Her interests include literacy instruction, standards based grading, and leveraging Google tools to make her teaching more efficient and effective.
Donnie Piercey, the 2021 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, is a fifth-grade teacher in Lexington, Kentucky. With a passion for utilizing technology to promote student inquiry, learning, and engagement, he has been teaching since 2007. In addition to being in the classroom, he runs a podcast, Teachers Passing Notes that is produced by the Peabody Award winning GZMShows, and holds several recognitions, including a National Geographic Fellowship to Antarctica in 2018. His most recent work in Artificial Intelligence has not gone unnoticed, earning him multiple appearances on Good Morning America, the Associated Press, and PBS. His upcoming book, “50 Strategies for Integrating AI in the Classroom” published by Teacher Created Materials, is written for educators looking for practical classroom approaches to using AI. All told, Donnie has been invited to keynote and present at schools in thirty-three states and on five continents.
About Science Connections
Welcome to Science Connections! Science is changing before our eyes, now more than ever. So…how do we help kids figure that out? We will bring on educators, scientists, and more to discuss the importance of high-quality science instruction. In this episode, hear from our host Eric Cross about his work engaging students as a K-8 science teacher.
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S3 – 03. Math professional learning experiences with Elham Kazemi
How do we continue to grow and be more reflective about our own teaching? In this episode, Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer chat with Elham Kazemi to explore how to look at teaching as a collaborative experiment. Moving more toward analyzing student thinking and how that contributes to teaching itself, leaves more space for one’s own understanding of math to grow throughout your career. When one revises their teaching based on the data we’re collecting from students and peers, this allows us to be both teachers and learners forever.
Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page.
Dan Meyer (00:04):
Hey folks, welcome to math teacher lounge. My name is Dan Meyer
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:07):
And I’m Bethany, Lockhart Johnson.
Dan Meyer (00:09):
And this is the teacher learning week. We’re thinking this week about how we grow as teachers. And to start with, I just wanted to ask Bethany, uh, first Bethany, how are you doing? And second <laugh>. Um, what is, what, what has been your like most favorite and least favorite, most effective least effective professional learning experience when you were a classroom teacher?
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:30):
I think for me, most effective was definitely when I could use it right away. Right. Whatever we were talking about, whatever we were learning, like I got to go put it into practice. Sure. Uh, I, I remember we did something where we designed a lesson and then we went and taught it like one person taught it and the rest of the people watched. And then we kind of like got to workshop it, which that was like a one off the fact that we got to go out of our classroom and go observe somebody teaching. It was gold. It was gold. Um, so that was probably the most effective, because there was so much opportunity for reflection and least effective was something that felt like just completely unconnected to, you know, kind of either so theoretical that it wasn’t like touching on what we were navigating right there in the classroom. I don’t know. What about you? What can you think of times that, are you gonna say times you led a PD? Those were the most effective?
Dan Meyer (01:26):
Yeah. My favorite ones are my sessions, of course. But if I had to throw those out for a second, um, yeah, I, I like, I want, I want both, I want it all. I want the, um, the big ideas that take a long time to settle in that also have like small bits that can carve off and use relatively quickly to test my understanding of the ID is, yeah. I’ve had some, some PD where I’m like, this is very relevant to tomorrow. And I also don’t care. Like for instance, like how to use the CD, the, the, like the, the software, you know, on the, on my curriculum, for instance, it’s like, okay, yeah, this is just a little, little too practical. You know what I’m saying? I want some bigger ideas to chew on. Um, I would also say like, I love my favorite PD by a long was writing up thoughts about how the day went and putting that on the internet in a public place that we used to call a blog and where people would come along, cuz there was like 10 blogs and like, tell me like that’s no good.
Dan Meyer (02:16):
Like the thing that you like is not a thing you should like, here’s the thing you should like instead, or try instead, or just this weird community that sprung up, you know, when I was, uh, starting to teach relatively new teacher and uh, I feel like I grew a lot
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:28):
Go back to this idea blog. If people would call you, they’d call you on the phone. What, what
Dan Meyer (02:32):
Was they would fax me? They, it would be a fact. So
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:35):
Fax,
Dan Meyer (02:36):
I got it. Fax a comment. Yeah. Got it. So, uh, that’s, that’s Bethany and I, and we’re super excited to have people who have a bit broader of a perspective, a bit more of the land than what, what the two of us, um, think about with our own professional learning experiences.
Dan Meyer (02:52):
We’ve invited on an expert. We hope will help us understand alternate ways to do professional learning as teachers to grow as teachers besides, you know, all of us getting into the same room once every, every, uh, few months together, Elm Cosmi is a professor of mathematics education at the university of Washington, Elm studies, how strong professional communities develop in schools and how schools can be organized. So teachers learn from and what their students, this work is informed by equity oriented research on thinking, uh, on children’s mathematical thinking and classroom practice. She is co-author with Allison hints of intentional talk, which focuses on leading productive discussions in mathematics. And she edited coral counting and counting collections with Megan Frankie and Angela tau, which focuses on the importance of counting from preschool to fifth grade. Looking forward to a great chat with Elham, welcome Elham to the show.
Elham Kazemi (03:43):
Thanks for having me, my favorite topic ever to talk with you both about,
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:47):
I think something that I just deeply, deeply respected admire is that I feel like you are constantly sharing about how you are learning. You’re continue to learn, continue to, to try out new ideas and you do a very good job of like highlighting things that you’ve learned, whether that’s sharing it through a tweet or sharing it amongst colleagues or peers. And I, I just really appreciate that because I feel like being in the mathematics community with you, I feel like I grow by, I just like paying attention to like, Hey, she’s a learner, she’s done all these amazing things and thinks in these amazing ways and has shifted my thinking in such amazing ways. But she’s saying, Hey, I I’m still learning. So yeah. Hi, thank you. Thank you for your, I don’t know. We’re just glad to have you here.
Elham Kazemi (04:41):
Thanks. I do feel like the perpetual student, like I’ve never left school and I wonder like one day maybe I will, when I grow older, when I grow up, will I ever leave school? Maybe not.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:52):
<laugh>
Dan Meyer (04:53):
Great. Let’s dig in. Yeah. So please tell us you partnered with a school for some professional learning that wasn’t the sort where you would go in and offer brilliant ideas and then leave. But rather it, it seemed like it was more of a job embedded sort, the sort of thing that might have a life of its own after, you know, after the, the grant ends or the program ends. Can you describe what it was you did and what the effect was?
Elham Kazemi (05:15):
I think I wanna first say that everything that I have done and experimented with as really the result of working with fabulous people, teachers, coaches, principals, other, um, colleagues and peers in the field who are constantly trying to work on what good teaching looks like and how you learn to do it. And mostly because we care about kids and we care about what students experience in the classroom. And we want kids to love school, to have school, be a place where they’re known, they’re loved, um, that they look forward to being in every day. And I think there’s that, um, the why that, that, um, per that makes you want to learn is really about the students and being, doing things in service of them. Because when, uh, as one of my colleagues said, when children thrive, teachers thrive. So what does it mean for us to thrive?
