0:00  
Hello, and thank you for listening to the teaching math teaching podcast. The teaching math teaching podcast is sponsored by the Association of mathematics teacher educator. Your hosts are myself, Eva, Sennheiser dusty Jones,

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and Joel Amidon.

0:14  
Today we're talking with Keith Lytham, who is a professor at Brigham Young University. We're talking to keys for many reasons, two of which are his involvement with the Star Program service teaching and research and the recent release of the book designing, conducting and publishing quality research in mathematics education. Both of these are meant for mentoring graduate students, or new faculty. Welcome, Keith, would you like to take a second to introduce yourself?

0:44  
No, not at all. Very good. Yes. Yes, certainly, as was mentioned, my name is Keith Leighton, when I professor of mathematics education at Brigham Young University, I've been here for about 15 years. And during that time, I've had many opportunities to work with pre service teachers, and also graduate students. And also, I've had an opportunity to work with the Star Program, which was mentioned in the introduction, which has been an absolute joy to work with incoming faculty into our field, first and second year faculty and to help them navigate this world of academia.

1:23  
Okay, so how did you start teaching math teachers, and why?

1:28  
Well, I decided to go after teaching high school for three years, I decided to go back for a master's degree. And it was there at Utah State University, when I was a master's student that I realized that I could enjoy teaching college aged students as much as I enjoyed teaching high school students so that that's where I first got this idea that maybe teaching college students would be fun. And then I went to University of Georgia for my PhD. And it was there that I had my first opportunity to teach future teachers, I got to teach the Teaching with Technology course there. And that was a wonderful experience. And then I also got to teach a curriculum class for future teachers and supervise student teachers. And during that time, as a graduate student, I realized that this was indeed what I wanted to do that teaching teachers was going to be my, my job.

2:18  
So I just remembered that we don't really know in what department you are, and what kinds of classes you teach. So I'm wondering if you wanna add that into the conversation,

2:29  
I feel really lucky to be in a Department of Mathematics Education. at Brigham Young University, I believe that now it's the only one of its kind in the United States. We're a separate department. And we're in the College of physical and mathematical sciences, right along with physics and math and statistics. So what's neat about our department is that we have responsibilities for teaching about 25% of the math courses at BYU. And then the rest of our courses are all math education courses. So I get to teach classes for future math teachers, all of our majors are secondary, middle and high school. But I also get to teach about every other year, I get to teach a calculus class

3:11  
that sounds very similar to my setup, except we're not our own department. But we're in a math department. And we get to teach math classes as well as math, ed. Yeah. All right. So let's move into remembering back when you were brand new, what would you have liked to have known then

3:30  
I thought about that a lot over the years. And the first thing that always comes to mind is that I really do feel like I was very well prepared. In my program at University of Georgia, I didn't feel like I was surprised when I got out into my job and started doing the things that you do as a mathematics teacher, educator, and researcher. But I think what I didn't realize and would have liked to have heard more of were, were sort of real stories from people about what it's like to live in the world of academia, that everybody goes through difficult times that everybody struggles with some of the aspects of the job, like grading and working with difficult students, that everybody has some articles that get rejected and have to work through with that. I guess, for some reason, I just had in mind that people who were successful in the field were successful at everything all the time, and that nobody had to deal with struggles or difficulties. And so when I started to deal with those things, that was when people started to share their own stories with me, and I realized I wasn't alone.

4:35  
So this actually leads nicely into the question, what's the best piece of advice you can give? Or you have received? Sorry,

4:42  
I think I have to answer that question with respect to the different aspects of my job. Like with respect to service, I think the best piece of advice I ever received was when somebody told me that it was okay to say no, that not only was it okay, but that it was important that you do so that you can't say yes to everything. And that was very useful. To me, with respect to my research, Someone once told me that you shouldn't research anything that you're not passionate about. And that is really helped me make some of the decisions that I've made over the years about which pieces of research to persist with and which ones to let go by the wayside. And given that we have so much flexibility in our jobs as academics, I think that that area of research where you have the most flexibility, if you don't keep passion involved in that work, it can be really easy to burn out of this job. But if you are passionate about your research, then that I think energizes everything that you do in your entire job with respect to teaching. It's been many years now, since somebody gave me this advice. But it's made a huge difference for me, they said that you'll never regret being too merciful to a student. And I thought about that many times, over the years as I've tried to navigate the need to have high expectations, but to also be caring, and compassionate with my students. And so I always try to remember that idea that the showing a little bit of mercy in a student's situation, pays way more dividends, than always having to toe the line, so to speak.

