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Make Math Happen (formerly known as PD for the SOUL) is the podcast for educators ready to move with intention and teach with impact. Hosted by math coach and equity-focused educator Laneshia Boone, each episode bridges practice and purpose to help you design instruction that centers students, builds capacity, and makes learning stick—especially for those pushed to the margins.
Every week, you’ll get strategies that work in real classrooms, grounded reflections that challenge the status quo, and conversations with educators who are making bold moves in math education. From planning with purpose to using charts that anchor learning, from building strong routines to disrupting expired rules, this podcast is where meaningful math instruction comes to life.
You’ll walk away with ready-to-use tools, fresh insight, and the confidence to make every lesson count.
Because when we move with care, plan with clarity, and teach with courage, we make math happen.
51 Episodes
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Before students can work flexibly with ratios, they must be able to answer a more fundamental question: What exactly are we comparing, and why? In this episode, we zoom in on the core comparison structures that sit beneath ratios, proportions, geometry, and algebra: part-to-part relationships, part-to-whole relationships, and unit reasoning. You’ll hear how these ways of thinking develop over time, how they connect back to geometry through reference points, structure, and scale, and why the n...
Why ratios are about how quantities move together This episode launches our Connecting Math series by reframing ratios as relationships rather than calculations. Instead of treating ratios as fractions or procedures to memorize, we explore how ratios describe how two quantities vary together and why that way of thinking must be developed over time. Building on December’s focus on Seeing Math and January’s work around Understanding Math, this episode connects geometric reasoning and number sen...
How strong number reasoning prepares students for ratios and algebra Throughout January, we’ve explored rational numbers, negative numbers, distance, value, fractions, decimals, and division. On the surface, it may seem like this month was about numbers. But this work didn’t begin in January. In December, we focused on seeing math—using geometry to help students notice structure, reason about space, and make sense of relationships before symbols ever appeared. Those same ideas carried forward...
Building understanding instead of teaching tricks Many students reach middle school able to perform fraction and decimal procedures without truly understanding what those numbers represent. In this episode, we slow down and reconnect fractions, decimals, and division to meaning. We explore why fractions should be understood as division first, how the number line supports flexible movement between representations, and why spatial reasoning matters when students place, compare, and reason about...
Strategies that clarify the number line for every learner Negative numbers are often taught through rules that don’t stick. In this episode, we return to meaning. We explore how students have been reasoning about space, direction, and position on the number line since the earliest grades, and why negative numbers are an extension of that work—not a new concept. By grounding integer operations in movement and distance, this episode shows how students can reason about direction, magnitude, and ...
When students struggle with fractions, decimals, and integers, it’s often assumed they’re missing skills. In reality, they’re missing understanding. This episode opens our Understanding Math series by focusing on how students make sense of rational numbers as quantities that have value, direction, and position—not just symbols to manipulate. We explore how early experiences with counting, comparing, and representing numbers develop over time, why the number line is such a powerful organizer o...
This episode closes our geometry focus by showing how similarity and scale serve as the bridge into ratios, proportions, and later functions. We explore what makes figures similar, how scale factor represents a preserved relationship rather than a formula, and why students need visual experiences with enlargement and reduction before working with numbers. Along the way, we address real classroom challenges, including unfinished learning, limited instructional time, and the pressure to move st...
This episode continues our Season 4 focus on making connections across mathematical domains and across grade levels. My goal over the coming months is to spark deeper conversations about instruction, sequencing, and sense-making, and to support teachers in taking these ideas back to their professional learning communities. Area, surface area, and volume are often taught as a list of formulas, but students need a much richer story. In this episode, we explore how these concepts grow from simpl...
Helping students make sense of transformations and symmetry Geometry becomes powerful when students can see how shapes move, change, and relate. In this episode, we explore angles, lines, and the three core transformations—translations, reflections, and rotations—and what students must understand long before they ever touch coordinate rules. You’ll hear how early geometry experiences lay the groundwork for middle school expectations, why angle relationships matter more than memorized steps, a...