Elham Kazemi (06:06):
If we are focused on our kids’ experiences in schools, what we did at this, this particular school and a group of schools is kind of tap into a, all that curiosity and drive that teachers have to do a good job and to use their imaginations well, and to engage the actual ideas that children have in their classroom together, not separately, not like get a great idea and be inspired by it and then go figure it out by yourself, but be inspired by ideas and then try to figure them out together. Because, um, as you both know, very talented teachers, uh, who also have been inspired to change your classroom teaching. Once you figure something out or as you’re figuring it out, there’s all kinds of intricacies. Like I remember when I first learned about three act tasks, I thought what a brilliant idea, but it’s not so simple to try to enact the brilliance of it because you can simplify it too much or you can get stuck and not really know how do you move from one act to the next, or what’s the point of the third act?
Elham Kazemi (07:12):
Do you just like reveal the answer and that’s it. And then you move on. Um, how do you even do design the tasks to begin with all of those things, raise questions and working on them together, uh, and carving up that space and time to work on them together is sorely missing in schools. And so that’s what we were able to do with the schools that I parted and it is find the time and then design the structures so that teachers could, um, <affirmative> think about their teaching together and then also be in the classroom together with kids. So the kids see that we are also learning to be responsive to them. That’s the point. So we have to work stuff out when kids are present, which is the part that usually trips a lot of people up.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:55):
Well, that to me is I think the part that shifted my teaching and continues to is this, it is a culture shift to tell your students, to invite your students into your learning, to tell them I’m, I’m learning too. It was an invitation to, to be vulnerable in a way that I think sometimes teachers are very afraid to be vulnerable. Uh, if they don’t know what the student response is gonna be, or they don’t know, they don’t wanna seem like they don’t know the answers or they don’t know how to figure out a problem. I think that’s a real shift in the, in the culture for, for compared to maybe what we, we experienced growing up.
Dan Meyer (08:33):
I hated not knowing the answer to a math problem. I admitting I, I was uncertain with the mathematics, but to admit that I am like a, a work in aggress as a teacher, feels like an extra admission, an extra layer of humility, which is, I don’t know, it’s a really special thing that you were up to with that school. I’d love to hear like about specific structures that you worked with to help make that transition feel, you know, more natural, more welcoming, more productive.
Elham Kazemi (08:58):
So, I mean, you probably have experienced common planning time, right? This is a thing that often happens for us teachers. I think that common planning time looks a lot sometimes like, uh, what are we gonna do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? Okay. What do we need? What are the materials we need? Who is gonna do that? Will you write this? And that’s what kind of common planning time, and then it’s over. And then you might see each other at lunch and say, well, how did that go? And you’ll talk a little bit about it, but common planning time and learning labs, which is sort of what the, what we call the, the PD that we designed means. Okay. So let’s take three act task. We, we write a little bit about it. We’ve seen a couple, but okay. What would it really mean to plan this particular one?
Elham Kazemi (09:42):
So common planning time is thinking like, how are we gonna launch that first act? What are we actually gonna say? What do we think the kids are gonna say? Why would we say it that way? What if they say something else? Um, and then, okay, so what does it actually sounds like to transition from act one, to act two? What might we say, what would happen with this particular task and actually getting into the details of how you imagine, like, what, what you would do when you were actually planning the specifics of a particular lesson, but leaving it loose enough that you’re not trying to make it perfect. And I think that’s the trick. So, so that you are not so invested, that goes in that particular way or that you fail. If it doesn’t go that way. Um, but that you have something you wanna learn together and trying out this three act task with a particular group of kids so that when you go into the classroom, first of all, you’ve all thought through the full R of the lesson.
Elham Kazemi (10:40):
And you’re curious enough about what’s gonna happen at particular points that you’ve left room for uncertainty and the taking of some risks. So then when you go together into a classroom and kids start to say things that you didn’t anticipate you or, or they start to do something that you’re so jazzed about, that you didn’t anticipate that you’re like, this is the thing we should pursue more. You give each other permission to do that. You’re like, whoa, wait, did you hear what so? And so said, I think we should follow that road and see where it takes us, or, huh. Okay, hold on. And that’s what we call teacher timeouts, where you actually confer briefly and you tell the kids, this is a super special day. We’ve tried to design something. We’re very curious how you are gonna react to it. So we’re gonna try it out. And along the way, we might pause to get your ideas or for us to make some decisions and steer the ship in a, in a new directions and see what happens. So we’re gonna be sitting closely to you among you. Um, and you get to be our teachers today while we teach. That’s how it’s framed.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (11:46):
Like, what were you seeing in professional development or in that wasn’t happening amongst teachers? Like where, where are the gaps? Because it feels like so much of your work. You’ve just looked in such nuanced ways at how teachers can continue to grow and be more reflective of their own teaching. And I’m just kind of curious where that came from or where you’re seeing the landscape.
Elham Kazemi (12:10):
Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, I, oh, everything I know about, children’s thinking to Megan Frankie and the beautiful body of work called CGI, but, um, one of the things that we noticed, there’s so many great CGI workshops, and even like all the seminars and conference presentations and amazing things that you can design to have engaging work time for teach in, in professional development, outside of their classroom, people get super jazzed, you know, they get, um, uh, they have meaningful experiences, but to contextualize that back into their classrooms with their own students is like where, where often I would see like, wait, the same group of teachers I just saw in my classroom or in either in math methods or in this PD seminar, or even myself, like noticing, like I have seen and thought about stuff a lot. But when I went to go do it with a particular group of kids, holy moly was that so hard. And I saw all kinds of new complexities that I didn’t anticipate. And if I were just left to my own devices, I might very easily say, whew, this seems a little too hard.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (13:21):
Right,
Elham Kazemi (13:22):
Right. And that’s the thing that I always hated. I was like, oh, if only we had, or you, or if you watched somebody do a demo lesson and you saw something that was like, kind of cool that you wish you had done afterwards. I often this happened in reflections. I wish we had, because we weren’t allowed to interrupt each other during teaching. Cuz somehow that would be rude or that would undermine the teacher’s authority. But that’s only the way we frame it. If we say actually we’re all capable people. So a question we ask ourselves during instruction doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re doing. It means actually we’re thinking together then the interruptions aren’t about undermining authority. They’re about thinking together.
Dan Meyer (14:04):
There’s a performative aspect to a lot of teaching. Like the like teaching feels like a performance and you don’t, the movie’s playing or there’s a play that’s going on. It feels like inappropriate to interrupt that in any way. Cause the performance is going and I, I love what this that’s. I love what this idea does to kind of, to redefine teaching is not a performance, but this, this co-constructed thing. Or if it’s a performance, it’s a performance, the stars, all of us, like we’re all a part of the cast and always a it’s always the dress rehearsal.
