Ep 45. Math Education Trend Predictions for 2023

Johanna Kuiper  0:00  

Recently, I was listening to a podcast about podcast predictions for 2023. And I really liked that episode. And I was wondering, Can I do the same thing for the math world? So I decided, yes, I can. And today’s episode is my predictions of the math education world in 2023. Let’s get started. Welcome to solving for the undefined podcast. I’m your host, Johanna, founder of Miss Kuiper’s Classroom, the place that equips teachers and creating a healthy math classroom where students can thrive, no matter their academic abilities. But it’s not always about the numbers. And that’s why I’m here, bringing you the formulas to solve your problems, math and otherwise, plus strategies on cultivating that necessary math mindset. And that’s what you can count on. Hello, hello, welcome to episode 45. And welcome to season four. I’m super excited for this season or this year of solving for the undefined podcast. I have some amazing guests lined up for this year. And I think it’s gonna be really good one. So today we are talking about trends or predictions that I see in 2023. And there’s this math Facebook group that I posted in and I was like, hey, what trends or predictions do you have for the math education world in 2023. And my results were slightly disappointing. Most people who responded took it in a negative way of like, Oh, I hope administration blah, blah, blah, or something along those negative lines. And that’s not exactly what I was going for. But I did have a few people give me some positive things that I was like, Oh, I can definitely see that happening. So today, I have three predictions for 2023. And the first one is building thinking classrooms by Peter Liljedahl. And you might be thinking, Johanna, I’ve heard you talk about this book so much. How is this a prediction for 2023. I know that it has been a thing that’s been happening already, but I’ve seen such a take off of it. Since when I first found the book. My school district is really pushing this book in our math department. And I’ve seen so many other teachers start to reference the things inside the book. I think it’s gonna have a snowball effect this year, and we’re gonna see some really positive things from it. Now, the things specifically from this book are the vertical nonpermanent surfaces. I’ve seen a lot more teachers talk about having whiteboards in their classroom, and having students use nonpermanent surfaces. And then using groups. Now, I love using groups. I currently have a course all about how to create community in your classrooms, specifically Math Community. And the basis of that is using groups. My favorite reason for using groups is number one, it leads to more engagement because students are working with peers, especially if you do the randomly generated groups either use playing cards when they walk in the classroom, or you use one of those spinny wheels to create the groups. My favorite one is picker wheel.com/like Team generator or something, I’ll leave it down in the show notes. Because it’s randomly generated, students are more likely to work with that team effectively, especially if you do that randomly generated often throughout the week or every day. It really allows them to start feeling comfortable with the majority of the people in the class, which leads to better and deeper thinking because they feel safe and secure within that classroom, which allows students to try and with that trying make mistakes and be okay with making mistakes. because mistakes are where we learn. And they don’t always have to be our own. So in a group of three, if one of my teammates makes a mistake, I can help them with that. And if you teach students how to use guiding questions with each other, they can really make a deeper impact than you as a teacher, because there’s only one of you. And you might have upwards of 30 students in a classroom, I see a really big jump in teachers using groups within their classroom. Another thing that I think is going to be happening this year is using more thinking tasks rather than direct instruction. And this is part of Peter Lilly adults book, but I think it’s gonna be beyond that as well. I think there’s gonna be a huge focus on deeper comprehension, and a push for more realistic application. And here’s one of the reasons why I think this and I didn’t know this until one of the people commented on that Facebook post I did, but California is proposing to rework their entire math department and there’s been backlash on it, but I wanted to share with you kind of what they are proposing now California NEA has teamed up with Joe bowler and Brian Lindemann to rework the math education in California. And they’re revising it to stay aligned with California’s Common Core standards. But they’re also having it reflect the goal of achieving conceptual understanding, problem solving capacity and procedural fluency. How Epic is that? I am so excited to see kind of where that takes California. And I think if it goes really well, as I predict and hope it does, I’m excited to see how other states kind of adopt the same thing. Because one of my goals personally as a math teacher is to engage students academically so that they deeply understand and love math. And I think as a American culture and society, media is kind of against us in that. And media portrays math as either something that’s really hard and unattainable. Or, as a super nerd kind of person. There’s no necessarily in between people are either bad at math, or they’re super geniuses at it. And there are a couple of exceptions. But overall, that’s the message. It’s the normal to be bad at math. I just love math so much that I hate that that is the normal, because math is such a beautiful intricate thing. And media is chalking it up to being too hard and unattainable for people or the normal person to do. So some other things that California is using within their framework is they’re trying to articulate a clear and concise narrative that gives guidance and serves the needs of different users. Meaning that it’s hopefully differentiated in scaffolding for the variety of learners that we see in our classroom. And with that, they’re promoting this idea of examples. And with that, they’re putting examples of concrete, representational and abstract models at all grade levels K through 12. And I think this promotes a more realistic application for math, because kids need that they need it to be culturally relevant to them, in order for math to stick in their brains, and for them to be able to see how it would work in their life outside the math classroom. 

