Eva  0:00  
Hello and thank you for listening to the mathematics teacher educator journal podcast. The mathematics teacher educator journal is co sponsored by the Association of mathematics teacher educators and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. My name is Eva Thanh Heiser, and I'm talking with Dina grasa Clarkson and Joanna hyung. Today, we will be discussing the article adaptations to support the Flint Water task published in February 2023 issue of the mathematics teacher educator journal, we will begin by summarizing the main points of the article, and then discuss in more depth what they found by implementing that Flint Water task. Dana and Joanna, can you briefly introduce yourselves?

Speaker 2  0:42  
Thank you for having us. I'm Dana, grosser Clarkson and I am a mathematics teacher educator at the University of Maryland. And I work in the terrapins Teachers Program, which prepares secondary STEM teachers. So I teach the math methods courses for both our undergraduate and our graduate level students. And I also teach a math course which this article talks about.

Speaker 3  1:02  
I'm Joanna, and I'm currently a student at the University of Maryland. So I just graduated yesterday Bachelors in math, and I'm planning to start the Master's in Education Program this June. And I'm I'm in the terrapins Teachers Program in University of Maryland. So I was one of the DNS students and one of her TAs for the math class that we use the Flint Water Test.

Eva  1:29  
Well, welcome both of you, and congratulations on the graduation. Thank you. And good luck on your future endeavors. But let's jump into the article. So this article is a perspectives on practice article, which means you took a prior MTE paper and adapted it. So could you tell us which paper you're building on? And why you selected that paper?

Speaker 2  1:57  
Well, yes, I want to start off by first saying I was really excited to see our perspectives on practice. I think this is a perfect move for the journal, we've actually used a couple of the ones that were mentioned. But the one that we had been actively using in the math course that we were teaching is engaging teachers in the powerful combination of mathematical modeling and social justice, the water task by Boulia idea and colleagues, and that was for 2019. And this was a task that we had done several times in our methods course. So it seemed like we were had a lot of information that we had gathered in ways that we felt we had improved, and tweaked the tasks that we thought we could share back to the math education community.

Eva  2:34  
So that paper is available on the empty website. And there's also a podcast available on that paper, which is podcast number eight, if you're looking for that. So you selected it because you already had implemented it a few times, and you had some data on it. How are you building on the Flint Water task? And remember that not everybody who's listening might know the Flint Water task. So let's kind of as we answer questions, get to that

Speaker 3  3:05  
Flint Water task is a task that aims to focuses on two goals. One Goal, which is social justice, math, and one goal, which is mathematical modeling. And in this task, there is a scenario regarding companies trying to ship in water to Flint, Michigan, and then the test asked students do you think this amount of water is enough for the students in Flint, Michigan? I can't remember exactly what the test that's but something along those lines, yeah, how

Speaker 2  3:48  
much water will be enough to meet the daily needs of Flint school children for a calendar year?

Speaker 3  3:53  
Yes, thank you. We use the Flint water test in our adaptations that we focused on in this article, we're adding a gallery walk and adding a kW l chart, which is what I know what I wonder and what I learned charts. Those were the two adaptations we focused on. And we had additional adaptations as well. But those are the two we focused on,

Unknown Speaker  4:18  
we were limited to a very few, there was four pages.

Eva  4:22  
So you implemented a task and the task asks how much water is needed to put children in Flint. And one of the things about this task and instead it's super open, right? Students have to decide what that means. What does it mean to be enough water? What does it mean for school year, who counts as a child? You know, all of those things. And a lot of that is described, I think in the original article. So the things that you added on to this, we're creating posters and commenting or like walking around and visit Getting the posters. And then this chart that you said was knowledge wonderings, and learnings. Correct. Talk to us a little bit more about those two pieces.

Speaker 2  5:12  
Like I said, this is I think, my, I think sixth time of enacting this task with either pre service teachers or in service teachers. So I have done it quite a few times. And Joanna as she has done it as a student, and has observed it twice now, as more of a TA role. When I first implemented this task, one of the issues was, the models are similar, but yet very different around the assumptions. So it's one of these things I like to try and model what we teach in our teacher education program. And one of the things we talk about is the five practices and selecting and sequencing. And so trying to figure out how do I order these particular posters, because they're, like you said, it's an open Task, though. So they're all very different. So there's things you want to highlight on each poster. But what I found is when we did more class presentations, students started to get bogged down, because you okay, this group might have had a set of assumptions. So you're trying to compare it to another group that had already presented, but then you can't quite remember if they needed more water or less water, it was hard to keep track of all the modeling things that the different groups had. And so actually, Joanna came up with the idea. And we made this task, I think, probably the day before we taught it two years ago now, where she had said, why don't we why don't we use a gallery walk because she had seen a gallery walk earlier in the semester, was intrigued by it and saw many benefits and actually presented on it at a conference. So Joanna, I'll let you talk a little bit more about what you thought gallery walks could end.