Elham Kazemi (14:30):
<laugh> it is like the dress rehearsal. Although some of my brilliant colleagues with backgrounds in drama and theater, Sarah Kavanaugh and Holly GU and Elizabeth dure, they actually were at a meeting together. And they talked about how this like breaks the fourth wall, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> like, which is out of theater, um, where the performer speaks to the audience, you know, I know you’re there and I have something to say to you. Yep. And I was like, well, we should, why can’t we do that in teaching? So we actually wrote a little paper, um, that’s called breaking the fourth wall as a way. That’s so cool as a metaphor for understanding and reframing what these interruptions could meet. Cuz we often get people when we about this for academic audience who say like, aren’t you using the children and what are the children gonna do while you just pause? Are they supposed to freeze? And uh, you know, while you talk about them, but it’s not really that it’s like, Hey students, we’re here because of you. So shouldn’t, we try to involve you and are decision making. To some extent, it’s not like we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re doing things because we wanna advance your learning.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (15:40):
I mean, I still remember the first time I did a teacher time out and it, it was, I, it was breaking the four, it was this like, okay, you’re gonna see what happens, kids like, look at my, my tap dances stopped. And you’re you mean like, you know, whoa, wait a second. And I think it is about how you frame it. Right? It’s a celebration of their thinking and you, you use the term ambitious teaching and it, to me that is such a joyful way to think about it.
Elham Kazemi (16:06):
It is risky. And you would never say anything to shame any student, no. Or to shame your colleagues. Clearly it’s not a about that kind of discussion. Right. And they’re so brief. They’re like, it, it seconds. It’s not like you’re wasting time. You’re actually trying to understand what’s happening here. And I’ve just had so many instances where something goes on. Um, like we were doing a growing patterns task in a classroom and the student built the fourth term and they built stuff that did not follow the pattern. And I was so confused. I, I just didn’t understand like what was going on. And one of the kids said, well, if you, if you did follow the pattern, that’s not her words. But you know, she’s like, well, if we built it this way, that would be too obvious. Because if you just, if you saw that and you’re like, oh, that lesson failed.
Elham Kazemi (16:59):
Now we, our kids don’t understand what patterns are. We did it. Like, we gotta pause here and we gotta say, and we’re like, well, what do you mean? Can you say more about that? And basically what they said is that, um, well, first of all, they’re, they’re right. A pattern could change at any time, but it’s like, it would be more interesting if they, they knew how many cubes it would take for the fourth term that it would be nine, but they’re like, Hey, let’s rearrange that nine in some cool new ways. <laugh> cause that’s more interesting. It was like more interesting to them if, if they didn’t keep the pattern. So like, you kind of had to wrestle with that in the moment <affirmative> with them. And that’s how they can actually be partners with you in the teacher, timeout.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (17:40):
Right. That’s making it about them and their learning. It’s not about that. It’s not about your performance and like looking all shiny and, and I’ve got it all together and I know exactly how this lesson’s gonna go. It that’s so interesting.
Elham Kazemi (17:53):
And sometimes you pause and like some cuz somebody else who’s watching is noticing something about what the kids are doing. And while you’re, if you’re happen to be the person who’s upfront at the time leading, you’ve got so many things going on in your head that some times the person who’s just been sitting on the rug with the kids mm-hmm <affirmative> has noticed something. And they’re like, can I ask something right now? And that’s a great teacher timeout too. Mm. Because they’re interrupting you cuz they’re like, I think I, I wanna see what kids will say. If we ask this question next and those moments have been like amazing because someone has noticed something that another person hasn’t in the room and it’s been very helpful to illuminate how kids are processing something or what two ideas they could connect. That would be really powerful based on what we were hoping to learn that day or do with the kids that day.
Dan Meyer (18:47):
It’s like you have a bonus brain attached to you there in the room. Sounds really powerful. I wonder a couple about the student experience of this. I’m imagine if I was a student in the room and I heard the two teachers like kind of pause, take this time out and like talk about how interesting my thinking was like behind my back a little bit, like trying to strategize about something interesting. I had said, I just imagine I would, I would feel very good about like, that would be a very positive experience for me. Um, but I’m just curious, can you speak to how students reacted when they’re,
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:16):
You mean, if you had been a student in the class and you saw two teachers conferring about your work?
Dan Meyer (19:21):
Yeah. Yeah. Like I, my classmates had of thing that was like, it, it kind of like was so novel that it stymied the teachers and then they like had to pause and like talk about what are we doing? Oh, I don’t know. I can imagine that’d be like know a fun feeling. Maybe I just tell more about me than about the kids, but
Elham Kazemi (19:35):
<laugh> it points to like, how would you go about starting to do this work? Right. Because one is you do, you do have to tell kids, Hey, I’m here with so and so and so, and so, and so, and so it might be just two of you. It might be five of you. It might be more and you know how we’ve been working on X thing in class? Well, today we wanted to try this new thing and, but we’re not sure how it’s gonna go and we need, we need your feedback. Right. So here’s something that might happen. We might pause you, you, I mean, you really do directly tell the kids to do that. And then we’re gonna ask you how it felt and we’re gonna share those feelings with one another. So you do that, you do a little exit card or you,
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (20:19):
How, what felt the pause or how,
Elham Kazemi (20:22):
How, yeah. How did it feel that, how did this lesson go or how did a lesson, how did it feel when you heard, you know, ALM and Dan talk to each other, doing this lesson and they might say, Hey, it’s cool. It’s fun. Kids have definitely chimed in, in like, if we ask a question like, should we do this next or this, somebody will pipe in and say, do that, you know, do this thing. Instead. If, if you kind of pipe in to say, can I ask a question? They just turn to you and look at you and answer your question. Right. So, and we always thank them and we just like pump it up. Right? Like this is so cool because this is all about you. And usually when you say today, you’re gonna be our teachers, especially the little kids. They like get all giggly. Totally.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:02):
Right.
Elham Kazemi (21:04):
Love it.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:05):
You know, you, you were sharing about this really unique situation, which I wish it wasn’t as unique where you had the whole school involved, but how did that happen? And what if you don’t have the whole school involved? What if it’s just me in my grade level, who’s like, I kind of wanna try this, but what
Elham Kazemi (21:22):
<laugh>, I think you could start with your, a peer in your school or a colleague in your school. Yeah. I mean, it’s a little seed, right. And it’s a little seed and then you could make it grow. I also believe in starting small and growing, cuz you do have to invite people into a different way of thinking about what it means to learn together. So you need to experience it, um, in order to believe it.
Dan Meyer (21:49):
Yeah. It feels like we would not want to write off any student as like, oh, they just don’t wanna learn. I think a lot of, a lot of us just like don’t buy that, that there’s other reasons why people need that. A teacher shouldn’t like shouldn’t, that’s not true of students that they have been told they can’t learn or there’s various circumstances the same. I, I suppose the same as like should be true is true of teachers. Like no teacher doesn’t want to learn more about teaching is at least a helpful Axiom to use, to approach the work of teacher growth. And so maybe they, yeah, maybe I feel like I’m the only person in my school who wants to do this, but perhaps that’s not actually true. Perhaps it’s just a matter of creating an imagination or the right kind of enticement or I don’t know what, um, but to start small and grow from there makes a lot of sense.