Johanna Kuiper 7:34

I want you to tell me if this sounds like you, you want your students to feel successful in the math classroom, you’re tired by the lack of effort some students give, and you have no idea how to fix it and help students be better successful in math. If any of those sounded like you, I want you to imagine how it would feel to see your students working together on challenging math problems without giving up or hearing mathematical discussions as your students collaborate. That will be the dream, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that it is possible. How do I know because I’ve done it. And now I want to teach you to do the exact same thing in your classroom. So I proudly introduce you to chaos to community. In this course, I’ll teach you three main things, one, how to build community in as little as two weeks to utilize groups to further student success. And three, how community can foster better math understanding? Sounds good, right? So head on over to the show notes. Click on chaos to community and sign up today. Hope to see you in there.

Johanna Kuiper  8:47  

I mentioned it briefly before, but one of the things that I think is going to be a trend in 2023 is thinking tasks over direct instruction. So thinking tasks are where you give students a problem or a scenario and have them think about it, I usually sometimes they’re referred to as three act problems. And usually the first act is you give them a scenario without numbers attached to it. And you have them notice and you have them wonder. And then the next piece is you give them the math information of it. And you have them brainstorm, given estimation, a guess towards it. And then the third act usually brings it together and asks a specific question about it. Now, the reason I really like these tasks, rather than a direct instruction, is it still gives students the information, but gives it a more realistic application or twist. Now thinking tasks don’t have to be this broad or this along like these three act tasks. They can be as simple as a warm up problem. Now my policy in my classroom for warmups is new before old, so I hardly ever use warm ups as a review It’s always some sort of thinking idea. So whether it’s one of those emoji problems where it’s like this emoji plus this emoji equals this emoji, or it’s an estimation problem, or it’s a which one doesn’t belong, all of those are thinking tasks. And the reason I love these is the majority of them are open problems, meaning that there’s not one specific answer, especially for an estimation or which one doesn’t belong, or a notice and wonder that allows an entry point for any student, any student can look at a problem and make a guess, or make an opinion about which one doesn’t belong, or even a number of talk. All of these are thinking tasks that allow students a variety of entry points, but it still relates back to math. And I think there’s gonna be a big resurgence of this type of thinking, because of how diverse and versatile it can be. And a lot of teachers are finding success using these within their classroom. Now, another thing that I think is going to be trending in 2023, in the math education world is thin sliced problems, if you haven’t heard this term before, basically thinly sliced problems is taking a list of questions, good thinking task type questions, and breaking them into just one question at a time. So literally taking a sheet of problems and cutting it into strips with one problem on each strip. And this is something I typically do when I have students work at the vertical whiteboards. And the reason why thin slice problems are so beneficial for students is one, it allows them to work at their own pace. Just having one problem on a piece of paper is so much so much less intimidating than having a whole sheet of a bunch of questions. All they have to focus on is one problem. And it allows them to stick their attention to it and work through it at their own pace. Now, if you accompany this with vertical whiteboards, as a teacher, if I stand in the middle of the room, I can look around and see which problem all kids are on and help them accordingly. So maybe one group is still on problem one, while the restaurant all Problem three. So that means that one group is either off task, or more likely, they’re stuck on that, and it allows me to focus my attention on that group. Another thing with thin sliced problems, is students are typically working for amount of time, not for a set of problems. So you’re giving 20 minutes for students to work through problems. And it’s, again at their own pace. But because it’s time based and not problem based, there’s less emphasis on students just getting an answer and moving on. But rather the emphasis is on the process itself, and making sure students truly understand how the problem works and how the math works and having that sinking moment over that answer moment. So that is why thin slice problems are really effective, and why I think that will be an a trend in 2023. So to recap, the trends that I see in 2023 are building thinking classrooms by Peter Liljedahl, specifically, the vertical nonpermanent surfaces and the groups I also predict a focus on deeper comprehension and specifically realistic application. And I think California is kind of piloting that idea. Thirdly, I predict more thinking tasks over direct instruction. And then finally, I predict thin sliced problems to be a part of our classrooms. And with that, oh calculator. Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. To find all the links and resources to things talked about in this episode, head on over to Miss Kuiper’s classroom.com and click on podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai