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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 educators. The hosts are Eva anhyzer dusty Jones and I am Joel Amidon. Today we are talking with Abby leaf who is the content area specialist for mathematics at Escondido Union High School District in Escondido, California. And Brian Lawler, who is an associate professor of mathematics education at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. We are talking to Abby and Brian because of the working relationship they have established, and the work they have been able to do together, namely helping a school district completely overhaul their mathematics program and providing on time professional development through the growing pains of such change. Brian, Abby, thank you for joining us here at the AMT conference, kind of excited to do this in this space. So why don't we start with an easy question. How did you start teaching math teachers and why? Hello, this is Brian. I feel like my path was a little unusual, but awfully awfully lucky. My first teaching job was at a imp field test site at a high school in rural suburban excuse me, Colorado, I m P stands for the interactive math program. And by the third year that I was teaching there, my mentor asked me to begin apprenticing with her in the summer workshop, she ran teaching, teaching teachers to implement and use the curriculum. So that really just started this long trajectory of working with teachers over the summer and eventually working with school districts and schools and school districts across the country. And you know, at the time, what was amazing to me was the this opportunity for this classroom where my students were talking like having brilliant conversations about mathematics. The one that just I remember like being like a selling point for me is I was listening in on a group who were talking about the area of larger and larger sided many more sided polygons and talking about these deep ideas around infinity in a way that was just not what is the answer to this problem, but just brilliant. And they were 15 years old, discourse rich classroom that I got the opportunity to start learning in, sort of prompted me to do those workshops. But then later in my as my career went on, it led to this deeper understanding of how power and privilege operated within schools within mathematics education to sort of maintain the status quo of how math courses function in high schools, and even maybe a little more broadly in mathematics education. So that shifted my focus toward this equity lens, I would say more so than this rich mathematical conversation lens in sort of early not so far into my career, I decided that I needed to work in a different space, not just in my own classroom at my school, but broader. I didn't know exactly what but I figured that a PhD next to my name would make me seem more important to people possibly. I don't know if that's actually the case. But I'm in those ways. My work now is centered at a university, and I mostly train high school mathematics teachers, and have the opportunity to work more closely with schools and the big shift and access is now most of my work is directly with curriculum supervisors, principals, superintendents, depending on the size of the school, I find that interesting and exciting work as well. Speaking of interesting and exciting, there we go, Abby, how about you. So I joined the high school district where I am now. And I spent about 10 years in the classroom, I taught at a special school, a continuation High School, where the majority of students had really really really awful math experiences in our own district. And I part of my job was to look at their transcripts and see how many different mathematics courses they had failed and all the different trajectories they had taken to try to earn their 20 credits of mathematics. In the course of this, I was in a master's program and got an opportunity to work with a really wonderful researcher at University of San Diego joy Spencer, and started doing some really serious reading and my master's thesis, I spent a lot of time interviewing students and recognizing how much their mathematical identity or student identity or even just human identity was affected by their experiences in mathematics classrooms. And so I decided to leave the classroom when the job that I currently have now opened and thinking very similarly, strangely, that I might be able to have more effect on more students, because I had a pretty successful experience as a teacher more effect on more students, if I could work through the teachers, so started teaching teachers there, and now still actually get to teach teachers at University of San Diego in methods classes. So I get to sort of work with shiny new teachers and practicing teachers in our district. It's a really great perspective for me to have. Yeah. All right, awesome. So we're talking about this partnership that you all have developed together. And so just for lack of a better question, what would you have liked to have known when you started working together? So like thinking about some of the logistics of it, some of the you know, negotiations that probably went on back and forth like, what would you have liked to know and from the get go, this is gonna sound crazy, but I would have liked to have known how incredibly important or useful