Elham Kazemi (22:32):
I feel now, like it would be weird and a lot harder for me to invite someone to just come in and watch me teach and sit quietly in the back when I don’t know anything about what they’re thinking and wait until afterwards to get their opinion.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (22:46):
Oh yes.
Elham Kazemi (22:47):
I would be much more willing to co-plan with someone so that we were both on the same page about what we were trying to do and then when you’re in the classroom with me. So that’s the other thing that’s important cuz I don’t think you can just be in the classroom together and I, you know, interrupt each other’s teachers, if you haven’t planned together, cuz you do have to have some common understanding of what are we trying to do here? Oh the
Dan Meyer (23:10):
Intent here.
Elham Kazemi (23:11):
Yeah. So I would definitely say don’t just show up in each other’s classroom and start interrupting each other. <laugh> if you don’t know what the heck is going on. Yeah.
Dan Meyer (23:21):
Yeah. I, I know that’s directed at one person on this call in particular. I hear that.
Elham Kazemi (23:25):
I know who we’re talking about, but you know, I would be way more intimidating for me if I was trying to do a three act task and Dan just came to watch me do it <laugh> and he hadn’t planned with me. He didn’t know why I selected that task. I had no opportunity to talk to him. Then it would be, Hey Dan, would you just like do this with me? Let’s think through this. Why would you do this then? What, what have you normally done? Oh, okay. Why have you done that? Right. And then to like, okay, let’s try it together. Um, and then, and then along the way, if I have questions, you’re there with me. So sometimes there is someone more experience like if right. And sometimes you’re both just like, I just don’t have that much experience with this. I’m learning this for the first time.
Elham Kazemi (24:04):
Right. And the beauty of the math ed community, whether it’s on Twitter or is that we’re kind of pretty accessible to each other. Right. So if I read something and I have a question about it, you bet I’m gonna reach out to the author <laugh> and say, I’ve been thinking about your work and this is what’s been coming up for us. Can you? So like, it definitely happened with hands down conversations. We tried it in the learning lab and we just couldn’t figure out like that. How do you intercede, like into the hands down conversation cuz the kids are supposed to have a conversation. So we had to like give Kaia and her co-author a few specific examples so they could help our thinking so that we could try it again. Right. And make it better. And I think that is, is what it means to be learning in community is that you use the resources more broadly.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:52):
That’s a beautiful reminder too. And it also helps me feel a little better about all the messages I’ve sent you. Like what does this mean? Can you help me with this?
Elham Kazemi (24:59):
<laugh> I mean, that just makes you feel alive. <laugh> I think
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (25:06):
So. I think P part of the beauty of you talking about starting small is that it does give those of us who maybe aren’t seeing that those opportunities for collaboration reflected in our school culture, it gives us kind of some hope for like, wait, don’t just like, think you can’t start. I, how do you, how do you see, how do you see it growing? Or, or do you think like if you could magically <laugh> like wave your wand and, and create some shifts around, around, uh, the culture where folks are feeling isolated or maybe don’t feel like they have the needs to do this work. What could that look like?
Elham Kazemi (25:51):
Yeah. What could that look like? So time, like we need some imagination around the use of time in schools and I have seen some really amazing opportunities where teachers get to co-teach, which means that they really have to co-plan when, um, there’s a break in a regular school session and there’s like an intercession or like a, like an elective that, um, that doesn’t, I haven’t seen it happen a lot in public schools, but I have seen it happen a lot in independent schools where they’ll have like, stop, stop the presses. It’s like a drop everything and read, but it’s like a drop everything and do an R arts week. And then all the kids in the school get shuffled. So they into multiage groupings and the teachers get to plan something special for like the week. But you could start with like a day, which would at least get you to plan something together and try to teach together and be just in each other’s spaces. And I think that might be kind of an interesting way to start where you have to like mess with the schedule somehow. Cuz the schedule is the beast in schools
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (26:59):
Is kind of the first step. Like we are going to create a shared activity, a shared instructional goal, a shared like where do I start?
Elham Kazemi (27:09):
What, where do you start? I mean, there’s so many good books. We all read, start with something that grabs your imagination. That you’re like, if I got to do this in my class, I’d be so jazzed. And I think my kids would love it. Why would they love it? You know, whatever it is. There’s so many good ideas that people are instantly blogging about publishing, um, slow reveal graphs. I love those two. I have like all these things. I was like, I would love to try these out, but I, I gotta do them with somebody cuz I need a sounding board about like how, what does it mean to do it well? And what does it mean to just do it at the surface level and do it a, you know, in a kind of a crappy way. And we don’t wanna do a crappy job. We wanna do a good job, but you have to start, you have to start sometimes in an awkward, crappy way. Like, you know, and get past that stage. Cause often we try a bunch of stuff, eh, and then we drop it. But like you gotta work on it to make it really
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:58):
Good. And if you’ve already tried it and it didn’t go so well it’s, this could be an invitation, like, you know, it doesn’t mean give up on the idea. It means like, Hey let, let’s let’s collaborate. Let’s you know, come into my class. Let’s co plan this.
Elham Kazemi (28:10):
So I would challenge people to think about the schedule. <laugh> try to do something just a little bit different. You know, like when we do learning labs, people are like, well, how do you do that? And there’s no money for it. Actually. We just use our money in a slightly different way to make or that everybody four people get a sub, which I know right now, sub shortages is crazy, crazy, but then combine your classes or do something different. Yeah. You know, um, involve people differently somehow in your, in your school environment to get that time,
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:43):
Really see this as a priority. This is a, this is there’s is intense value in this time to collaborate. Yeah.
Elham Kazemi (28:51):
Yeah. There’s so many side benefits for, I think for kids and teachers when you’re able to do this.
Dan Meyer (28:58):
Yeah. You’ve heard of folks. Uh, usually our, our math teacher challenge, our lounge challenge has been, uh, pedagogical in nature or a new CU. And uh, this is a different kind of one. This is, uh, go, go be a Rabel Razr go Rouse rabble at your, uh, front office and figure out the right way to get some funding or some time or shuffle a master schedule in such a way that you have collaboration, time to plan to co-teach to interrupt one another and uh, let us know how it goes. We are super excited and super interested in all of that. Thank you, uh, Elham for being with us here today and sharing all of your wisdom about how teachers grow.
Elham Kazemi (29:36):
Thanks for reminding me. You too loved
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:38):
It. We’re never done learning. We’re never done learning. Nope.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:44):
Aha. Thank you so much for joining us in the lounge. I think all of us have sat through effective and ineffective professional learning sessions and just helping us to envision of how this can truly help PD can truly transform our classrooms. It is it’s exciting. It’s exciting. And I think we’ve all learned a lot from our conversation. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And don’t forget, you can connect with us in the lounge on Facebook at math teacher lounge or on Twitter at MTL show. Let’s keep this conversation going. Keep it going. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Everybody. <silence>.
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Meet the guest
Elham Kazemi is a professor of mathematics education at the University of Washington. She studies how strong professional communities develop in schools and how schools can be organized so teachers learn from and with their students. This work is informed by equity-oriented research on organizational learning, children’s mathematical thinking, and classroom practice. She is co-author with Allison Hintz of Intentional Talk, which focuses on leading productive discussions in mathematics. She also edited Choral Counting and Counting Collections with Megan Franke and Angela Turrou, which focuses on the importance of counting from preschool to 5th grade.
About Math Teacher Lounge: The podcast
Math Teacher Lounge is a biweekly podcast created specifically for K–12 math educators. In each episode co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson (@lockhartedu) and Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) chat with guests, taking a deep dive into the math and educational topics you care about.
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S1-10: Empowering the science educator: Jessica Kesler
In the final episode of the season, Eric sits down with his friend and professional development facilitator, Jessica Kesler. Jessica describes her passion for sharing free, high-quality, empathy-centered professional development for K12 educators. Jessica also shares her experience jumping into leadership positions while teaching in Philadelphia. Eric also chats with Jessica about how students often lean on teachers for more than delivering content. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.
Jessica Kesler (00:01):
One student at a time, isn’t gonna bring a million students through the door. But if we focus on their teachers, then they can implement it in their classroom and have this multiplicative effect that can continue on and help us to reach those millions of kids and helping them be prepared for future careers.
Eric Cross (00:19):
Welcome to science connections. I’m your host. Eric Cross. My guest today is Jessica Kessler. Jessica’s director of professional learning at TGR foundation, which is a tiger woods charity. There she creates and leads free stem, professional learning opportunities for educators across the country. Prior to working at TGR, Jessica worked as an elementary, middle and high school science teacher while fulfilling several leadership roles, including science department, chair and principal intern. In this episode, Jessica shares some of her classroom experiences while working in Philadelphia, where she was in classrooms, where her students needed her to be more than just her content. She also addresses how designing professional learning with empathy for teachers in mind creates better experiences for teachers. And now please enjoy my discussion with Jessica Kessler. So let’s, let’s start off with St. Joseph’s chemistry college to the classroom, like your origin story. What led you to ultimately get into the classroom and being successful, even just looking at, at your kinda like your resume or your CV of all of the things that you’ve done. You definitely weren’t idle, but start off with chem. Yeah. Like where did that passion come from?
Jessica Kesler (01:27):
Yeah. So when I was younger, I just had this burning passion to help people. Right. And when you’re young and you think about helping people, you think about doctors, doctors help people. Right. So I had this idea that I wanna be a surgeon. I wanna be a black surgeon. I wanna be a young girl, female Charles drew, and I just wanna go out there and do it. And so my mom is actually an alum of St Joe’s. So I spent a lot of time on campus cuz as she was getting her mini master’s degrees I will visit campus with her often. And so when I applied, I had the scholarships, had everything and I went in ready to be bio ready to be a surgeon. I took my first bio class and I was like, yes, let’s talk about the human body. And let’s get into dissections and sections. And they were like, okay, so a plant so has this. And I was like, Ooh <laugh> I was like, this is not what I was expecting at all. It just felt so detached from the trajectory that I wanted to take. And it just did not feed that passion of helping people in the immediate moment.
Eric Cross (02:31):
Did it, did it feel too abstract?
Jessica Kesler (02:33):
It felt abstract. It felt boring. Okay. And one thing I didn’t want was to be like stuck, bored. Like if I’m not being stimulated in a good way, mm-hmm <affirmative> then it’s not gonna last, but I love science. So I switched over to chemistry cuz I’m like this chemistry is exciting. I’m mixing things together. I’m producing new things. I’m doing extractions. I’m being introduced to machinery that I haven’t seen before. I’m loving it. I’m doing a math. The math is awesome. And so I switched over to chem and I started doing research in the summers and things like that. My research was around water quality in Philadelphia and looking at different natural water sources and comparing them and all those great things. But I was in a lab and the lab had no windows and I was stuck talking to this atomic absorption specter every day.
Jessica Kesler (03:24):
And I hit that, that wall again, where it was like, is this the rest of my life? Like talking to these machines and not having windows and not being able to interact with people. What is this? This can’t be life. And so I was seeking out some new opportunities that said, Hey, I need more money. First of all. So I’m like, I call the financial aid office like every week, like, Hey, what’s out today. What new scholarships do you have? I’m applying for everything. Like it was my goal to not have to pay for much of my education. And so I was talking to them and they’re like, Hey, you’re in science. There’s this awesome opportunity called a noise scholarship where they’ll pay for your last year and your master’s degree. If you go into education mm-hmm <affirmative> and I sat on it and I was like, this makes so much sense to me.
Jessica Kesler (04:12):
I was like, I’ve been literally tutoring my peers and teaching in churches and all this other kind of stuff. My whole life. It makes so much sense. How come nobody ever said this before? <Laugh> and so I applied for the noise scholarship, got in and started, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> doing practicums in the classroom as I went through my last year as a chemistry major and my first year for my masters and it just felt so right. And I was like, I can do this. And of course there were a lot of people who told me, no, Josh, you can’t do that. Like these kids will eat you alive. And I’m like I don’t think so. <Laugh> but, but that’s give it a go. And I stepped into the classroom and it, it just felt like, felt like it was always meant to be there.
Eric Cross (04:57):
So you were able to, you were able to make that connection between, I mean, if you’re, if you’re studying chemistry and bio and going into stem, I mean, there’s, there’s an aptitude there, but then you realize that this there’s a road that you could take that leads you into a room with no windows. And you’re just hanging out with machines all day
Jessica Kesler (05:14):
And I’m not helping people. Right. Right. And that was, my passion was like, I’m not helping people sitting in this room. I need to be a person that’s outside telling people about what happens in the room. Right. And how they can get involved and like what’s going on in here. Like that’s, that’s where I can be useful.
Eric Cross (05:28):
When you were, you were in Philly when you were teaching, what were you teaching when you were there?
Jessica Kesler (05:33):
So I started off teaching eighth grade science first job in north Philadelphia, teaching eighth grade science and just a, a funding tangent that first day a student called me a B
Eric Cross (05:44):
Trial by fire
Jessica Kesler (05:45):
Trial by fire called me out in front of like the whole floor. We were outside doing line drills and just was like, I hate you miss Kusa your B. And I was like, oh, this is it. This is it. This is where you stand your ground and you take it or you, you bail out <laugh> and you go back into the lab mm-hmm <affirmative>. And of course at the end of that, that traumatic experience between all the kids, like two months later, she wanted me to adopt her. So like everything comes full circles. Right.
Eric Cross (06:10):
That’s how it is. Right.
Jessica Kesler (06:11):
But I started teaching eighth grade science. There’s not a lot of science teachers at that level who actually have a science background. Most of them have elementary school background. So I’m the only scientist walking into the science classroom and saying, this is how science actually works. And so I ended up taking a lot of onus of science while I was there. Ended up building out the K through eight curriculum for science. I ended up doing like a science strategic plan to submit to the district. I ended up leading out our first couple stem nights and like really leading the stem department and kind of our science department. And this was as like a second, third year teacher <laugh> know, but nobody else had the science mm-hmm, <affirmative> the way that I had the science and the education. So it really opened up a door for me to be able to, to run full steam with all those things.
Eric Cross (07:04):
So MI was it primarily middle school during those, those years that you were there?
Jessica Kesler (07:07):
So there, I started with middle school and I did that purposefully because I was still young and I wanted there to be a good age gap between me and the students. And then I moved up to high school and taught high school chemistry, also taught a couple other different subjects while I was at that school. But primarily high school chemistry. Then I actually took a big leap down and I said, okay. I was going for my second master’s degree in educational leadership. And I was going for my principal cert. And I said, if I’m gonna be a principal of a school, then I need to understand all the levels of education and how they operate, cuz they operate really differently. So I said, I started in middle school, went to high school. I don’t have elementary school experience. In fact, I’d spent a day in a kindergarten classroom and I was like this never again, but I was like, I need to go back down there and I need to figure out how this system works because you know, I never know where I’m gonna land as far as principalship.
Jessica Kesler (08:01):
So I went and taught fourth grade.
Eric Cross (08:03):
How was that experience?
Jessica Kesler (08:05):
So imagine me going from teaching high school, seniors and juniors Uhhuh and like they’re self-sufficient and you know, they’re independent, they’re driving to school and all these things. And then I immediately drop down and go into fourth grade where these kids are crying every five seconds. They still have like a lot of bodily fluids, like there’s noses running and things. And like <laugh>, I was like a fish outta water. I was like, what is this? What’s going on down here. But those kids pour out so much love. And they, you, you become another parent to them. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> your high schoolers know who their parents are. They kind of are finding their place in society, but the little ones, they only know big people as parents, small people as equal. So they see you as another parent. So it taught me a lot about, you know, patience and breaking information down, even smaller. I had to figure out new and inventive ways to teach science and bring it down so far that they would be able to grab onto it and achieve it. And it was a challenge, but at the end it paid off, we were running, we were hitting like great markers for all of our PSSA goals that year. I mean, we were really knocking it out the park
Eric Cross (09:17):
And this backstory leads into how we met and adds to the picture as to why I really want to have you on, because your involvement with TGR, which is where I want to go next for the folks listening. I bet a lot of them have no idea what it’s about, just like I did. And now me learning about TGR foundation and meeting you I would love to make sure that everyone knows about it and what they offer.
Jessica Kesler (09:39):
Absolutely. So TGR foundation, a tiger woods charity was founded by tiger woods and his father with a mission to really introduced them education to students in low income minority populations and prepare them for success in their world and their future careers moving forward. And so was founded in 1996 and went through several changes in iterations since 1996. But eventually opened up its first learning lab, which is in Anaheim, California. And through the learning lab, they opened up these satellite sites. So they basically partner with schools to provide after school education and robotics and wearable electronics and things like that. And they would partner with schools to teach these courses after school, they would pay the teacher, pay for the materials and stuff like that to provide more opportunity for students in different areas. And so that’s how I was introduced to the foundation because while I was teaching high school my good friend and previous manager, Jason Porter shout out to JP Jason Porter used to lead the tiger woods foundation when it was the tiger woods foundation.
Jessica Kesler (10:52):
He used to lead the afterschool program. And when I joined that high school, he said, Jess, you got all this great content, knowledge, all this great enthusiasm, and we wanna get more women into this robotics. We wanna get them engaged in this process of, of stuff. And you will be a great role model to start bringing in more of our female students. And I was like, great, sign me up. And that’s where I started working with the TGR foundation, right after school programs, getting my students into robotics, competitions and clubs, doing different challenges and design challenges. And then after some time, a few years, they actually needed someone to come to the DC area and support the development of professional learning and partnerships here in DC, as they were continuing to expand. And really it came out of the idea that tiger gave this big mission to the organization that he wanted to reach millions of kids.
Jessica Kesler (11:48):
He said millions and everybody said, what millions, what M <laugh>. So the foundation was like, okay, well we can’t reach millions by just tackling one student at a time, right? Not one student at a time, isn’t gonna bring a million people or students through the door. But if we focus on their teachers, mm-hmm <affirmative>, then those teachers not only spend most of their day with these students and learn the basics of their skills with these students. But each one of those teachers has 30 to 150 200 students that they see every day. And that’s how we multiply this effect. So we train the teachers on all the stem competencies and the pedagogical tools and strategies to implement the stem that we’re doing in our learning labs. And then they can implement it in our classroom and have this multiplicative effect that can continue on and help us to reach those millions of kids and helping them be prepared for future careers.
Eric Cross (12:44):
And so D divide the effort, multiply the effects. Exactly. And then when I was exposed to it, this was over zoom. Now, how long has it been going on? Has it always been virtualized or did you do the, were you all doing this before? We all went online
Jessica Kesler (12:57):
Before the pandemic man, the glory days, right before pandemic, it feels like I’m talking about prehistoric times, right? Like back in the dinosaur, like era, like, I don’t know, pre we actually did these workshops in a person. So we would invite people to come to DC, invite teachers in Philadelphia to do a Philly one. We were in New Mexico. We were in Florida. We were, I mean, we were everywhere and this would be a extremely hands on engaging workshops. So not only do we focus on this is the theory and the philosophy behind the pedagogy, but we would also focus on like creating a student experience for the teacher, having the teacher flip into student mode and put on that student hat and actually go through sample lessons, model lessons and activities as the student so that they can feel it. So you can feel if, if you feel confused, your students are gonna feel confused.
Jessica Kesler (13:52):
If you feel like this is challenging, you, your students are gonna feel the challenge. If you are, don’t understand the instructions, your students will understand the instructions. So it gives us a different perspective and it puts us in their shoes. So we can better empathize with them and create more responsive lesson planning. So we flipped them into that student role for that purpose. When COVID hit, we went virtual, but virtual allowed us to reach teachers that we probably would’ve never hit. So it was kind of that blessing and disguise, right? It was like we didn’t keep people as long cuz obviously virtually you’re not, you don’t wanna stare at a screen for eight hours. So we cut it down. We revised it a little bit, but we kept the hands on philosophy and feel of it going by, you know, using materials that they could find at home really modeling what education could look like.
Jessica Kesler (14:41):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> if you used your Z zoom room to capacity, or if you had these materials and resources or rethought your lesson plans and structures. So we went virtual and not only were we able to hit so many more thirst that first year thirsty educators ready to get, dive into it, ready for some comradery with fellow educators. But we were also able to expand our international network. We were able to get so many international educators through our global work that it was, it was beyond what we had when we were in person. So it really had this skyrocketing effect.