Speaker 3  6:30  
Yeah, I thought a gallery walk would be able to help students to be able to be able to easily compare different groups, assumptions and conclusions. So on this day, in class, we just had all the groups write down their assumptions and everything they worked out the task with on poster paper, and then we put the posters around the walls of the classroom. And then all the students individually just spent maybe five minutes five to 10 minutes walking around, and noticing similarities and differences between the different groups. And then after that, students went back into small groups and talked about what they noticed in small groups. And then we share that into large groups. And I think this gallery walk structure was effective in making it easier for students to remember like, what group said what and being able to distinguish different groups more easily.

Speaker 2  7:34  
And this method of using the gallery while this was the first time without my prompting that students notice there are two distinct models. I felt like in previous semesters, when I taught the when I used this task, it required more prompting for me to be noticed. Now look at these ones, how are they similar? How are they different? And this this time after the gallery walk? I think it was the second comment that students shared to the whole class was simply about the two structures that she saw, and that each of these solutions found into one of those larger

Unknown Speaker  8:01  
structures.

Eva  8:02  
Will you give us a very brief summary of those two structures? Yeah, their

Speaker 2  8:07  
mandate, you want to do that? You want me to do that? Or you can do that. So the original article though the language they use it, they call it a daily donation approach, or the other one as a total need approach. So they either figure out how much water do you think a student would need it than all the students in Flint for the year? Or do you want to go ahead and start doing some division to find out what's that daily need that a student might have?

Eva  8:29  
Okay, so let's talk a little bit. So you had them on posters and students visited each others, and you're saying they were able to kind of step back and see the structure a little bit easier this way than how you had enacted it prior. So let's talk about the that chart, tell us what it is and what it helped you do

Speaker 2  8:50  
the KW chart? Yeah, so um, we had used one previously in the semester. So it wasn't the first time they had seen a kW chart. But the idea was, I wanted to see what students knew about the Flint water tests just prior to starting it every year, we've got a big range, we have students who have never heard of it, we have students who did like a senior debate on it. They've like spoken extensively and have researched it, and everything in between. And it was, in particular, our University had had a first year book, and one of the books we read happened to be on the Flint water crisis. So some of our students had actually read this book in English classes, and had talked about it and experiences in other courses at our university. So the first column on the KW chart allows students to show what they what they already know about the about the Flint water crisis. And then what the next column is, the w column is it's like, what are your wonderings? What questions might you have? And then the last column we have the fill up after we've spent several days on this activity? And then what did you learn? And before they fill that column out, we asked them to specifically go research something that interests them or regarding the Flint Water task. So people might do something like looking in and I give them some ideas, here are some things. So you might I might say go find Little Miss Flint is and find out what role she has played in the Flint water crisis. The other one we've had, we have students sometimes who are a computer science background. So we might say, Okay, go find out how AI has been used when the Flint water crisis, other folks who might say, Okay, look at the political political aspect go find out what happened. Did politicians end up going to jail? And what's happened currently is it's still it's still going on in the court system have cases been dropped? Why have they been dropped? And just to have different things that each student can really investigate another one, there was Jaden Smith had brought in a water box idea to the Flint crisis. And to find out what is that? How did that idea go? Is that something that's still happening? So the students really kind of can go their own direction, and find out things, whether it's more information specifically about Flint, or maybe just larger about, you know, the water and crises that we face in various countries or various cities in our country?

Eva  10:51  
So what did you learn from doing this chart?

Speaker 2  10:55  
Well, I learned new stuff every year. And it's what I love doing. And I love the students figuring this stuff out. For example, I had no idea that computer sciences have used AI to try to identify the likely places that pipes would be led. And they were rather successful with identifying which would have significantly decreased the time it would have taken to replace critical pipes in the city. But there were some politics involved in they actually stopped using the program that was effectively working. So that was an example of something I learned for my students that I think it's very informative. It shows us where we can where Computer Science and Mathematics are meeting for social justice. So I learned a lot each time I teach this task.

Eva  11:34  
Yeah, I actually learned a lot of reading your paper, there was some information in there that I wasn't aware. So that's cool. So how is this chart useful? For MTE? Like,

Speaker 2  11:47  
I think the main thing that this chart offers is that you help students see that they learn more than just math. I think oftentimes, the focus is on content, what content did I learn, and I think what's important here is that the capabilities help students recognize you actually learned a lot more than just math, and you learn something about our society. And again, it might not be, you know, specific details about the crisis in Flint, but it might be just larger water quality. One of the first homework assignments we do is we have the students then go home as the day after we introduced the task, and we say, Google, the high school you went to and find the water quality report and see if you had led in the water. And the students are just blown away to think that there are these reports now that the local schools put out and they can go say, the drinking fountain in the home ec room that I was in, was, you know, Pat, well past the threshold may be in the 1000s. And then the school is asked the students also recognize that the state has actually changed the thresholds since they were at those buildings. And so reports that may have passed when they were their students are now there's some they're failing. And so there's local schools having to address these issues. I think, oftentimes, when students see this task, they think, yeah, this is happening in Flint, Michigan, but they don't often recognize that actually, it's happening all over the place. And I had after doing this task actually learned that there was a water crisis in DC prior to the Flint crisis, which I hadn't heard of. So I think this really helps the students just see how how important water quality is, and how it is a social justice issue.

