Ep 214: Making Progress - Your Teacher Moves

You've worked hard to build your numeracy and already own the strategies and models for your operation that you're working on. What's next? 

In this episode Pam and Kim discuss Teacher Moves, the fourth stage on the Success Map.

Talking Points:

• Differentiate for teachers' needs like they differentiate for students
• Great teacher moves are only helpful when there's great math conversations happening
• Model teacher moves in professional development
• Using a private signal 
• Using a neutral response
• Using focusing patterns for questions vs funneling patterns
• Using partner talk appropriately 
• Using teacher moves appropriately

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Transcript

Pam  00:00

Hey, fellow mathers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam Harris, a former mimicker turned mather.

Kim  00:09

And I'm Kim Montague, a reasoner, who now knows how to share her thinking with others. At Math is Figure-Out-Able, we are on a mission to improve math teaching.

Pam  00:17

We know that algorithms are amazing achievements, but they're not good teaching tools because mimicking step-by-step procedures can actually trap students into using less sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop.

Kim  00:31

In this podcast, we help you teach mathing, building relationships with your students, and grappling with mathematical relationships.

Pam  00:38

And we invoite... 

Kim  00:40

Yes, we do. 

Pam  00:42

And we invite you to join us to make math more figure-out-able Wow, (unclear).

Kim  00:47

What was that cartoon where they would say "Yabba, dabba, do!" Was that Barney Rubble? Was that...

Pam  00:54

I don't even (unclear).

Kim  00:55

Fred Flintstone? Fred Flintstone!

Pam  00:57

Oh, my goodness. I felt like I was... Isn't there a Elmer Fudd? "Dabadaba," something. (unclear).

Kim  01:03

I don't remember who.

Pam  01:05

Yeah, I don't even know. Yowza. All right. Alright, alright. Kim. 

Kim  01:07

Hi. 

Pam  01:08

For the last few episodes, we have been kind of pulling back the curtain on what we think about as we differentiate when we work with teachers. 

Kim  01:16

Yeah.

Pam  01:17

We like to differentiate not by doing separate tasks with different like, "Hey, you're the low teachers and you're the high..." We don't do that. We don't separate teachers out. 

Kim  01:26

And we don't call them that.

Pam  01:28

No, for sure, we don't. Sorry. Yeah, that was me trying to be the, like...

Kim  01:33

Sarcastic but not as sarcastic as it needed to be.

Pam  01:36

Or maybe it didn't come out well. We would never call teachers "low" and "high". Kind of like we would hope that you would stop calling your... We would invite you not to call your students "low" and "high" as well. We recognize that there are teachers who need more experience in different ways, and so the way we differentiate is not in providing different experiences for teachers. What we do is we provide an experience for teachers, but we differentiate within that experience by recognizing different things that teachers can focus on. And we help them with that lens, so that they can sort of participate in the experience, looking at it, experiencing it through that lens. And so we are, for last couple weeks. Three weeks. And then today and next week. We will share some lenses through which you might listen to this podcast. That you might be like, "Ooh, I think I'm kind of there. And I kind of need. I want these experiences." And that can kind of help you sharpen your experience and make progress. 

Kim  02:36

Yeah.

Pam  02:36

And so, we're all about helping people make progress, yeah?

Kim  02:39

Yeah. And I'm glad you said that we don't provide a ton of different experiences. Although, there are a lot of experiences. But what we don't do is say, "Oh, you're in stage one, so you do this thing." Or, "You're in stage four. You do this thing." Because we would hope you'd recognize that that would be true in your classroom as well. Often, so many people come to us with like, "What do I do to those kids? What do I do for those kids?" And there are some specialty type activities or tasks that you might do. But so much of the time, our recommendations are the things you say to kids or what you help them focus on within the tasks that they're doing like their neighbor next to them.

Pam  03:18

Within a multiple access tasks that you might tweak a little bit, but for the most part, it's a multiple access task. And that's the way we work with students and the way we work with teachers. So, we give a multiple access task, and then we differentiate within that task by helping learners focus on what will help move their math forward. 

Kim  03:39

Yeah. 

Pam  03:39

Is that a good way to say that? 

Kim  03:40

Yep, yep.

Pam  03:41

Yeah. (unclear).

Kim  03:42

Okay, so the last three weeks if you have been with us, you have heard us talk about building numeracy, building mathematics, building mathematics for teaching, and focusing on representing student thinking. So, today, we're going to tackle stage four. Which is a really exciting stage because that means that you've worked hard to build your numeracy and already own the strategies and models for your operation that you're working on. And you are ready to work on important teacher moves to make math figure-out-able in your classroom. And it can be tempting to skip this stage for yourself if you're a leader, and to skip it with your teachers, maybe assuming that they have great teacher moves. But great teacher moves are helpful only if there's something to question and have conversation about in a math class. So, helping teachers focus on what are the major teacher moves, but also what are the mathematics that's going to happen in your class that you want to have these moves about? So, it's kind of two separate things to be thinking about in this stage. How do I have great math in my class? And how do I have great teacher moves to pull that math out? 

Pam  04:54

Nice, yeah.

Kim  04:54

Do you want to say anything about that before we move on to (unclear).

Pam  04:56

I do, I do. Yeah, so one of the things... We work with a lot of leaders that are providing professional learning for their teachers. They're coming up with systems and districts or regions or schools. And sometimes we find that people either skip this stage, like you just said, that just kind of assuming that stuff is happening. Or we also find that sometimes people only do this stage.

Kim  05:20

Yeah.

Pam  05:20

And so, in fact, I think I have a lot of colleagues out there who I respect, and they're doing excellent work about the how of teaching. And they're having lots of really good conversations and work to help teachers develop. And I want to kind of... I don't want to spoil the surprise of what we're about to talk about. But develop... No. They help... They do good work towards good teacher moves, and the teachers try it, but because they don't have good math tasks.

Kim  05:49

Yeah.

Pam  05:49

Because there's not something worth talking about, talking to your partner about, having conversation about, representing on the board. Because none of that's happening, then the how doesn't really snap. 

Kim  06:00

Yeah.

Pam  06:00

Like, I think a lot of teachers in their minds if all they have is, "My job is to teach, is to help kids rote memorize these procedures, and these steps, and then their job is to mimic them." If that's all the math that they have, then why talk in math class? And why have partner conversations? And why do all the things that we're going to sort of suggest are really good teacher moves? And here us clearly. We agree. If the task of a math teacher is to help kids rote memorize and mimic, you don't need all this stuff. Just make it cute and have some songs, and rhymes, and raps, and get on with life. But if math is actually a completely different thing. If it's actually about building your mathematical reasoning, so that you are logically deducing your way through problems and building content at the same time, then talking in class makes all the difference. Like, there's a huge reasons to use conversation, and talk, and discussion, and other kind of teachers we're going to talk about to help build students. So. 

Kim  07:00

Yeah.

Pam  07:00

Yeah, okay.

Kim  07:01

So, if you're a leader in this stage and you're working with teachers, then you are going to facilitate these moves while your teachers are building their math, so that they can see you use those in practice. And you're going to pull them out. You're going to have conversation about them, so that teachers can experience those moves happening, so that then they can also use those moves in their classroom with their students. So, a couple...

Pam  07:27

You mean, Kim, you're saying that when a leader does professional learning with teachers, they're actually supposed to not just talk about the moves? They're not just supposed to like have a bullet up on the thing that says, "Okay, you should not just put bullets on your..." Like, you're inviting leaders (unclear).

Kim  07:43

All the teachers right now are like, "Yes, we should."

Pam  07:46

You're inviting leaders to actually walk the walk.

Kim  07:48

Yes!

Pam  07:49

Like, do mathematics with your teachers, and do it in such a way that you're actually modeling the teacher moves. 

Kim  07:57

And listen, this is why it's stage four, right? Because you want it... Like, you said. You want to have good math in place.

Pam  08:04

Mmhm.

Kim  08:05

That you can facilitate that good math well. And I think often what happens... Maybe you said this, and I dozed off. But often what happens is, we talk about teaching moves first. It's not that it's the only thing they talk about. Which it probably is. But it's like the first thing we do is if you facilitate well, then great math is going to happen. And that's absolutely not true. So, we just highlighted a couple major milestones for this stage. A favorite of ours. You're using a private signal to build culture in your classroom. I feel like so many people who've listened to the podcast have heard us talk about this a number of times. But using a private signal is so important to send the message to your students, or to your teachers if you're a leader, that it's not about speed. That it's not about first is best. That it's not about you being concerned at all about what anyone else is doing or saying in the classroom, while you're thinking about your own mathematics. It's a communication tool for the teacher and the student to understand where each other are. It's a great formative assessment for a teacher to learn in that moment who's ready to move, who's not. But it's not just put a thumb up in front of your chest. There's so much more to it than that. So, understanding the private signal, how to use it well, what information that it gives you, when to use a private signal and when not to use a private signal.