Eric Cross (15:20):
There’s professional learning pathways and then virtual stem studio. Is that right for professional development for like teachers who are listening, are those the two kind of main prongs?
Jessica Kesler (15:30):
Yeah. So a stem studio is basically just one, right? And a pathway is a collection. So we now offer four stem studios, four separate stem studios. The first one is on inquiry mindset. You attended that one area. And it’s really about for teachers who are changing their perspective on what the classroom should look and feel like, especially administrators too. It’s about developing that inquiry mindset. So you understand and you feel, and you practice and you learn the tools that are necessary for inquiry to happen in your classroom. We never promote overhauling your classroom. We’re just saying, add a little bit here and there and see how it impacts your students. The second one is on making inquiry, visible, making inquiry visible is all about making students thinking visible in the moment. What are tools and strategies that you use so that students can illuminate their thinking for themselves, but for you and their peers as well and how we benefit from that.
Jessica Kesler (16:28):
So not only do the students get to see their own thinking as they progress and you get to tell the story of how their minds have evolved, but you, as the teacher get to see, oh, this is where everyone is making the mistake, or this is how this misconception came about. Or this is where I need to target for my next lesson. So it makes you more responsive in the moment. And then the third and fourth one where we’re actually launching for a small group this summer, it won’t be available to the masses until maybe a year or two down the line. We have one small group that we’re just going to test it out with. The third one is about developing your inquiry environment. So thinking not just about your physical space, but thinking about your intellectual space too. So what are the things that you can embed into your physical space and develop in a student’s intellectual space that will help you create a holistic inquiry environment?
Eric Cross (17:22):
So this is this inquiry space, not just physical, but then also the intellectual environment
Jessica Kesler (17:26):
Intellectual. Exactly. And it focuses in on the design process and how we design spaces. Because as a teacher, we take a lot of background in the background onus of de creating these spaces. If you take someone out of an old habit or space and tell them, oh, we are gonna change in your minds and teach inquiry, but put them back in the same environment, they’re gonna be conflicted, right? Their bodies wanna do one thing, their minds wanna do another thing. And they don’t know how to bridge the gap between the two. So this is a really illuminating, like how do you change all the spaces? How do you design a flow in space in your classroom and in your students thinking that allows them to be productive in that inquiry environment. It’s really good stuff
Eric Cross (18:11):
Who creates these experiences for teachers.
Jessica Kesler (18:14):
We do. So me and my teammate, Holly, Dard shout out HD. Holly Dard, we really put our brains together and developed these. So it’s a really a team effort because like Jason Porter, Eric even David Tong when he was with us, really collectively thought about what it is that we wanted educators to experience. And then Holly and I do a lot of the grunt work, but then we really collectively put it all together and make it what it is. So I have a heavy hand and a lot of that. And in fact, inquiry four is all about the entrepreneurial mindset. So oftentimes educators don’t consider themselves entrepreneurs, but if you take a look at what an entrepreneur is and what they do on a regular basis, educators are entrepreneurs, but we are missing an opportunity to use our entrepreneurialship in the classroom to drive for stem competencies in inquiry based practices. And so in, in stem studio, four, we really focus in on how the educator is the entrepreneur of their classroom, but also uses entrepreneurial techniques to tackle issues in their schools, districts, and spheres of influence. So it’s really taking the educator to the next level of their teaching practice through entrepreneurship. This is some deep stuff.
Eric Cross (19:37):
It is, well, this entrepreneurial mindset is, is something that I’ve heard before. And I definitely see the link between even the term teacherpreneur beyond just selling lessons on teachers, pay teachers. <Laugh> it’s way bigger than that,
Jessica Kesler (19:52):
Where entrepreneurs actually in the classroom, not just because we do things on the side to make money. Exactly.
Eric Cross (19:57):
A lot of teachers hear that. They’re like, yeah, I got, you know, I got, got a few jobs going on. Exactly. Yeah. And, and I think one thing we, I should have said this earlier, and I’ll, I’ll say the intro, but these are all free.
Jessica Kesler (20:07):
This is largely sponsored by do OD stem as well. So we have a partnership with D O D stem and they have been driving forth the department of defenses, strategic stem plan for years. And as a part of that, they give us funding in order to provide these opportunities for educators for free. So literally educators don’t have to come with anything. And we are giving you not only the content of our, our lessons and our instruction, but we’re also going give you a chance to earn a free micro credential. So people are spending 12 plus hours with us in a workshop which sounds like a lot of time, but it’s over a series of time and days. But we wanna give you something that means something after that, we wanna give you a micro credential to add to your resume, to show your administrator, to show that you have achieved the next level in your professional learning career.
Jessica Kesler (20:59):
Right? And if you finish the pathway, which is all for, then we give you our TGR foundation certificate that says that you’ve completed so much professional learning in these areas that you are basically a warrior of inquiry that you are ready to go out and really lay inquiry out in new creative ways, not in your CLA just in your classroom, but everywhere you go in your district, in your school. And on top of that, we just offer so many other great free partnership incentives like discovery, education, experience licenses. We’re doing raffles this summer. We’re giving out free a free meal voucher so that you can get some lunch. One of these days we’re offering $50 gift cards so that people can get school supplies. So anything you do with us, and you’re like, man, I really wish I could have this so that I can do that in my classroom. We wanna break down all the barriers that prevent teachers from doing this stuff in their classroom, actively engaging in this stuff. And we give you a free copy of the books that we reference. Again, trying to break down the barriers,
Eric Cross (22:00):
What are some of the things that you’ve noticed kind of being on both sides of science teaching in the classroom, and then in training trends with teachers, things like moments that have been great or, or challenges that you’re noticing teachers experiencing, especially maybe changes in differences from a, from, you know, an outsider’s perspective. Seeing what teachers are experiencing are like, since you’ve been doing PDs for folks.
Jessica Kesler (22:22):
Yeah. So it’s actually really interesting being on both sides of the fence. You know, what I always noticed is that teachers are eager, but they’re tired. They’re wanting to learn, but they can’t take advantage of every opportunity to learn. And especially during COVID time, if you take a look at even all the professional learning that’s happening across the world right now, attendance is going down because teachers are so burnt out this hybrid space, this either we’re in person, but we’re still wearing masks and still social distancing and all this other stuff, or I’m still virtual or I’m virtual some days and I’m in person other days, it’s just wearing our teachers out. And I think we notice that as we see a large numbers of friends and family just start to retire, right? Like people are just like, I don’t know if I can adapt to another change in education.
Jessica Kesler (23:14):
Like education goes through these waves of big changes and it’s hard for everybody to adapt to, but for those who are willing to stick it out and those who are able to stick it out and, and still have that energy and enthusiasm to learn, they come in so hungry for more resources, so hungry to learn more and they still have their why at the top of their minds, as they think about why they do this it’s for the kids it’s to drive this mission is to get more kids excited about this. And they just come in so passionate. So once they come in, once we can get them to come in they stick with us for a really long time. They’re like, what else do you have? What else do you have? What else do you have? But we hear, still hear the common threads of like, do I have time for this?