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It was, and when to do this to bring in his authority as the PhD method professor and those letters, right? No, sometimes, and that's that n is a big tall white man also, I mean, I don't mean to discount that is very smart as well. So sometimes that authority and that expertise really has been, we've been able to leverage it. And it's been important. It's important for our math teachers, to our community members, or our leaders in education to recognize somebody who's in working in the field during research. I think I wish I had leverage that earlier on are known when to or known how beneficial that might actually be. Yeah, so that's probably my big, the big thing I wish I had known. How are you? Brian? I think I'm going to start by backing up just a little bit before quite answering that question, to say a little bit about the partnership. Thank you. I think, after having worked for 1520 years, with schools and with districts, I was sort of at this definitely a realization that not every school district or school is ready to make significant changes, like there's capacities or potential that must be there. And because their school district was a local school district to my university setting at the time, you know, I was aware of the work they were doing, I was beginning to build relationships with some of the teachers and Abby in the district. And at a State Conference, a local state conference, I watched their super Assistant Superintendent Abbey and a collection of eight ish teachers stay after a Joe bowler talk for 15 minutes. And they were just talking in their animated and I could tell like, there was something interesting there. So at that time, it gave me that that notion that I think they might be interested, I begin working more closely. And the first thing I did was I leveraged a structure within my college of education that granted internal funding to professors to work with the local school districts. And that was approved to run a modification of teacher developments group's teaching studio, I forget exactly what they call it, excuse me. But I used that with their teachers to just at each school site, I worked with four teachers several times during the year to spend a half a day planning a lesson implementing the lesson and reflecting on the lesson. And that's what a teaching studio in a nutshell. I mean, I know there's it goes deeper, but in a nutshell, that's it. And I sort of thought of that as my entry to begin making these one step closer relationships to have more conversations about shifting teaching. So just stepping back from a little bit of that context, the things that I think like I wish I would have known, I kind of actually still wish I would know better is, in our work as professors, we are expected to establish the scholarly significance of our work, right? And to have some, almost like a mentor who could help me think through how do I take this close work with a school and have it recognized for its scholarly significance, because there's definitely language within my department that you should be working with schools is really valued. But then when somebody reviews your annual review, or any of those reports, if the question is what was the H index on the paper that you published, you know, it's sort of a disconnect. So I think over the years, I've learned a little bit about how to have that work with a school district more recognized. Related to this is how to develop a thoughtful research agenda, because I've taken this ethnographic approach, which sort of requires a large number of years before any publications get out. So maybe I looking back, it would have been thoughtful about what things I might have been able to do in the on the way. So that's very much the perspective of me working in a research institution. Yeah, well, and we captured a little bit of their like, when you're talking about developing the partnership, you know, like attending state conferences, and you talk about building relationships, thinking back to what is the best advice you received, or would give someone on developing such partnerships? The best advice I would give someone is, well, actually, let me say, there was definitely some advice I received that was impactful. And the more I like, look back at it and see how I've shifted, it was very important. And it was as simple as be thoughtful not to insult the people you're going to work with.

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Because Yeah, we do carry this lens of like, for lack of a better word we know better, or we know how it could be. And I'll give you a very much more specific example. So when I go to sit with that Assistant Superintendent or the superintendent, instead of coming in with your own agenda, listen to what they're interested in what they're trying to do, how are they working to solve that, and as much as anything else, just keep listening and listening and listening until you are invited to work with them? Yeah. And I would, I would just restate that as is do not bring your agenda to the school district. I didn't receive any really any advice on developing a partnership and it was kind of a new idea to me. But I think the what I would give would be, I think make sure the person you're going to work with I believe very strongly in these partnerships between University and

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K through 12 schools, but I would really work hard to make sure that that you share a common belief system. So if Brian's focus when he came in had been, well, we're gonna fix your school district to make sure that your kids can test better on our placement tests. Yeah, not to discount the importance of placement tests don't quote me wrong or anything, but we share a common belief system about humans, and about the system. And I mean, I've learned a lot from him and working alongside him. But we do share, I think, a common belief system about humanity. So I think that has been pretty important in our work. And our third colleague, Brian Meyer, we all are kind of in the same space. Yeah, intellectually, or I don't want to say spiritually, that sound too weird, but kind of it's kind of I mean, this is a, and then we take this work very, very seriously, right? And we think it and overthink it to death. Yeah. And it's actually it's been the best work of my life, my professional life, because I've got these two partners, who, specifically this one who, like our brains work the same. And so our brains are very satisfied when working together. So that's very, that's a very attractive thing to have very much, you're not very lucky. I mean, a lot of people aren't lucky enough to get that experience as a, say, a high school teacher working, I'm not that there aren't people in our system. But we it just was a really nice fit for our brains to work together. And it took time and then being the guy like in or yet, can just immediately get it. I'm guessing that this partnership started out when you were both in the same geographical area. But I'm wondering, you know, listening, San Diego, California, Kennesaw, Georgia, how does the physical space play into the current partnership for a while we still had funding for after he moved off to Georgia, to and we paid him he was a consultant for our district, and he would just get on an airplane and come hang out with us. But with modern technology, we are over involved in, you know, we just communicate constantly sharing ideas and thoughts and research and the like. So but so he would come out maybe six times a year, probably or five, five times a year, five times a year and spend time with us and walk classrooms or or we would do PD together, we do a lot of planning over the phone, have conversations scheduled conversations regularly. And we present. That's another thing. We presented a lot of conferences together. So that is a way we connect. But I think I would for people starting this leverage those structures that already exist within, as he explained earlier, what do you call it the release time that you can go to university to work with local schools, leverage the heck out of those, and then they start to see, you know, your people in administration in K through 12. start to see the benefits and the values of having those kinds of relationships and might be willing to commit money to them. Because we don't want him working for free, because his expertise is valuable. You know, this is Eva, I'm not sure that this question is in the right spot. So we might want to push it to later. But I'm imagining somebody listening and wants to create such a relationship, how might they go about that? And I don't know if we want to do this now or later when I moved to Atlanta where I work now. So that was sort of my guiding question. I'm in new place. And I'm very interested to start creating those relationships. And I recognized I look look back to when I moved to San Diego for my first faculty position. And what I did is I started showing up to the professional mathematics education meetings, everyone that I could find, so there was a greater San Diego math council meeting found the date found the location showed up I left as the Secretary.

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But so I started doing I tried to do the same things in Georgia, you know, connecting with the local school districts. They have a metro Regional Educational Service Agency, I believe I started going to their meetings and just starting to get to know people is clearly the first first first step that led I can talk to you about a few things that led to it led to an invitation to present to the middle school and high school mathematics department chairs when catalyzing change came out to just talk about the content of that I got to meet a bunch more people. I was invited to speak at their they have like a bi annual professional development day inside the school districts and I was invited to speak at those. So that's getting me closer and closer. I'm you know, I'm I've been here in Georgia for years, three and a half years now. And I'm not doing close and immediate PD with anyone but one is just starting to emerge with a local, somewhat local school district. And I know it's because of the slow cultivation of the relationship. So it's like you're not going to get this the invitation without actually going somewhere and the internet is wonderful. Probably you can find it all sorts of meetings to go to exactly it's true. It's almost like invite yourself to the meetings like that.

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That's the short version of everything I just said. Did you have anything to add to that? And I'm just thinking, didn't we meet at greater San Diego math council originally or you talked me into being involved with it very when I was still in the classroom. I have a we don't have a timeline in our heads anymore. It's been too long. Yeah. But at one point, he was the president of GS DMC, and I was the treasurer. So just because he talked me into it, that was really, really early in our working be present, right?

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What makes a good day in this relationship? I mean,

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I mean, King relationship, or that's a good interpretation, or in your or in your profession, when I actually answered that, when I looked at your questions before, and I did answer it, thinking like working with him and our other colleague, and I would say, if he happened to be in town, it's a it's a day where we're, we always approach every problem or issue the same way we brainstorm, we categorize, we create buckets of art with our categories, and then we prioritize those categories. And then we attack them and figure out where we're gonna do it and decide who does what. And when we're able to spend a day really thinking hard together about something that's a good day, where we can just beat something to death, overthink it to death, and bring in research and even do some math together to rest our brains a little bit. But when we're thinking and talking and laughing, and problem solving, thinking, we know everything in the world, which we don't. But when we on those days, we think we do. And then we get really concrete and say okay, so what can we actually really do, and then be able to, because there are three of us in this work, there's no other guy isn't here. But we're able to hold a lot of stuff in our heads, because there are three brains here and with this institutional history and the history of our work, so it makes it really powerful to work together and think together, that's always a good day. And we are able to do that. Yeah, I have a slightly broader response. But that is very appropriate to our working relationship as well. And so just thinking about my work life, but even really my life in general, good days for me, or when I experience others, joyfully engaged in their work or play, whether that's when I'm working with my student teachers, when I get to visit math classrooms and see kids being joyful, working with this current project I'm working in involved many members of the community playing with mathematics. And at the end of that meeting, they were demanding, this needs to be happening in our schools. And those those are the best days, insights, new ideas, passions to pursue, but I hate to say it, I might be a little bit of a math geek, because if math is in the middle of it even better, I think I'm gonna jump off of maybe what Abby was talking about. Maybe it was after one of those sessions, where you were trying to think about a problem, because there's something I've heard in a session, you all talk about this idea of when you're talking about acting into new beliefs. Like I'm guessing that emerged from maybe one of those thinking sessions, but like, maybe just talk about that, because that idea is really, I think, powerful. That's Irish alga. tareas. I mean, that that idea originally came from her give an example of how you've done that with him. He's way better at this. The question behind it is, do you just try to change people's beliefs by not doing anything with them? Other than getting them to think about things right? Or do you give them experiences to think about things differently, which then changes the belief system? So what's an experience so unexperienced might be experienced mathematics differently? So doing problems from imp, right? We always start every PD we do, right? This is man, this is math, right? I do that in my methods, classes. So does he, in fact, I asked somebody recently, like, what is the most important thing? What do these teachers need in this methods class I'm teaching and what was most impactful for you? And he said, doing math that was unfamiliar to me. And that was, what was I NP, of course, because, but that made me think very differently about mathematics. And so the belief systems, you're able to push on belief systems by experiencing something different. So math isn't just the algorithm isn't Yeah, regurgitation, it is experiencing some different things. I can just tell another example of acting teachers into or acting people into new beliefs. In this case, it was acting teachers. We knew that the teachers we were working with lived in a system where students were seen as have lacking in things and whether it's in the school, they lacked some mathematical ideas that they were supposed to learn, or in the broader culture, we tend to look at marginalized groups as things that they are lacking. And so we knew this was a belief that was likely held by many of our teachers and wanted to think about the structure to shift that. So we drew upon the ideas from complex instruction, that there are many different ways of being mathematically smart. And one of the simple but easy to name structures was we asked every one of the teachers to go into their classroom with a list of every student's name like a chart, and a