Pam  09:34

When to just have kids call out like in a choral response.

Kim  09:37

Yeah. 

Pam  09:38

Mmhm, mmhm.

Kim  09:38

Anything to add on there?

Pam  09:40

No, I think you hit it really well. It's not hands waving in the air. That's the opposite of private, right? We're saying it's a private response signal. Mmhm.

Kim  09:48

One more thing is how to be consistent. You know, a lot of people... We'll talk about the private signal. People see us do Problem Strings and like, "Oh, how did you make it happen?" And, you know, will come back time and time again. about like, "My kids won't do it." And understanding kind of maybe why or how to make that happen when you've tried it once or twice.

Pam  10:07

Yeah, it takes some staying power.

Kim  10:08

It's a move, right? It's a move that you don't just implement like instantly, and it's magic. It takes take some work. 

Pam  10:15

Takes some work. Yeah.

Kim  10:16

Yeah.

Pam  10:16

So, we would encourage you to, if you've tried it, try and try again. 

Kim  10:20

Yeah.

Pam  10:20

And jump into the Math is Figure-Out-Able teacher Facebook group, and, you know, help us see kind of what you're doing, understand, you know like, what have you tried. And we'll get people from all around the world will help you kind of figure out what you can do to make it happen.

Kim  10:36

Right.

Pam  10:36

Yeah, cool. 

Kim  10:36

Another major milestone that you and I are... I almost said famous for. I don't know that it's famous. But a neutral response, using a neutral response with your students when it's appropriate.

Pam  10:50

And let's describe what I mean by that. You want me to? (unclear).

Kim  10:53

Yeah, go for it.

Pam  10:54

So, that means that when you've asked students a question, and they give you an answer, that your response to them is neutral. So, you don't, "Oh, yeah! Right!" Or, "Mmm, are you sure?" That you literally... It's a neutral response. And, Kim, I'll just give you a quick, super quick story. In one of the places I just was doing a workshop. We probably were halfway through the day, and a teacher.... I said, "You know, does anybody have any questions or anything burning going right now?" And the teacher said, "I'm noticing..." In fact, this is super interesting because this was a... I would say this is a teacher who is probably around stage four. Like, I've worked with this teacher before. And we had people that were stage one. Where, you know like, ranging the gamut. And this person said, "I noticed that every time somebody said an answer, you said, 'You think it might be 13? You got 13? Did anybody else get 13? Anybody get any different answers?'" She said, "You never once said, "Yep, 13." Or whatever. Whatever the answer was. And I mean, Kim, I do that all the time, right?

Kim  11:56

Right.

Pam  11:56

But it was a person who was in stage four, was ready to recognize that move and was ready to then go, "Okay. Like, it's a neutral response. You're not cueing if they're right or wrong.

Both Pam and Kim  12:08

Yeah.

Kim  12:09

And so, it could be a response with your face. It could be response with your body language. It could be a response with your words, like you just described. And it's not, "I'm so confused. Help me." It's not like, "I'm so puzzled. How could you possibly say that?" It's neutral. Like, not a give one way or the other. In fact, you and I also sometimes have a hard time getting nice pictures of us doing Problem Strings. Sometimes we complain we don't look like we're smiling. And it's not about not having a good relationship with your students. It's, "I'm interested in what you're saying and would like to hear more, so I'm not going to give you a yes or no because then that tells you your thinking was only a fantastic for your first thing you said." It's my, "I want more."

Pam  12:53

I'm so glad you just said. It's really all about being intensely interested. So, it's not neutral as in, "I don't care."

Kim  13:01

Right.

Pam  13:02

It's not right or wrong, but it's intense interest because that keeps the conversation going where learning can occur. It's not just about conversation. It's about them verbalizing their thinking, and that helps them get gain clarity on their own thinking. 

Kim  13:16

Yeah.

Pam  13:17

Yeah.

Kim  13:17

Another major milestone you're working on in this stage is using a focusing, rather than a funneling pattern of questioning.

Pam  13:25

Mmhm. Yeah, we get this from... Oh, go ahead. 

Kim  13:28

No, I was gonna say you got 30 seconds. So, we got to move on. But I know this is  a big one for you to talk about.