Spatial reasoning is the heartbeat of middle school mathematics. In this episode, we explore how seeing patterns, shapes, movement, and structure primes students for success across every domain they’ll encounter this year. You’ll learn why geometry is far more than formulas and how it builds the visual foundation students need for ratios, functions, number lines, and equations. This episode opens the journey we’ll take all year. By the end, you’ll walk away with simple ways to strengthen visu...
This special episode closes out the month and reflects on the entire journey of this podcast. Four years ago, this show launched as PD for the Soul with a simple mission: to give teachers bite-sized, meaningful professional development they could listen to in the middle of real life. Whether it was on the way to work, during planning, or while cleaning the house, the goal was always the same… walk away with one idea you could use immediately. After a long break and a year that pulled me in ev...
The last five minutes of class might be the most powerful. In this final episode of the instructional framework series, Laneshia breaks down the Closure portion of the lesson: the moment where big ideas get consolidated, strategies are named, and learning comes full circle. You’ll hear how teachers can use this time to: Revisit strategies and construct anchor charts that capture the day’s thinkingInvite students to reflect on their progress toward the goal, individually or with a partnerUse e...
Last week, we broke down the Instruct phase — how to plan lessons like a chef curating a recipe, balancing tasks, facilitation, and engagement to make learning stick. This week, I’m serving up the next course: what Instruct actually sounds like in action. I’m sharing a real lesson I planned, facilitated, and reflected on using the Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) — a “Build a Pizza” task that pushed students to reason about relationships, not race toward answers. You’ll hear how purp...
Every strong math lesson has a recipe — the right balance of tasks, facilitation, and engagement that brings learning to life. In this episode, Laneshia walks you through the Instruct portion of the lesson cycle like a master chef planning a meal. You’ll learn how to: Choose and sequence tasks that align with standards and build coherence across lessons.Facilitate learning through intentional routines that get students talking, reasoning, and doing the math — not just filling in boxes.Keep en...
Before you ever step into a lesson, your planning determines how far students can go. In this episode, Laneshia breaks down what it means to zoom out to zoom in—strategically mapping upcoming units, identifying potential roadblocks, and pre-teaching (or accelerating) just enough to keep every learner in the fast lane. You’ll hear how Suzy Pepper Rollins’ concept of acceleration aligns with research by Burns (2004), Nelson (2022), and the What Works Clearinghouse (2021)—all pointing to one tru...
Before students ever dive into a new concept, the Activate portion of your lesson determines whether they’re truly ready to think. In this episode, Laneshia models what an intentional Activate sounds like—from synthesizing a spiral warm-up to launching a new problem about dividing fractions with and without models. You’ll hear how she uses questioning, routines, and strategic sequencing to make sense-making visible and connect to the day’s learning goal. Then, she links classroom moves to the...
Six weeks into the school year, the cracks start to show — the fatigue, the frustration, and the quiet slide into low expectations. In this episode of Make Math Happen, Laneshia gets real about the dangerous drift toward deficit thinking and the power of collective teacher efficacy to turn it around. Drawing from John Hattie’s Visible Learning research — where collective teacher efficacy ranks at an effect size of 1.57, the most influential factor on student achievement — this episode challen...
In this episode of Make Math Happen, I get real about the weight of the work we do as educators. From the progress my team has made in planning, to the hard truths about classroom management, to the reflection that leadership demands—I’m unpacking it all. Too often, planning feels like control, but in reality, it’s our power to shape the learning experience for students. Structure and consistency aren’t constraints; they’re the foundation for freedom in the classroom. And when challenges aris...
What does your educational landscape look like, and what role do you play in it? In this episode, I share what I’ve been noticing in classrooms just three weeks into the school year: disengagement. Students with heads down, hesitant to participate, off-task behaviors — a reality many teachers are facing. But instead of getting stuck in frustration, we need to ask: What can we do about it? I’ll walk through three key areas that shape how students experience our classrooms: Relationships – why ...
In this conversation with Toni Hardy, we dig into what it really means to build capacity in math classrooms—one intentional move at a time. Toni shares how small, purposeful shifts in lesson planning and delivery create long-term impact for students and teachers alike. From structuring lessons for clarity to anticipating misconceptions, she reminds us that the best math instruction isn’t about doing more, but about making the right moves consistently. We explore the balance between content kn...
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