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 Anheuser and I'm talking with Laura Dick from Bucknell University, Molly Applegate from Iowa State University and delicate Gupta from Midwestern State University. About the article continuous improvement lesson study our model of MTE, which stands for mathematics teacher educator professional development, published in the February 2022 issue of the mathematics teacher educator journal, we will begin by summarizing the main points of the article and discuss in more depth the lessons they shared their successes and challenges, and how these lessons relate to their adult work. There is one more co author on the article Melissa Soto from San Diego State University who was unable to join today, Laura, Molly and Otokar. Can you briefly introduce yourselves? Hello, I'm Laura.

Lara Dick  1:06  
And I am in the math department at Bucknell University and it's a small liberal arts university in central Pennsylvania. I teach classes for elementary and secondary future math teachers, as well as introductory mathematics classes like calculus and statistics.

Molly Applegate  1:24  
My name is Molly Applegate. I'm an associate professor in the School of Education at Iowa State University. And I teach future elementary and secondary teachers.

Dittika Gupta  1:36  
Hi, I'm Jessica Gupta. I'm an associate professor of curriculum and learning at Midwestern State University, Texas. I work with elementary, middle, and secondary pre service teachers in the areas of math and science. That is my primary responsibilities. And I'm delighted to be here today. Oh, welcome.

Eva  1:57  
I'm super excited to have the three of you joined today. Let's get started with a brief summary of the article including the results.

Lara Dick  2:07  
Okay. Well, in this article, we present a framework for mathematics, teacher, educator, professional development, really talking through and describing the process that we went through, over many years, as we worked really closely with one lesson that we were all teaching our pre service teachers. So we call the framework, the continuous improvement lesson study framework. And it combines elements of Lesson Study with continuous improvement. And the basic idea is that we started with one lesson that we you know, with lesson goals, and what we were hoping that our pre service teachers would be learning and over time, through many, many, many meetings with each other, the lesson just kept getting and going through an iterative process of improvement. And alongside, you know, improving the lesson, what's really happening is we're growing as math teacher, educators ourselves, and we are learning. So in the paper, we're really focused on our learning, and sharing what we learned, as teacher educators throughout the process. And so the results are both, you know, the conglomeration of everything we learned, but then also this lesson that we happen to be very proud of. And we think is a pretty awesome lesson. And we hope other people will will pick it up and teach it.

Eva  3:30  
All right, that sounds really cool. And we'll get into the lesson in a little while and into your model of designing and reflecting. So who is your audience who should be reading this article?

Molly Applegate  3:42  
Mt. Math teacher educators is who we would like this would like to read it when we start to kind of get into this process. We were really excited for early career. MTS, in particular, because we learned so much through the process and really supporting each other through those first few years, sometimes MTS or rather isolated, and we did meet at star so we would, our goal really is for the teaching groups to possibly use adopt this model.

Eva  4:13  
So let's unpack for those who don't know what is star.

Dittika Gupta  4:18  
So that stands for service teaching and research. It was an NSF program that was started for early career math educators, in which they you applied for it and they selected about 30 to 35, early career math educators to come for a week long workshop. So we were 2015 Star fellows, completely unknown to each other. And we've been working since then. So you could say Star has been really beneficial for us. We have started time for that. But I think now MTE has taken AMT has taken over the STAR program funding, and it still is a great service for all early career math educators.

Eva  5:00  
So you all met in this one week workshop, and there are some teaching groups you were talking about. So how, how did you all end up in one teaching group?

Lara Dick  5:10  
I want to say that, you know, we fill out some sort of questionnaire, you know, saying about, you know, what we teach and what we're interested in, in terms of research and teaching. And then during the week, you're put into a research focus group, or interest group, and then a teaching interest group. And whatever we all wrote down, put us all into, into a tag. And we were we were there together.

Eva  5:36  
So this leads us nicely into the next question, which is, what is the important problem that this article addresses? So I'm assuming when you were all in this teaching group, you were discussing something that focused you all together on board over the years right on this? So can you talk about what is the problem that you're trying to address?