Pam  13:33

Yeah, we get this from the Essential Teaching Practices. And it actually came from an article I read in, I think, my third year of teaching. Where it was talking about focusing and funneling. That was a while ago, ya'll. And it is all about not funneling students to an answer, and then going, "Man, I'm a good teacher." But instead helping students focus on using what they know to reason through solving a problem. And it's not about specific questions that do that. It's about your pattern of questioning. So, that's an important milestone would be to work on, a focusing not a funneling pattern of question. 

Kim  14:08

And the more that you know, the mathematics that you are working with, the more likely you are to be able to use a focusing pattern of questioning because you have in your mind a way to respond to students wherever they are, rather than just forcing them down you're one way.

Pam  14:30

Because you have a web of connections and relationships, and you can draw on those. Yeah, absolutely. 

Kim  14:35

The next milestone... Are you ready to move on?

Pam  14:37

Mmhm.

Kim  14:38

Okay, the next milestone is using partner talk appropriately for specific goals. And the reason that I emphasize appropriately is because it's not hard to use partner talk. All you have to say is "Turn and talk to your partner." And we see that a lot. But choosing when to use partner talk, for what purpose, when, at what stage in the lesson or the string, having a goal in mind for the partner talk. That takes some learning, and some thinking, and some exploring why partner talk and how to make it effective.

Pam  15:12

Absolutely. Yeah, and then lastly, using nuanced high leverage teacher moves appropriate to the task at hand. So,  once you've kind of got a lot of these high leverage teacher moves, then we help each other get nuanced and use them appropriately, depending on what's happening. And so, it's not just a stuck record. You know like, "I'm doing the thing. Oh, because you told me do the thing." But it's like when? When do you use the thing? And how? And, Kim, not too long ago. I don't even remember where this came from, so maybe you can help me. But somebody used the phrase, "What are you realizing now?" And I have been trying to use that. And I was able to use it in two workshops in a row! I was so excited! And it was the perfect. But it just reminds me that there are just these moments where you bring... You know, I had to wait for them. I had to wait for the right moment, and it was so... I love it. It's such a good... That particular phrase, "What are you realizing now?" (unclear).

Kim  16:05

I feel like...

Pam  16:06

Yeah? 

Kim  16:06

Was that Dan Meyer?

Pam  16:08

I don't know if it was Dan Meyer.

Kim  16:09

Well, but I think there are some general teacher moves that you can use lots of times in your classroom. You might see them kind of all throughout the day. But then there are more narrowed, more specific moves that you would only use maybe in this Problem String, or maybe when you're working with a certain type of string, or... So, having enough in your arsenal that you're picking, choosing the ones that are the best in that moment. 

Pam  16:36

Yeah, nice. Yep. 

Kim  16:37

Okay, so if you are at this stage, then you are learning about teacher moves, and you are choosing when to use them. If you're working with teachers in this stage, a goal could be to implement these teacher moves, and help them see that you are using these moves, and kind of calling out when you're using them and why, and understanding when each would be useful or not.

Pam  17:00

Yeah, nice. And some action items that you could do to get better at all this is we have free video of Problem Strings on the web. mathisfigureoutable.com Go to the Problem Strings. Check out those videos. Ya'll, if you haven't taken the free Developing Mathematical Reasoning workshop, dive into that. mathisfigureoutable.com/freeworkshop. We have free challenges a few times a year. Ya'll, get on our email list, and join in our free challenges, and watch those teacher moves in action. And then lastly, we have been writing Problem String books. They are coming out as we speak. We've got Problem String books now for... Well, we will soon. For kindergarten through high school where in those Problem String books, we have sample dialogues that pull out teacher moves, call out teacher moves that suggest when you would use specific teacher moves. We realize how important that is, and so we've been writing about them. Cool. 

Kim  17:54

Yeah. 

Pam  17:54

Alright, you are going to want to tune into next week to hear what is the next and sort of last stage on our Success Map that you might be, "Alright, Pam. I can solve problems using what I know. I built my own mathematics and numeracy." You might be like, "I've got the math for teaching. I know the major models and strategies for what I teach." You might say, "Pam, I can elicit and represent student thinking, know the right model to choose at the right time." You might be like, "Pam, I've been working on my teacher moves. I've got those high leverage teacher moves down." What could be next? And ya'll are going to want to join in for that. Ya'll, thanks for tuning in and teaching more and more real math. To find out more about the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement, visit mathisfigueoutable.com And keep spreading the word that Math is Figure-Out-Able!