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track and name, one mathematical ability of each of those students. I feel like at least at this point we have among the teaching community within Escondido, they do not deny that every stop every child has some mathematical ability. So it's that's a feels like one of the hardest shifts we're pressing on. But that is a structure that what a great me be able to make that comment versus like we're maybe they were at before, right you know. And that's a nice concrete example. For our listeners, I want to say something to put on tape. And if you guys want to use it or not, I think it might be valuable, a little bit about my thoughts about the value of a partnership with a school district. So I was very interested in partnering with the school district for multiple reasons. And those reasons are even actually growing now in my career. And really, the first reason was, I really enjoy seeing teachers and students thrive in the sort of mathematical teaching opportunities that I had very early in my career that I mean, I just like want everybody to possibly have that. And the more I understood that, the more I recognized how it related to what the profession called for and how it could help overcome a lot of historic inequities in our in our schools, especially related to mathematics. I think there's more reasons than that. And a few of them again, very concrete that I can name is I began bringing my method students to their schools to implement a lesson with a teacher, so co develop a lesson, go home and like refine it, and then bring it to class one day, and as a pair of students implement it in that teacher's classroom, and then get a little feedback from the teacher just like building that relationship. Now my work is we're actually teaching our methods classes in the schools and again, developing the relationships with the teachers. So it really can start becoming bi directional. My University is like in very simple terms, my university is providing students to work in avid classes, for the school who needed those tutors, my students also then get the opportunity to work with students in those avid classes and learn more about teaching. They spend time in math classrooms and learn more about teaching there. And we run our methods class where teachers pop in and get to know us and talk with the students and my students look at the teachers like they know so much more than me, it's clearly absolutely worthwhile. Then in the even slightly broader sense, it's just enacting this premise we have about public schooling that schools belong to the community. And I think it's really valuable to see the whole relationship from youth through the teachers through college, into the future teachers in a local community and seeing it all together, as opposed to these disparate parts that real people step in move in between without any other sorts of connections. So thank you for sharing that. It's someone that is, you know, might be stepping into your roles for the first time. What advice do you have on or just or how do you get things done? Because I know both of you do a lot. How do you get things done? That question I looked at earlier kind of stumped me, how do we get things done? There's probably a lot of documents and stuff that are going back and forth between, like, how do you even organize that it must be incredible, okay, well, I get made fun of all the time, because I am the disorganized one. And I'm always looking for files, but we share everything in Google. And he organizes everything or other colleague does. And then they just share it with me and remind me where it is all the time. I can just over being bothered by that. But one of us is good at starting things. So we're trying to do some writing together, while our other colleague, first we all brainstormed what we wanted to do. And then somebody is good at writing. So he's gonna, he's starting the writing very slowly, then Brian, this, Brian will come in and do some fine tuning and I will come in and edit and break it. So we

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will I mean, that's what I do. That's my role. I'm the skeptic. So we have these different roles together to get anything done, whether we're planning a PD, whether we're writing an observation tool, we split up the work. And then we I mean, we've developed these roles that are natural to us over time. And that's how we do it. So what I'm hearing is that one of the ways that you get things done in the partnership is you partner together to get things done. Yeah, we don't do anything alone in a very similar way. So I nudged us into starting to plan presentations. And because we get accepted and then like the x actually happening, it forces a conversation about what are we going to say? And that gives us actually time to digest and reflect instead of always, what's next. What's next. What's next. I think that's an important piece. And if I were to talk about one other, I think it's worth understanding that just reiterate actually, that we probably text each other every other day with just a small question or just a venting, or just almost anything related to the work of course now we know each other so well. It's also family or personal. We also will schedule phone calls every once in a while to just 90 minutes we're going to talk through this next big thing that we want to accomplish. It's like this ongoing conversation. So the work is the work right and and there are different things that come up as we come along and but we've had this seven eight year for however many years

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This mini year conversation that just we're not done with. And so we move in and out of it. But, and sometimes there are 70 or 80 text messages a day, let's not be. So let's usually it's not me it's the two of the other two, but, but then he shares research with us or one of us will be reading something, and we'll take a picture and send it to the others. So we keep our heads in the same space. It's very thoughtful partnership, constant communication. Is there anything else that you would like to share? Oh, you asked about where do you go for online resources? Nowhere. I mean, I, I say God, I need some research on blah. And I text him. And then I have an article in my in a text in two minutes, not even two minutes, 30 seconds. Usually nothing you read that you research Why? And I know you're very active in some of the groups on Facebook and like, and I'll see a question from you. And you might be like, you asked Brian, and Brian, all of a sudden is posting say, Hey, I needed an article or I need a resource on this. Yeah. So that's a great again, we're leaning on the partnership to get things done. Like I might not be able to find it. But I know somebody who can just to sort of state the obvious I definitely lean on the larger community quite regularly. I know that several of our colleagues host that complex instruction website every once in a while I hit that for like, Is there something new there that we we might bring? Thank you, Ryan, for joining us. And thanks again, to all you out there for listening to the teaching math teaching podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast, we hope that you are able to implement something that you just heard, and take an opportunity to interact with other math teacher educators.