Lara Dick  6:01  
Denise Spangler was the lead of our group. From what I recall, we each just shared kind of some of our research and teaching interests and you know, went around the room. And I had done my dissertation in the field of teacher noticing, and was very interested in engaging my pre service teachers with students work. And through that those discussions, you know, really kind of honing in on the the idea that I feel like I do a really good job of teaching my, my future teachers to look at individual student work samples. But when you actually try to think about what you're going to do with the class as a whole, when you know, you have 20 students who have saw problems in different manners, how do you actually make whole class decisions about what to do next with your students? So we decided during that meeting, that we would focus on whole class decision making. So that I guess the that was the initial problem we wanted to solve was, you know, how are we engaging pre service teachers with making instructional decisions in their classroom when you've got a bad diverse group of learners.

Eva  7:03  
So that's one of the problems you're tackling right is developing this lesson. And then the other problem you're tackling is how to develop yourselves or learn and work with each other. Do you want to talk a little bit about that part. Also,

Dittika Gupta  7:19  
when we were actually at Star, I was the only sole math educator at my university and Midwestern State University. And so it was a very lonely place in which I did not have anyone to bounce ideas with even grow professionally in terms of collaborating. So I felt that the star and this group provided that opportunity. We also think that at higher education, our main professional development comes from attending conferences, or reading articles. However, this group lets us like our my group, lets me bounce ideas off each other, we learn from watching each other teach, we learn to break the barriers to geography, local barriers, and you know, like at some other person who's teaching, so that was another huge learning for us is to be able to reflect on our own pedagogy reflect on our own teaching, and grow as professionals.

Eva  8:15  
Yeah, I really enjoyed reading the intermix between your reflecting on your own learning and then developing that lesson. So the next question here is talking a little bit about existing work that you build on. And I think in your paper, you laid out really nicely how there isn't really all that much work that hasn't been done on math, teacher educator, professional development, but let's kind of pull on what are you drawing on? Okay. So

Dittika Gupta  8:44  
basically, when we started doing this, we felt we were engaging in a lesson study process, there has been a lot less than study done in K 12. And not as much then in higher education. We were trying to reflect on our own pedagogy, reflect on our own learning, and then grow from there as professionals. However, one of the things that was really important to us was also this lesson that we were developing lesson study only focuses mainly on the process. But we love the product that we were getting, we called it an educated asset, which is based on the continuous improvement framework that Hubert and Burke have given out. So when we got those we were like, both of those things are important to us. And in addition to that, another aspect that was important to us was the research aspect of it, because in the process of continuously revising our lesson, we wanted to incorporate more research. We wanted to go back to the research and get more ideas, more strategies. So we combine those frameworks together to develop the sales process, which is the continuous improvement lesson study process in which not only the process but also the product has is an importance.

Eva  10:00  
So can you tell us a little bit, especially for people who might not have read the article, what this process looks like,

Molly Applegate  10:08  
the process looks like a combination of Lesson Study and continuous improvement. So it's really starts with us studying and setting goals and, you know, thinking about what, you know, goals for us goals for our students, and then developing a lesson, and then teaching that lesson. And then we kind of go in a cycle of reflecting, and we all we plan this lesson together, we research together, then we teach it individually, at our university, but we video record it. And so we are all able to watch each other's instruction of this, just like a lesson study kind of lays out. And we reflect on that, but then we go back to the research and we think what what worked well, then we, we look at the research, and then we revise the lesson. And that can include, you know, timing that include questions that include activities. And so then the next person teaches it based on that. And we watched that video, sometimes we watched it in real time, once, but oftentimes it's video recorded, and then we all watch it together later. And then we reflect on that. And what we saw and we go back to the the research and think, Okay, we didn't, you know, this didn't work out what what we can find out, and then we revise, and we do that again. And then each time we are creating a lesson, but the ideal thing that pops out in the end is an educative lesson, as Seneca said, and that we can share, but it is I'm even thinking, you know, in this article we share, there's a link that shares our lesson. And Lara, for example, just taught it today. And I taught it after we got I don't know, it was after it as we were publishing this, and I already thought of ways to adapt it. And Laura talked about something she adapted. So it's not that this perfect lesson pops out. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that it's a solid lesson that's been well researched, and has been revised multiple times. But it's still up for, you know, revision and improvement.