Jessica Kesler (23:58):
Do I have the funding for this? Do I have the energy for this? Do, will my students understand this? And we are constantly facing that challenge of trying to address those things by, but keeping the excitement going, like we know you don’t have enough time. We’re gonna call it out from the start. I know you don’t have enough time to try to do 29 extra things. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. But my advice is always, but do one thing at a time, start with something small, asking your students a few questions rather than lecturing to them. Doesn’t take a whole lot of extra time, but it gives you so much extra insight. So let’s not work, you know, harder, let’s work smarter. Let’s embed this into our, our work together. And I always say that we’re not asking you to add to your plate. You know, it’s not Thanksgiving where you just pile, keep piling on a plate.
Jessica Kesler (24:47):
It’s it’s a time where you organize the plate. It’s allowing inquiry to restructure your plate so that everything has its place and its time mm-hmm <affirmative> do you wanna leave room so that the educator feels comfortable trying some new initiative? That’s why we encourage admin. We have librarians attend elementary school teachers, administrators, we, and we encourage it because everyone can support the classroom. And if administrators are more in touch with these new practices and tools and strategies, then they can help facilitate the learning. As the teachers are trying new things and coaching them in specific areas. So we really opened the door for some studios, for any and all who are gonna participate in that child’s education, because us all rallying around them as that three-legged stool helps to create that environment and helps support the teacher. The teachers need support, and we’re trying to do our part by providing the resources and the tools, but they need everyone else to.
Eric Cross (25:42):
We don’t always think about it as a way to support, to get support in our classrooms for ourselves. But I agree with you by, by educating vertically up the chain, you know, vice principal, principal, whoever it is, mm-hmm <affirmative> superintendent getting them on boarding and, and educating them to see what’s ex expected. We’ll open up doors and more freedoms for you because now you just have this vertical alignment of folks kind of on the same wave length. Exactly.
Jessica Kesler (26:07):
Yep. And that’s why we love districts. Anaheim union school district is actually one of our partners this year, where they have invited their teachers to participate in the whole pathway because they know how important it is that we practice these tools and strategies. And they want as many educators in the same space going through this at the same time as possible so that we can support each other through it. And so that we don’t feel like islands, oftentimes as educators, we feel like islands we’re in our classroom day in and day out. And we don’t feel like there’s anybody else who’s doing the same things we’re doing and supporting the work that we’re doing. So when we get administrators who support it, it’s magical. It can be magical.
Eric Cross (26:47):
What are some opportunities that are coming up if somebody’s listening and they, they wanna sign up for something, are there things coming up this month or next month or in the summer that they can participate in?
Jessica Kesler (26:55):
Yeah, for sure. So we’ve been doing our monthly workshops. And if you go to our website, so if you actually go to TGR foundation.org and slash stem studio you’ll actually see our summer events already posted, already live for everybody to start engaging in. And again, everything is free. So registration is open and available for everybody to participate. We are offering that first inquiry stem studio inquiry mindset twice the week of June 21st and the week of June 28th, two opportunities for educators to join us for inquiry mindset for the first one. And then also in July, we’re offering the second one making inquiry visible, and that’s the week of July 12th. So again, all free stuff, raffle prizes are available for those who register early and get in there and reserve their seat. It is limited seating. And so, yeah, a bunch of opportunities coming up this summer and guess what all you have to do is sign up and then you get all these free things coming your way. You get to look forward to all this exciting stuff. So TGR foundation.org/studio.
Eric Cross (28:01):
And if folks wanna follow you in your career, your journey.
Jessica Kesler (28:05):
Yeah. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn, for sure. And it’s Jessica Kessler, K E S L E R one S
Eric Cross (28:12):
I wanna honor your time. And as we close, you’ve been an educator of impact in, in your own classroom. And I know you’re still teaching actively now, and you’ve also made an impact on me and other educators through your professional development. And, and the last question I’d like to end with is who’s the most memorable teacher or learning experience that you had during K eight. When you think about you, your time in school, who was a memorable teacher or a moment that kind of stands out to you and what was it that they did that made them memorable?
Jessica Kesler (28:44):
It was that one teacher who brought me my first T I, 84. You remember when a new calculators came out, I had a teacher give me one amazing, but I think in high school, there was really a turn about where I had miss Caroline and Mr. Canello math and Spanish teacher. So two opposite wings of the, the education spectrum there. But most of all, they listened. They listened to me. I felt seen with those teachers, they supported me. They listened to me, they saw my potential. And they just rallied around me and continued to support me thereafter. Even afterwards, I continued to reach out to those educators. And I think that’s what drives me to be that force for, for my students. And I remember my most memorable heart touching education experience was probably, I had a high school student get interviewed by the newspaper.
Jessica Kesler (29:38):
And they were like, oh, what’s your favorite classes? And what’s your favorite this, and what’s your favorite of that? And he was like, well, I love chemistry, which is what I was teaching. It was like, and I love my after school robotics team. I was leading and I love this and this and this. And he basically listed all the stuff that I was doing that I was teaching and that I was leading in the school. And I was like this one student, literally out of all the classes and experiences he’s experiencing is really just calling out everything that I’m doing. And I feel like it’s because he felt seen, he felt heard. He was like, this person is listening to me. And no matter what space we’re in this teacher is, is there for me. And so I try to be that wherever I go, <laugh>,
Eric Cross (30:16):
It’s amazing how making someone feel seen and, and making them feel important and heard, and, and being present for them. All of a sudden opens up their interests into the subjects that you’re teaching. Thank you for, for making time for serving our kids for serving teachers during a hard time, and for making PD one, being part of an organization that made it free and serve teachers, but also making PD fun and enthusiastic. I think that was one of the things in addition to the empathy that you led with, but also your enthusiasm and passion was something that really resonated with me. And it made our time together. Feel like something that was, was making me a better teacher for my kids. And so, thanks for making time for us tonight. Oh,
Jessica Kesler (30:53):
Bless face.
Eric Cross (30:57):
Thanks so much for joining me and Jessica today. If you have any great lessons or ways that you connect with students, please email us@stemamplifycom.wpengine.com. That’s S TM amplifycom.wpengine.com. And please remember to support the podcast by clicking subscribe, wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also hear more about the podcast in our Facebook group, science connections, the community until next time.
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Meet the guest
In the final episode of the season, Eric sits down with his friend and professional development facilitator, Jessica Kesler. Jessica describes her passion for sharing free, high-quality, empathy-centered professional development for K12 educators. Jessica also shares her experience jumping into leadership positions while teaching in Philadelphia. Eric also chats with Jessica about how students often lean on teachers for more than delivering content.
About Science Connections
Welcome to Science Connections! Science is changing before our eyes, now more than ever. So…how do we help kids figure that out? We will bring on educators, scientists, and more to discuss the importance of high-quality science instruction. In this episode, hear from our host Eric Cross about his work engaging students as a K-8 science teacher. Listen here!