6:15  
So it just reminds me of like, two pieces of advice that I've gotten that are very similar to the ones you've gotten. So it's okay to say no, somebody told me to actually, each time you say yes, you are saying no to a lot of other things, right? Because the same yes takes time. And that really changed my frame of mind. Because it wasn't like, I can say yes to everything. So true. And then the other thing that I agree with you on is like I just decided to believe my students like if they tell me a story, I just I'm just gonna believe them. Because and Roger believe like somebody who is not telling the truth, they're not believing somebody who is telling the truth. This is a point, I think, where I'm checking in with other people to ask follow up questions.

7:05  
Yeah, Keith, this is dusty. So what areas of research are you passionate about? Currently, I know you've done work in several different things. So what's currently got your passion, currently, I

7:15  
really interested in trying to better understand classroom mathematics discourse. And in particular, how we as teachers, can create powerful whole class discussions that help everyone to increase their understanding of mathematics. How can we get students, for example, to engage in what in many classrooms is kind of an unnatural practice, and that is, in them making sense of each other's thinking that we have any ability on each other?

7:45  
I was thinking about when I was a early career mathematics teacher, and I would have these great classroom conversations with two students that were sitting on the front row that really were getting everything, right. And so we need to move beyond that. But also not to just have the knot have a conversation where most of the students are thinking, when can we move on from this? I like the idea of how do we help students make sense of each other's thinking? That's a, it's a really important thing I think we could do. You

8:15  
know, that's interesting to see this idea of kind of moving on, I think that a lot of times, we have what seemed to be really great classroom discussions, but that they're kind of a chaining of ideas. One student says something that makes another student think of something and they share something, and then somebody else says something. And so they build on the just previous students idea. That's as far as the connections go. And I think this idea of sitting with an idea for a little bit staying put and saying no, we really want to understand what they were saying this approach that they were taking, we want to stay put and really understand what one person said. I think that can have a lot of power. And it's something that we we don't think about it enough. I think in our teaching,

8:56  
though, before we move on, I would like to ask you to talk a little bit about this book that just got released.

9:04  
Oh, that's a toughy. You know, editors don't like to talk about their Yeah, so Springer just came out in the research in mathematics education series that Jim pakai and James Middleton have been editing, we just came out with their new book designing, conducting and publishing quality research in mathematics education. And I really think that this book is going to be a valuable resource for everybody in the field, but in particular for new faculty is designed for people who are who are just starting out and who have questions about how to get their work published, really, when we were really originally talking about this podcast, the description that you just had and what your intentions were for helping out these early career. Researchers are just, you know, fresh researchers and thinking about how do we how do we do this work? Well, that really is kind of the the motivation for why to create this podcast right for just a number of different people and All the different roles that a math teacher educator can hold, and thinking about how do we capture the wisdom that we get all the time at amtv events or whatever, just networking with colleagues or just you know, have sitting down and, and just having a good conversation over coffee with someone that you've known in the field for a while, and just saying, like, hey, what can I do to get better? And you've done that in capturing in within this book for, for your audience? And then thinking about how can we do that with this? So I'm just excited about this conversation. So just excited that you had the idea for this text.

10:33  
Thank you. Well, it was, you know, was really interesting and how this book came about, because I've been mulling over this idea of having a book like this, that I thought would be useful for the field. And Jim pakai contacted me, and he said, I'm wondering if you and your most research team might have a book idea in your for our edit book series. And I said, I don't think we're at a point right now where we'd want to do that. But I have this other idea. And I and I pitched it to him. He just like that he was just silent on the phone. And then he just said, Keith, this is crazy. But I mean, I just sent out a couple of emails to some former editors asking if they might be interested in contributing to a book, like you just described, because I wanted to know if people would be interested in doing it. And so he said, I'd love for you to do that. Because I want it to be done. So, so that was perfect. Great. Yeah, that's great. The other things I want to mention about the book is that the idea we ask each author to think about some area related to research, where they had some ideas that they wanted to share. And they're the kind of thing where if, if a new faculty or a graduate student came into their office and had a question in this area, we asked them to write the chapter that they'd want to take down off the shelf in hand. So it really was we asked people to write these chapters as a way of kind of communicating directly with novice researchers. Nice. Very good.

12:03  
All right. So let's move to like the next few questions, which will ask you to share a little bit of your experience. So what makes a good day for you as a professor of math? Do you give a specific example?

12:18  
Yeah, I'd say that a good day, is when I have no service related meetings on the agenda. And an even better, and even better day is one where there was such a meeting, and it got canceled.

12:33  
So I feel like this relates back to your piece of advice of saying no to things. Yeah,

12:40  
that's right, I love to be able to a good day is one where I've managed to do what I wanted. And that is that I've carved out the time, more to my liking the way I wanted to spend the time. And I know they're going to be days when I don't have as much control over that. But days when I do, those are really good days. But I also think a really good day is where I write at least one paragraph that isn't in an email that's actually in a Word document or a Google Doc that's intended for publication. But with respect to teaching, I would say that my teaching controls a lot of what makes a day, a good day. And so for me, if I leave the classroom, and I had some evidence that my students that they got perturbed at that day, that somehow their thinking was perturbed, that they realized that there's something they didn't know, or they came to understand something a little bit better. I have some evidence of that on any given day, it's a good day. I don't care if it's what I was intending for them to learn just that I have some evidence of them having learned something to me, that's, that makes it all worthwhile.

13:48  
So you mentioned a lot of things that make a good day, which leads to the next question, how do you get things done?

13:54  
Well, I think early on is that I wasn't going to be the do everything. But I could still do a lot. And so I just try to do as much as I can. And let's see, what's another way of putting this. So when I first started this job, people would ask me who weren't in academia, you know, like, do you have a punch card? Do you have to keep track of your hours? And, and at first, I was kind of taken aback and I thought, well, no, actually, maybe I should think about that. And so I spent some time trying to keep track of my hours. And I realized that I was easily putting in the number of hours, you know, 40 or 50 hours a week that I was having no problem putting in enough time. And so I decided early on that I wasn't going to worry about the time I was going to worry about the quality of the work. I know that I in the end put in enough time that I was earning my pay, but that I would just tried to focus on trying to do as many good things as I could and be happy with that. So the way I organize myself and I know this doesn't work for other people and there are lots of people out there who who haven't Advice. But for me, I use my email as my to do list. And if I have more than 10 emails in my inbox, then it means I'm behind, and I need to make some tough choices, I either need to do a little marathon work one night, or I need to drop some things off my plate. For me that is allowed me to keep track of what needs to be done, and how much I'm willing to do.

15:22  
Keith, how do you drop something off of your plate? I'm just asking for a friend.

15:30  
So, you know, I think that that question is kind of like asking the question of how do you break up with somebody? Okay, yeah, yeah, because, and there are lots of different ways to do it. I just overheard a conversation last night on the train, somebody giving somebody advice about how to break up with somebody, sometimes they I mean, we're all going to be in situations where we take on some responsibilities, or some, or maybe we start on a research project that we end up not being very passionate about or not feeling like it's been productive. For me, it's, sometimes I have to let it play out a little bit before I realize, okay, this really isn't for me, and then start looking for looking for the out. And sometimes that out is you can just honestly, say, I have too many things on my plate right now. And I can't do this. And sometimes it's just, I'm gonna finish this up. And then I need to move on to other things. But I'll finish, you know, this commitment that I have for the next month or two or whatever, but I think that we don't want to be rude. But I do think that we need to be honest. And I think it's okay at times to say, you know, there are lots of things I can be doing right now. And I'm just not as in I'm not into this as much as I'd like to be. And there are other things that I'm more excited about doing. So I think people, people respect that idea. They don't want to do be doing a lot of things they're not interested in either.

16:47  
So I want to follow up on the hours conversation that you mentioned earlier, do you carve out time where you do not work? And how do you do that?

16:57  
I do. Yes. So for example, I don't work on Sundays period, that's allowed me to have that space where it's just never an option, I always know I'm going to have to fit my work in on other days. And that gives me that time. Otherwise, throughout the week, I haven't done that Monday through Saturday, I haven't carved it out and said I absolutely won't work on those times. And so one of the great benefits of working in academia is that you get the, you have certain parts of your day that are scheduled for you and other parts that are unscheduled, and that gives you flexibility. And I love that flexibility. And so I'm willing to to sometimes be working at 6am or 11pm, because I was doing something that I else that I wanted to do that wasn't work related at three.

17:43  
Okay, so one of the things that we are trying to ask everybody is this question of where do you go online to find resources, just so we hopefully curate some great ideas? So what would you answer to that question?

18:00  
So my answer is not going to help that curation of ideas. Because my go to is Google, I feel like if I know the kind of thing I'm looking for, that I've developed the kind of searching skills that I can start at Google and find this stuff quicker than I can if I start at a particular website. So for example, I can find most of the time I can find the resource that I wanted nctm quicker by starting at Google, then by starting at nctm. So I use nctm, in my Google search, but then I searched the other things that I put in ctm. And then I'm able to find this stuff more quickly.

18:36  
My guess is that this is true, because you have a lot of experience and you're able to field through the Google results. What advice like be like, would you advise a very new person to go and Google? Or would you advise them to do something different mean, you

18:55  
have to develop a sense of what is valuable in any resources in any set of resources. So for example, nctm, the practitioner publications are awesome resources. And with us this new journal, that's, that's now started, we're going to have this one place that I think is going to be this nice repository. But even when you go to those to a given issue, there's a lot of variation in what you're finding there. And you might find something that would be really useful for you as the as a 10th grade mathematics teacher, but that isn't very useful to you, as somebody who's teaching pre service teachers right now. And so you still have to have a sense of that when you look at those resources. How is that going to be useful for me for this particular purpose? So for me, it's way more about thinking deeply about the purpose, why am I looking for this particular kind of resource? What am I trying to accomplish with it? And how is it going to help me accomplish that? And I will say that one of the biggest things I'm looking for is I'm often looking for resources, because I want to save myself Some time, I don't want to start from scratch, designing every single task or every single collection of tasks that make up a lesson. So that's the question that I'm asking when I look for resources is, is this saving me time? Or am I just gonna have to redo this? Because it bugs me.

20:16  
All right, I'm gonna jump to our last question, what do you do for fun? And how do you balance things out?

20:22  
Oh, that's the second question. And that is I don't pretend to balance anything. I just recognize that it's that in the end, that things are going to be out of balance, a lot of times. And so I just kind of switch switch between things, recognizing that there are times and seasons for things. But I love to play handball, we have some court, we play in the racquetball courts here on campus. And there are a number of faculty and some students that we play with. And that's a lot of fun. And then I do like to spend time with my family and with the church activities. And then the other thing for me is music. And so I'm involved in composing and playing the piano and singing and most recently embarking on performing with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple square, which is what I'm, that's the adventure that I'm headed into over the next few years. That's so yeah, that's, that doesn't sound like a very good balancing choice. But I'm super excited about it.

21:18  
But Keith, I like the approach of thinking about it in terms of seasons. I mean, there's certain times when one thing's going to have to necessarily take precedent over something else. And so if we can approach it that way that might be healthier than trying to make sure we balance everything. Like, I don't have classes right now. So should I really be planning a lesson? Maybe so but maybe I could focus on writing right now instead? You know, that's

21:47  
interesting, dusty, I do think that, in particular, when it comes to as teacher educators, we care deeply about teaching. And we know that one of the most important things we do with our teaching is we're modeling good teaching. So there are always these multiple levels to our teaching, we have particular lessons that we're teaching, and then the way we're teaching, it is also a lesson. And so I think because of that we care so deeply about our teaching, that we could spend every bit of extra time that we had preparing for our lessons, we'd never have more time than than we think is could be used. So I think that is a good idea to say, I don't need to be preparing right now. I can do other things. Anytime you can carve that time, I think into your schedule, I think is important, because otherwise we'll easily find the time to prepare. I don't think that's really an issue. At least it has that hasn't been my sense.

22:37  
Well, Keith, thank you so much for being one of our guinea pigs. I think we're gonna release the first episodes right around AMT, but it's not clear yet. We're trying to get a few under our belt. And then I'll be in touch and let you know, when what is happening.

22:54  
That sounds wonderful. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity.

22:57  
I'm just glad that you said yes to us and didn't drop us off your plate.

23:05  
You caught me at a good time when I had less than 10 in my inbox.

23:09  
I know I was just thinking, Oh, if I went something from key sent him a few emails, then I can kick everybody else off and I'm just gonna be emails in the box.

23:20  
That's right.

23:22  
Thanks again for listening to the teaching math teaching podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. And we hope that you're able to implement something you just heard and take an opportunity to interact with other math teacher educators.