Eva  12:13  
So there's a lesson that is a product, but I'm assuming that there's also an outcome sort of process for your own learning. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Lara Dick  12:24  
Yes, if you happen to have the paper in front of you, or if you think you might pick it up later. One of our appendices is a table that basically lists all of the different components of the lesson. And within that, we took time to really flesh out what it is that we learned through these multiple iterations, about our own teaching, and how we grew as an MTS throughout this process. That's the other main outcome of this, this study. It isn't just the lesson, it's also the process. And it's what we learned through that process. And we don't think you should, you know, have one without the other both are equally important. The the process itself and our reflection and our being vulnerable with each other and willingness to have good days and bad days teaching, but to really grow throughout that process is what we think is really beneficial for employees. And especially as you know, we started this in 2015.

Eva  13:27  
Was it kind of scary to show your video to everybody else?

Dittika Gupta  13:31  
Yes. And it was even scarier, when you had all of them, come on Zoom and watch you live teaching. So I was one of the ones that actually instead of recording the video, we did a real time observation. And it was not feasible for them being in so far apart. So they were all there on Zoom. And they had this group text going on in real time. And they had this Google Doc going on in real time. And they were taking notes and everything and observing you. So there's one thing and actually seeing people in the room observing you. But now I have people on Zoom observing me because the cameras completely focused on me and students working. I don't think I've ever been that nervous before, like I was that day. And then obviously, when we were having breaks in between the lesson they would like actually send me messages. It's like, I think you forgot this part or this is something to think about. And so it was really nice because it felt as if there was a co teaching going on. Whereas I did have that support because in the moment teaching was really difficult. And I don't know for those who have read the paper who have not read the paper this was like one of the things really stands out is and among the say the name but one of us actually reflected and said that every time someone teaches and we talk about the lesson, I feel rejuvenated. So that is what it is, is every time we did this Is before, it's a big time commitment. But every time we did it, we wanted to do it like that excited us and made us have more passion for our own teaching. I think that is not only learning but passion and growing all of it together.

Eva  15:14  
So before I move on, I'm kind of curious about your thoughts of the size. So there's four of you. Do you think two people is enough that they watch each other? Or is there a benefit of having more than two?

Lara Dick  15:27  
So we started with five initially, and I think it was working just fine with five, I would say, somewhere between three and five, you need multiple brains. I mean, I think one of the things we have always kind of joked about, but also been serious is I mean, we each focused on different things with our dissertation, you know, we each have our kind of individual research foci, and therefore our strengths, and having our strengths manifest within the group is one of the things that's so powerful with the process, like Melissa is not here. But Melissa has been really involved with CGI cognitively guided instruction. And so she was kind of our CGI person who could always push us and make us think about CGI topics. And so we each had, have you know, those strengths that we bring to the table? And I don't think with two people, you get that benefit.

Eva  16:20  
So the question of timing, right? How many people can you find a common time with to meet? Where says, Yeah, okay, so at least three would be your suggestion, if somebody started something like this?

Dittika Gupta  16:33  
Yeah, even for observation, at least two to three people, you know, like observing some lessons so that you can have multiple perspectives, or multiple points of views of what is happening in the lesson.

Eva  16:46  
So my next question, we might need to adapt a little bit. The question is, what research questions did you study to document the effectiveness of your innovation? So a little broader? How do you know this works?

