Claim OwnershipRoom to Grow - a Math Podcast
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© 2025 Room to Grow - a Math Podcast
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Room to Grow is the math podcast that brings you discussions on trending topics in math education in short segments. We’re not here to talk at people. We’re here to think and learn with others — because when it comes to mathematics there’s always room to grow!
49 Episodes
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In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue the season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Elicit and Use Evidence of Student Thinking.” In Principles to Actions, NCTM describes this teaching practice in this way: Effective teaching of mathematics uses evidence of student thinking to assess progress toward mathematical understanding and to adjust instruction continu...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue the season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Use and connect mathematical representations.” Our hosts describe the five representations outlined in Principles to Actions, which include visual, symbolic, verbal, contextual, and physical descriptions of mathematics, but emphasize that the representations are not meant to be a ch...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue the season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Implement Tasks that Promote Reasoning and Problem Solving.” Our hosts being by expounding on the difference between selecting a task and implementing it, and that selecting a good task does not guarantee good implementation. They bust the idea that the only way to engage students i...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis begin a season 5 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from NCTM’s Principles to Actions, celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. This month’s practice is “Facilitating Meaningful Mathematics Discourse.” Our hosts first identify what they mean by discourse and why it is important: that students are able to communicate their mathematical thinking in ways that others can clearly understand for the purpose of furthering their own mathematics l...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis reflect on their personal and professional experiences of 2024 and what they learned. Reflect – conferences, books, podcast guests. Thinking differently about teaching and learning math. Hope you’ll take the time to reflect and capture your own learning. Curtis and Joanie reference these episodes of Room to Grow which aired in 2024: · Teaching and Learning Math: Students’ Perspectives Part 1 (aired August 28, 2024) a...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis speak with leaders of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) about their recent publication, High School Mathematics Reimagined, Revitalized and Relevant. Latrenda Knighten, NCTM President and Kevin Dykema, NCTM Past-President share a great overview of how rethinking how and what we teach in high school math can be improved so that more students leave high school prepared. This preparation involves not only knowing more ...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis speak with Mike Steele and Joleigh Honey, authors of the recently released book transform your math class using asset-based teaching for grades 6-12. The book and the conversation explore what is meant by “asset-based,” and why shifting to more asset-based approaches supports a broader range of learners. Mike and Joleigh unpack ideas around asset-based language, including, the language of mathematics, the language students use to...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue their conversations with middle and high school students to gain their perspectives on learning math. Our hosts interviewed six students from grades 7-12 in three different sessions. Because all of these conversations were rich with great comments, this is the second of two episodes of Room to Grow devoted to these students’ perspectives; if you haven’t already listened to part 1, we encourage you to do so. Part 2 focuses on th...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis have conversations with middle and high school students to gain their perspectives on learning math. They interviewed six students from grades 7-12 in three different sessions. Because all of these conversations were rich with great comments, the next two episodes of Room to Grow will be devoted to these students’ perspectives. Part 1 focuses on what the students said their teachers do or don’t do in the classroom that supports t...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis continue their conversation from the Wisconsin Math Council’s annual conference. Wisconsin mathematics education leaders Mary Mooney and Lisa Hennessey share additional thoughts on the remaining pillars of their conference theme, A C.A.L.L. to Action, embracing the roles of Community, Advocacy, Leadership, and Learning. Additionally, we hear some questions from the session audience. If you haven’t already, be sure to go back and ...
In this episode of Room to Grow, we join our hosts at the Wisconsin Math Council’s annual conference. Wisconsin mathematics education leaders Mary Mooney and Lisa Hennessey join Curtis and Joanie for a discussion focused on the conference theme, A C.A.L.L. to Action, embracing the roles of Community, Advocacy, Leadership, and Learning. Due to the extended nature of this great conversation, this month’s episode features Community and Advocacy. Stay tuned for next month’s continuat...
In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts discuss ways to support student sense-making in teaching and learning mathematics. Building out on the ideas shared in Episode 3 of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie dive more deeply into what it means for students to “make sense of mathematics.” They discuss what it looks and sounds like when students are making sense, as opposed to just repeating back learned ideas, and consider which classroom structures and teacher moves might best support studen...
In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts look for the balance between instruction that is teacher-driven, traditional lecture-style, and inquiry-based, discovery-style lessons. They recognize the value of both types of teaching, understanding that there is a time in learning for both exploration and for direct and explicit teaching. The conversation offers explanation of what conditions may require different teaching strategies, based on the goals and content of the lesson as well as...
In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts share conversation with Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year (NTOY). Rebecka is a high school math teacher at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on leave for the 2023-24 school year to fulfill her NTOY responsibilities. She views the NTOY not as an award, but rather a job, that of spokesperson and ambassador for the teaching profession. In this conversation, we learn about her teaching journey and the lessons she learned along t...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie consider ways to uncover how students are actually thinking about the mathematics they are learning. Using a real-life, recent incident between Curtis and his sixth grade son, our hosts consider the challenging fact that many students think that success in math class means figuring out what answer the teacher (or the computer program/app, or the back of the book) is looking for. They posit that when educators are always focused on the ...
In this episode of Room to Grow, special guests Sandra Lightman and John Staley help Joanie and Curtis understand the Math Milestones. These one-page resources include 12-14 math tasks that provide a visualization of and engagement with the math standards of each grade. The Math Milestones tasks present grade level math, not as a list of standards or learning outcomes, but as a groups of math tasks, a language understood by teachers and students. The Math Milestones project was supporte...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie continue their conversation with Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta. In follow-up to our previous episode, this conversation shifts to a focus on teachers and how the Reason Routines help them to be more effective with more students. We begin by talking about what makes teaching hard – including the fact that teachers make a million decisions every day in response to the students in the room and how they are engaging with the content; and...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta join Curtis and Joanie to talk about how routines can provide the “opportunity and support for each and every student develop mathematical thinking and reasoning.” Although routines are used by most educators for a variety of reasons, Grace and Amy focus on “Routines for Reasoning,” which are specifically designed and structured to surface the ways that students are thinking about the mathematics and to better understanding the ...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis host special guest Dr. Katey Arrington to discuss the importance of teacher content knowledge. Dr. Arrington is the Associate Director of the UTeach Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also serving in the Presidential line for NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education from 2022-2026. Previously, she led the K-12 system services work at the Charles A. Dana Center, served as a mathematics coordinator for a growing, div...
In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis talk about an important role of math education: preparing students for the life they want to pursue after high school. Whether it’s college, trade school, the military, or directly into the work force, a student’s goals and desires should drive their learning experiences throughout their PK-12 years, and the course offerings, counseling and advising, and school system overall should, ideally, prepare all students for the outcomes they desire....
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