Eva  13:13  
And I have to say, I was I am parenting three children, two of whom were in middle and high school years, during and after the Flint water crisis and high school they attended had to shut down all the water because it had led in it. So for years, it took forever to fix. But there was these water containers. And we were so there's definitely an impact. So I really love when I was reading your paper, that you send them back to look at their own high schools, because it kind of connects a task to your own experience as well. Right.

Speaker 2  13:50  
Right. And I mean, some of these students were in high schools, like you had mentioned, like your children, where they actually couldn't drink from the drinking fountains. So it's more of a surprise, like, oh, wait, you all could drink the water at your school? Like, Isn't it normal for everyone to have water coolers? And so I feel like it's yeah, it's eye opening, there's to see how different maybe different people's experiences are.

Eva  14:08  
Yeah. All right. So I think we wrapped our heads around it two additions, or additional suggestions extensions to the task that you did. So usually, we end up with what is a contribution to the field. I'll just let you summarize. Alright. We already did it. But let's say it again. And

Speaker 2  14:29  
I really appreciate that MTE has a journal where I can pick it up and have an activity to use in my class where folks have already done research on they've already looked at, you know, sample student solutions. And so as an educator, that's, that's lovely to have that kind of information to walk into a lesson with. So I feel like what we've done is we've just found a way to just improve even more on that because I know there are a lot of people that use this task. That original MTE article, I think did reach a lot of teacher educators. And so I think we just all continue to share as teacher educators and improve on these things. And we can have some great methods and courses that really help our pre service teachers get ready for the task ahead.

Eva  15:06  
Yeah, I want to also say that I really like your charge idea. And I want to start using that with like, all kinds of tasks. Because I use a lot of different tasks, I have done various ways to assess what would they learn, but I haven't done it in this chart form. So I'm really excited to try that out.

Speaker 2  15:26  
It's really solid evidence, and then really allows students to grow at different paces and in different areas. So it's not you know, it's not linear, everyone is going to do something different. But they're all growing

Eva  15:37  
to Anna, do you want to share something? Before we wrap up? I'm kind of curious because you were a student, and then a TA in these experiences? Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Speaker 3  15:47  
Yeah, I mean, as a student doing this task as the first, for the first time, and also researching my, my former high school and the devils in, in the water in my former high school, I think it was very eye opening to realize how this issue impacts like everyone and many local schools. And I think that definitely prepares me as a future teacher to put this on, my radar has an issue that will continue to be something I have to look out for. And, yeah, and as a TA also, I definitely learned from the students in the classes I was. In the class, I was a TA for this, especially when the students are able to research their own social issues, they want to apply the mathematical modeling cycle to because after the Flint Water Test, there's the task extension where students can research their own social issues. So yeah, it was really interesting to see just the very broad social issues that students are interested in and how the mathematical modeling cycle can be used for many different social issues.

Speaker 2  17:08  
Joanna's not giving herself enough credit here. When I taught the task the first three times I usually stopped, but the original enacted task, and there's a very at the very end, there's a question on the summary that I always give. And it's just what are some relevant issues in your area that could be topics for a mathematical mathematical modeling task. And I just asked him to do a Google form. And this was it we just ended, and Joanna's idea was to create this task extension where we actually say no, like, Okay, now you found an area that you might be interested in, go model it, what what questions, can we answer? What can we find out? And it has, so this is where this lesson that maybe started off as a one day, let me throw in that, you know, social justice task is really built out now to a three to five day exploration really focusing on some of the critical issues. And I was just sharing with Joanna before this call. This year, our students looked into really cool things. And I mean, their water, again, is something we're constantly going into water quality. But now air quality given COVID That's a much more important to folks now is looking at what's the quality of the air that we're breathing in as we're sitting in these classrooms? And the other one of the topics they look into was school lunches. Are the school lunches were providing, meeting the nutritional needs for our students? And if not, how are we not giving basic needs air, water and food. But yet you're expecting these math teachers to teach math when basic needs aren't being met. And so I feel like our students, one of them's commented saying, like, I feel like this is something I can advocate for my students in my future school. Now, I can make sure that we have well that we can drink the water and if not, you know, get water, we can drink, I can look into air quality, I can look into school lunches, and these are things that they can do in their future schools, and they can advocate and improve the environment for their future students. So it has been awesome to see them do this extension. And I would not have done that. Had it not been Joanna's idea to really make a play with the modeling cycle. Now we've done it once. Let's try it again and see what you all can come up with. And it's great. It's impressive.

Eva  19:04  
Yeah, that sounds awesome. Well, thank you both for joining me today.

Speaker 3  19:09  
Thank you for having you for having us. For further information

Eva  19:13  
on this topic. You can find the article on the mathematics teacher educator website. This has been your host, Ethan Heiser, thank you for listening and goodbye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai