Math Teacher Lounge

Listen to the final episode of Math Teacher Lounge! We’ll walk through the past 10 episodes on math fluency and pull out the key takeaways from our amazing hosts–such as tips on defining and assessing fluency, fluency development in a bilingual setting, and the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on so-called fake fluency. We’ll also talk about the future of the podcast and what’s next for us. Spanning six seasons, we’ve had the privilege of reaching thousands of educators while exploring a wide range of topics including the Joy of Math, Math Anxiety, and Math Fluency, featuring  Amplify’s Jason Zimba, Sesame Workshop’s Rosemarie Truglio, Reach Capital’s Jennifer Carolan, and Baltimore County Public Schools’ Dr. John W. Staley.We can’t wait to continue working on a host of other exciting projects this year, including webinars, conference appearances, and the 2024 Math Symposium. Listen to the finale of the Math Teacher Lounge podcast today, and keep an eye out for more!For more amazing math content, check out the following resources:Hear more from Dan during our 2024 Math Symposium.Check out all of our past episodes on the main Math Teacher Lounge page.Find more tips and strategies for math teachers through our upcoming webinars.

Tune into this episode of Math Teacher Lounge, featuring math teaching and learning specialist and friend of the podcast, Fawn Nguyen. Listen as Nguyen dives into the unique and powerful relationship between math fluency and problem-solving, and learn about how problem-solving activities can be leveraged to engage all students and fuel math fluency development.Learn why math fluency and problem-solving have a symbiotic relationship and how to create problem-solving activities that generate individual and peer learning opportunities, including examples from the California framework. Plus, hear tips for supporting  the relationship between problem-solving and math fluency that can implemented in the classroom, throughout the school building, and at home.

Join us for Episode 9, in which Bethany sits down with former classroom teacher Myuriel von Aspen to talk about the importance of a systematic approach to math-fluency instruction. Listen as von Aspen discusses how effective fluency instruction takes students beyond fact memorization into deeper learning through mathematical discourse.To hear more from Myuriel, check out the following resources:Watch Myuriel’s welcoming message at NCSM, 2022. Listen to an excerpt of Myuriel’s message at NCTM, 2021.Learn a little about Myuriel’s journey.

Tune in to Episode 8, where we chat with guest and former grade 1 teacher, Jody Guarino, Ed.D., about how math teachers can collaborate to develop math fact fluency at the building level. Listen as Dr. Guarino talks about what it takes for schools to do this successfully, and her key takeaways from her own experience.For more from Dr. Guarino, check out the following resources:Follow Dr. Guarino on X: @jody_guarinoLearn more about Dr. Guarino and her work by checking out her University of California Irvington page.

Join Math Teacher Lounge as we continue our season-long discussion on math fluency with a special live recording at NCTM 2023. In this episode, our guest, Jennifer Bay-Williams Ph.D., and Dan dive into math fluency games to discuss how we bring joy into the classroom while building math fluency.For more from Jennifer, check out the following resources:Discover more math fluency games with Jennifer’s book, Math Fact Fluency: 60+ Games and Assessment Tools to Support Learning and Retention.Move students beyond basic math facts and memorization with Jennifer’s book, Figuring Out Fluency in Mathematics Teaching and Learning, Grades K-8.

Join us for Episode 6, where we discuss how to take an asset-based approach to building math fluency with John W. Staley, Ph.D., who has spent decades in math classrooms. In this episode Dr. Staley shares his experiences and research to provide strategies on how to utilize student strengths to encourage growth.For more from Dr. Staley, check out the following resources:Follow John on X at @JStaley06.Learn more from John by checking out his NCTM articles.Read John’s book, High School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice.Read John’s book, Middle School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice.

Tune in to Episode 5, where we dive back into our season-long discussion of math fluency with classroom teacher Lauren Carr. Listen as Lauren shares how she allows her students to approach mathematical thinking and learning with joy and fun to encourage the development of math fluency.For more from Lauren Carr, follow her on X!

Join us for a special episode of Math Teacher lounge where we take a break from our focus on math fluency to talk with scholar and author Nicole M. Joseph Ph.D. Tune in to this important conversation where Dr. Joseph shares her research and discusses how we can begin to uplift Black girls and empower them in our math classrooms.For more from Dr. Joseph, check out the following resources:Read Dr. Joseph’s new book Making Black Girls Count in Math Education: A Black Feminist Vision for Transformative Teaching.Check out Dr. Joseph’s Virtual Book Talk with Harvard Graduate School of Education.For more resources from Dr. Joseph, check out her website.To hear the latest from Dr. Joseph, follow her on X.

Tune in to the latest episode of Math Teacher Lounge where we learn how to intentionally foster fluency with Dr. Art Baroody, Professor Emeritus of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Listen as Baroody shares strategies on how to utilize a student’s natural problem-solving skills and desire to learn to build fluency.