Dittika Gupta  16:59  
We know this works, because we taught it over nine semesters, more than 25 times. And we went through seven revisions of the lesson. So we did teach it multiple times. And with every time that we taught, we had video recordings, transcriptions, we analyzed it, we had this big, huge and Molly was the one who created it was the big huge spreadsheet of the changes over time that we were mapping. We've taught it,

Molly Applegate  17:29  
you know, if we think about the whole framework, there's the educative lesson, which did it could just adjust. And then there's the professional development, right. And so I think in terms of professional development, I we will, evidence that it worked is that we did do these, we actually took notes, after every meeting, we had a brain dump, where we just kind of shared our thoughts and just reading over because we're actually doing some research on our brain dumps. Reading over that is just people kind of putting into this. And sometimes they're talking about bad days. But oftentimes, the what came out was, oh, my gosh, I learned so much today, or I got all of my questions answered. Or speaking myself. I was one of the first people actually, we have a new lesson coming up. And I just taught it last week, and, and I was one of the first people the first time and, you know, is scary, but then I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I know exactly after our discussion, what I need to change. And so it's that I really feel that the professional development, we could see the evidence of ourselves growing in how like after so many semesters, my teaching of the lesson has improved tremendously. But not only that, my question asking in even lessons they're not watching or aren't the focus is, is so much better, just pushing students to kind of think differently about things.

Eva  18:50  
So as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about I'm a little bit older in quotation marks than you all there was no star for me when I graduated. But I found a group of people in like, I think, a working group at PMMA, or something like that. And we did a similar thing with a fraction lesson. Not quite, we didn't observe each other. But we all taught the same lesson. We collected data, we analyze data, we refined the lesson. And so I'm just thinking if somebody is listening and trying to figure out how to start a group like this, that you don't have to be in this star group, right that you can just meet people at a conference or colleagues or do you have any other suggestions? I see some smiles. Yes.

Dittika Gupta  19:37  
Well, you're seeing smiles because we were gonna say is come to our workshop at VNA because we are actually doing a sales framework workshop PME 2022 in which we are going to talk about this process and our goal is actually a hoping for people to find those groups to be able to work together and collaborate together to develop their own lesson. an educative lesson through the process

Lara Dick  20:07  
is a working group. And it's focused on Lesson Study with different through different lenses for what is it equity, we should probably look up the name of it. And then we can actually tell you the name of the working group. But the idea is for groups to form and to teach lessons, we hope that we're going to be providing some of that structure at PMA this year. That

Eva  20:29  
sounds excellent. And if somebody's not going to this particular conference, you can just like find people anywhere, right? Like it's doesn't have to be structured. Yeah, absolutely. Well, how timely we'll need to get this podcast out fast so we can promote your Working Group

Dittika Gupta  20:46  
title is adaptions to Lesson Study to support equitable teaching practices working group.

Eva  20:52  
Let me push a little bit then since we just mentioned the equitable teaching practices. We have not yet talked in this conversation about equitable teaching practices. Where do you fall in that? So Susie's

Dittika Gupta  21:06  
last name is Susie Hankerson? She is with todos. And in this working group, we also have Catherine Lewis, who is joining us. So as Laura was talking about it is looking at Lesson Study through various lenses is the equitable practices, we are looking at the lens of teaching, problem solving. And then it also has can be, which is the California Asch Action Network for mathematics, excellence and equity, along with the rights of the framework and the sales process,

Molly Applegate  21:42  
it actually comes, we looked at our sales process. And one of our own personal critiques of the sales process was, or question was, wait, how can we include equity in this process? And so we have, we reached out to other people who had worked on both Lesson Study and getting equity into Lesson Study. So I mentioned previously that we've already started on a second cycle with a second lesson. So I have taught that lesson, only one of us has taught it to me. And part of it was about incorporating equity into the content of the lesson for us using the sales process, but also taking what kami has done, which is Seneca said the California Action Network for mathematics, excellence and equity. And their idea is focused students and really trying to make sure that you're engaging in pedagogy that addresses the needs of students that you have. And so we we, in this cycle that is not in this paper, but our next cycle is trying to make it more explicit in our process.

