The Build Math Minds Podcast

Have you ever had a student who looks lost before they've even started a problem? Or a kid who can do the steps but can't see the pattern that makes them work? I sat down with Becky Lord of LordMath.com to talk about the five cognitive areas that affect how our students learn math: working memory, processing speed, verbal comprehension, visual processing, and fluid reasoning. Becky explains what each one is, how it shows up when a student is struggling, and what we can change in our teaching right now. That includes cutting down directions, using white space on worksheets and slides, trimming words from anchor charts, and setting up a sequence of problems on purpose so kids can actually see the pattern. One of my biggest takeaways: strong number sense doesn't come from more language. It comes from stronger visuals. Most of us got very little training on the brain side of learning math. If that's you too, this conversation is a great place to start. Share it with your team to get the conversation going. Watch the video of this episode at https://youtu.be/uWqW_OkGq_E

Duolingo rolled out full math courses this year.  I spent 50+ days, spending time in number sense, addition/subtraction, multiplication, fractions, and even went into 11th grade Algebra & Graphs….until I couldn't take it anymore.   Zak and Mike from Flynn Education have also been using it and the three of us recently sat down to talk about it. We broke down what's good, what's bad, and what worried us. If you've wondered whether to recommend this app to families, for your own children, or you're just curious what Duolingo is doing in mathematics, this one will save you the 50+ days it took me to form an opinion (Mike spent 100+ days using it 😳).

I got to sit down with Steve Wyborney, the brain behind Splat!, Esti-Mysteries, the Estimation Clipboard, and so many other tools I know you've used in your classroom.  In this session from Day 3 of the FROM Memorization TO Thinking Summit, Steve takes me back to where it all started: an idea for building estimation jars that flopped. We talk about what estimation really is, why he thinks the second and third estimates matter more than the first, and a simple sentence stem that you can use tomorrow to dig into how students are thinking.  Steve also shares his three-part definition of number sense and challenges us to go beyond asking kids how they got an answer, to asking what they noticed that got them there. If you want lifetime access to all the sessions from the FROM Memorization TO Thinking Summit, including this one, you can grab that at buildmathminds.com/thinking-summit/

I used to think assessment meant finding what my students didn't know - the wrong answers, the gaps, the "not yet."  Dr. Nicki Newton flips that in this session from the FROM Memorization TO Thinking Summit. Her thoughts: assessment shouldn't be about catching what kids don't know. It's about listening for what they do know.  In this episode, she shares the story of a 2nd grader who taught her more in one hand-written note than a worksheet ever could, the one question she now asks before starting any new unit, and three places an overwhelmed teacher can start this week. If you want lifetime access to all the sessions from the FROM Memorization TO Thinking Summit, including this one, you can grab that at buildmathminds.com/thinking-summit/