Tune in to our latest episode where we sat down with Dr. Valerie Henry to discuss how math fluency assessments can be redesigned to provide teachers with better data and students with better learning experiences.Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track key strategies and make the most of this episode!For more from Valerie, check out the following resources:Learn more from Val and check out her resources on her website FactsWise.Dive deeper into fluency with Val and read her blog post Timed Tests – NOT the Way to Build Facts Fluency and NOT the Way to Assess Facts FluencyTune in to Math Teacher Lounge Season 3 Episode 4 to hear Val’s previous conversation on building fluency.Join us in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook Community.

Welcome to Season 6 of Math Teacher Lounge! This season, we’ll be digging deep into math fluency—exploring what it is, looking into the research around it, and sharing practical tips for building it in math classrooms. Join us as we kick things off with Jason Zimba, Amplify’s chief academic officer of STEM! We sat down with Jason to get a clear understanding of what math fluency is and what we really mean when we talk about it. As a prominent math advocate with many years of experience, he can also help us learn just how important fluency is and how it fits into the standards.Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track key strategies and make the most of this episode!Unlock additional insights with these bonus resources:Read Jason’s article, “How I See Addition Facts.”Join us in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook Community.Dive into, “Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics” and “Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity” at National Academics.Check out Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever to cook with Jason.

Join us as we continue our summer mini-series where we discuss how to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) as a teaching tool. In this episode of Math Teacher Lounge, we sit down with educator Kristen Moore to discuss how she is using Chat GPT as a tool to revolutionize student learning and streamline lesson planning.Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode!

Join us for our summer mini-series where we’ll be talking about artificial intelligence (AI): what it is, how it is already being used in education, and how it will continue to transform education in the future. In this kickoff episode, we sat down with Jennifer Carolan, general partner at Reach Capital, to chat about the current state of AI in education technology.As a former teacher and current leading-edge education technology entrepreneur, Jennifer has so much to share on how, if done correctly, AI will become a partner with educators and a tool for fostering social learning opportunities.For more from Jennifer, check out the following resources:Read Jennifer’s article, “What AI will disrupt but never replace.”Hear more from Jennifer and follow her on Twitter.Keep up to date with the Reach Capital team.Join us in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook Community.

As we wrap up this season of Math Teacher Lounge, we’re sharing our biggest takeaways from our incredible discussions around tackling math anxiety.We’ve been able to speak to five great thinkers on math and the anxieties that can affect students, teachers, and even caregivers. From acknowledging math anxiety and finding ways to immediately start relieving the pressure, to redefining math and establishing positive math routines in and out of the classroom, we’ve learned so much with every single episode. Listen now to hear our season highlights, as well as some of our favorite responses from listeners! 

So far in this season of Math Teacher Lounge, we’ve been very lucky to have had so many prolific and brilliant researchers on our show, and our next guest is no exception. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer to discuss how the attitudes of adults affect children and their anxiety levels, the need for meaningful, positive interactions around math, and how the right math technology can make an incredible impact on lowering math anxiety in children and caregivers. Listen now and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

So far this season, we’ve investigated math anxiety in students and its causes with passionate researchers and curriculum experts, including Sesame Workshop! Now we hear from Dr. Heidi Sabnani, consultant, coach, and co-host of Math 4 All, as she gives us research-based tips for teachers who are facing math anxiety themselves! Listen as we discuss Heidi’s own math anxiety and journey through math, the effects teacher math anxiety can have on instruction, and practices educators can implement right away for overcoming math anxiety. Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

Listen as we chat with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content for Sesame Workshop! Continuing our theme of math anxiety this season, we sat down with Dr. Truglio to chat about Sesame Street and her thoughts on how to spread a growth mindset to young children and put them on course to academic achievement and long-term success.Listen today and don’t forget to grab your Math Teacher Lounge study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

We’re continuing our season's theme of tackling math anxiety, going beyond the basics, diving deeper into what causes it, and how we can help students move forward. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Erin Maloney from the University of Ottawa to better understand what’s actually happening in the brain when a person experiences math anxiety, and steps we can take to shift student mindsets toward a positive direction. Listen now and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

Season 5 of Math Teacher Lounge is here! This season, we’ll be talking all about math anxiety: what it is, what causes it, and what we can do to prevent or ease this anxiety in the math classroom. To launch this very important theme, we sat down with Dr. Gerardo Ramirez, associate professor of educational psychology at Ball State University. As someone who’s been studying math anxiety for more than a decade, he had some interesting research and advice to share on why math anxiety affects so many students (and adults!), and tips for how to start reducing it. 

Join us for the third episode in our Winter Wrap-Up! In this re-run from season 3 of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we sit down with Valerie Henry, Ed.D, to talk about math fluency and what that means for students. Listen as we dig into the research, hear Dr. Val’s three-part definition of math fluency, and explore her five principles for developing it.