Eva  22:51  
Okay, would it be fair to say that this lesson, maybe you hadn't really thought about equity yet, and that's a process you're on and you're thinking about for the next lesson,

Molly Applegate  23:02  
we had not thought about it super explicitly, like in the lesson study is about engaging all learners. But that's about feel free to chime in others, but that's about the extent of what we had.

Lara Dick  23:13  
I mean, I think anytime you're returning to a lesson over and over and over again, and you're focused on your students learning, it's kind of by definition, you're not, you're trying not to leave any students out, you know, we were always focused on Well, if something wasn't being understood here, what was it that we needed to do differently to make sure it was now understood, but Right, I think Molly is right in saying it was definitely not an explicit focus for this first lesson, but we have definitely tried to make that way more explicit for ourselves. And within the actual lesson that we've we've designed for the next the next one, and the one we'll be discussing at the working group at PMEA. Yeah, that

Eva  23:50  
was going to be my next question is that part of the working group is to really dig into the equitable piece of it.

Molly Applegate  23:57  
We will have I videotaped my teaching of the lesson, and we will be showing clips of it to dig into the practices. That sounds

Eva  24:07  
fun. All right, let's kind of wrap up with if you have to summarize what your contribution to mass education or math teacher education is that you shared in this article, what would you say?

Lara Dick  24:23  
I mean, I'd say we have a lesson that we hope other people will pick up. But even more importantly, we really hope that others will adopt this process as a purposeful means of production, professional development, we

Eva  24:34  
think stills is really powerful. And in an ideal world, someone who's in charge of star is going to listen to this podcast and they are going to say okay, we're going to talk to these these lovely folks a little bit more about sales, and we're going to suggest that the Tiggs was the upcoming summer engage in this process. So that's that would be, I guess, my pie in the sky hopes so this idea Yeah, I think that underlies a lot of math education is that collaboration, right collaborating in teaching. And we often as difficult said, she's the only one, or was the only one at her school, and the only elementary teacher educator and also in a math department, which makes me a little bit of an odd person. So it's nice to have people to talk to, and it helps you figure out things. So I have to say that that is something that sustained me early on as well, having this group of people that we met, and we talked, don't know that we did it quite as structured as you all but it was really helpful. So I think that is a huge contribution, this idea of get together, use a process, you'd lay out the process in this paper, but people can adapt the process for whatever works for them. And, yeah, that's huge. So I really enjoyed reading the paper for that.

Molly Applegate  25:58  
I think the other thing is, is like, I think that collaboration piece is huge. And also it's it's, you know, we would like to contribute to like kind of the development of a shared knowledge base. Now, I don't know if a lesson is that, but it's like, we definitely learned things from that lesson that could contribute. And the other thing about the sales process, the continuous improvement lesson study is that, as it is designed, it's designed to be used by MTS across institutions that are, you know, far and away not like in one specific area where we're all in different parts of the entire United States. So I feel like it could be used by people at a university or in a state. But the research with Lesson Study and continuous improvement has pretty much been done at the same institution or in the same area. And so this process is really designed for collaboration across great distances. So the videotaping of the lesson, you know, facilitates that,

Eva  26:55  
that's a nice piece to add, because that makes it a lot easier as well, right? Because often we don't have enough people close to us to do this with.

Dittika Gupta  27:04  
And that's why we hope that organizations such as Mt AMT, ie PME, Na, and all other professional organizations will implement a structure for employees to create these cells grow so that we can have this house of refined educated lessons that can be implemented with our pre service teachers. Well, thank

Eva  27:26  
you all so much for joining me today. Thank you.

Lara Dick  27:31  
Thanks for having me.

Eva  27:33  
For further information on this topic, you can find the article on the mathematics teacher educator website. This has been your host Eva Anheuser. Thank you and goodbye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai