Dusty Jones: 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, a community of math teacher, educators, learning to teach math teachers better. I'm your Co. Host, Dusty Jones, and joining me is Co. Host, Jen Wolfe. Jen, how are you today? I am good, happy to be here. Great me, too. Today we're talking with 2 guests, doctor Jessica Ivy and Doctor Cat Mayorca. Jessica Ivy is the Thomas Ray Crowell, endowed Professor of Stem Education at Purdue University, Northwest, and Cat Mayorca is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics education at Oklahoma State University. We're talking to Kat and Jessica today because of their award winning session. At the 2024 A. MTE. Conference. They and their colleagues won the 2024 A. MT. National technology, leadership, initiative award. The session was about the use of a I in teacher education, and they've agreed to share their experiences and expertise with us. Welcome Cat and Jessica, how are you doing today?

Jessica Ivy: We're doing great. I just wanna say, thanks for having this conversation and talking to us for a little bit. About our session and about our experiences as math teacher educators.

Dusty Jones: Can you take a minute to introduce yourself beyond what I already shared.  Jessica, I'll start with you.

Jessica Ivy: All right. Thanks, dusty. I can share a little bit about myself, and I have been at Purdue since August. So this role is very new for me. At Purdue, Northwest. I teach math methods, courses and science methods, courses to undergraduate students in elementary, middle, and secondary, so pretty pretty broad scope there. I've also served previously at Bellerman University, in Louisville, Kentucky, and prior to that I was at Mississippi State University. So in the both of those roles. I was a math teacher, educator as well, so very excited to be here excited, to share a little bit more and always excited to to talk to an amte audience.

Dusty Jones: What about you, cat?

Cat Maiorca: Well, I'm finishing my second year at Oklahoma State. Here I teach elementary math methods to Preservice teachers. But I also get to teach in the graduate program. So I teach the social justice by the numbers course to master students and doctoral students, and I am coordinating the stem certificate, the K 12 stem certificate here, and I teach 2 classes in that program as well. Before I was at Cal State, Long Beach, and I was in the elementary math program, but also got to teach elementary math and stem to early childhood folk, which is probably the most fun, I think.

Dusty Jones: Well, thanks for that kind of little bit more historical background on there. I'm gonna try to zone in on when you started teaching math teachers like, how did you start that? Why did you start that?  I'll let whoever wants to go first go first on that one.

Jessica Ivy: Well, I can jump in first if that's okay. So I was teaching math and high school math in rural Mississippi, and I, and I was really in a great spot. I had a a wonderful school, very supportive administration, amazing student. But I you know I had gone through my undergraduate program, and I felt like I had gone through 4 years to be a teacher. And there was one course that really helped me be a math teacher, and that was my math methods course. And so while I was teaching, I kept thinking, wow! II wish I had more of that. I wish I could have had several courses like my methods, course and and Barb Dorty, who's become a mentor and a great friend. She had taught my methods, course. And I, you know, as I was teaching, I thought I could do a better job if I had more of that. And so I learned that she was gonna be teaching a course at an extension campus near where I lived. and a night course. And so I just enrolled in a course, as non degree seeking. I had no intentions on going to graduate school. I loved my job as a teacher, so I took the class told her. This is just I just wanna get this content. I wanna be a better teacher. I wanna get more from you. We didn't have enough time together. This is this, is it? In that course she assigned a paper, and on Van Healy levels. This is 17 years ago, but she assigned this paper on Van Heely Levels, and I just wanted, you know, to do well to learn more, and when she handed it back to me she said, you should consider going to graduate school. and I thought, I'm not a great writer. This is not where II couldn't do it right, but but over time. We talked, and eventually there was an opportunity that opened up to go back to graduate school full time as a fellow through the center for Math and science education at the University of Mississippi. So I ended up going back full time. And I still thought, oh, I'll go back and I'll teach high school math again, which would be a a great path. But through those experiences in graduate school I eventually started to teach math for teachers courses at the university while I finish my Phd. And I loved working with pre-service teachers. I also had opportunities to engage in professional development facilitating professional development, and some of our grant work put me in spaces where I was working with in service features as well, and I really enjoyed that work. So that's what led me to. The work with math teachers.

Dusty Jones: Awesome. What about you, cat?

Cat Maiorca: So it's funny, like mine is kind of similar. I didn't think I wanted to do that, but I was working on my Master's degree, and was really I really liked making math fun for my students well, cause I was teaching high school and working at this and doing my master's at the same time. And I just really enjoyed like designing curriculum, and I had a lot of fun doing it. And so it was actually my mom who suggested that I take some classes at the doctoral level and see what see if I liked it so that I could keep doing that. So when I first started, I initially thought, I'm just gonna go design curriculum or work for a textbook company. But in my classes I got to work with so much like my love is stem and so I got to work with kids in like at our our rebel Academy. That we had our Saturday stem school, and I really enjoyed it. But then, when I got to go into the work with the pre-service teachers, they get, so they get just as excited as the little ones. and so getting to like. See them and do the Aha moments with them. That's what really made it fun for me. And so that's what that's where I decided I was like, Okay, I'm going to do this because I want to see that. Because if I do that Aha moment for a teacher, they're gonna get those with their kids. And I decided.

Dusty Jones: so, cat, what's some good advice? Or maybe the best advice that you had when you started teaching math teachers?

Cat Maiorca:  Okay. So the best advice actually did not come from a math educator from like she's now my very best friend, from California, and her name is Debra Ham. I'm purposely calling her app. Someone. Make her listen to this and embarrass her. But we got to teach in a cohort together, and so we're really close. And she influenced everything I do. So she helped me start looking at more equity issues. But the biggest thing she says is, walk away like, ask your question and walk away, and so so much so that our kids gave her a plaque that says, Walk away. and so that I just remember that like, you know, I wanna help. But the best thing I can do is walk away. Yeah. So that's influenced me the most. I think that's that's awesome. And her her students like that. Her students appreciate that, I guess, when they gave her that plaque.

Dusty Jones: What about you, Jessica? What's some? What's the best advice that you received?

Jessica Ivy: I think mine When I think about starting out as a math teacher educator, I really more starting out in Academia. So I had a mentor who told me to be sure to prioritize things. And you know, when you started, like as when I started, especially, I started tenure track in a tenure track line. And I'm wanting to do things, do things, do things, and everything is exciting. And they're all of these opportunities, especially service opportunities prioritize and selecting the things that really fit within my research line, fit like especially things could fit in multiple spaces. So if they could help with help me be a better teacher, but also fit in my research line. And so that means sometimes saying no right and prioritizing where you're going to spend your time, because ultimately we all have a limited amount of time and so just figuring out what needs to what, how you need to spend that time. What needs to weigh the most? Because we can't do everything, even if it's a really good and interesting thing. So I think my my biggest, the best device I received was just prioritizing and don't feel guilty when you can't do something that's really awesome, because it's gonna give someone else an opportunity to do that.

Dusty Jones: I like that. You know we it. It's not that the thing won't get done. It's that maybe somebody else will have an opportunity to to take that and and shine. And and and that's really cool. Yeah. So one of the things we're asking people is given the work that you do. Is there something? Some way you can kind of distill that, boil it down. encapsulate? What helps you center the work that you do. What's a word, a phrase, or a quote that helps you kind of focus on what you do in teaching mathematics teachers.

Jessica Ivy: So I'll start out. There isn't. There's an article. It's a really old article from Mtms. From 2,000 that Steven Reinhardt wrote. Never say anything a kid can say. And I I think about that phrase a lot. Even though my students are college students. Pausing and giving them opportunities. First is something we can model. But it's it's really important for them to giving them the space and then within the article there are several pieces of advice that that I try to carry with me. So things like valuing the process over the product. And so I think about that. I'm trying to model that. And we talked about that a lot in my in my classes as well. And I think it's just as true for for teachers as it is for our students to value, value that process and really explore that process. Because if you can work on that, then the product will happen. And then other things that are that are just super helpful from that like, never carry a pencil. Which basically means don't stop and do the kids work for them. And so yeah, I mean, it comes down to the never say anything I could say. So if you haven't read. If anyone hasn't read that it's an old article, but a wonderful article, and I always have messages. Read it as well.

Dusty Jones: Yeah, I've read that. I'll put that in the show notes so people can find that link there.

Cat Maiorca: What about you, cat? What's something that helps you center the work that you do? So that's interesting. I was just sharing this with my mom this morning that it's golden Circle for the Ted Talk, where, like the way her brain is wired like if you want to make something meaningful, you start with why, then how? And then what? And so I think that I always think about that. And it's always like, why are we doing something? And I want I always share that with my Preservice teachers, too, that like, it's important that we know the why. So it's important that I know my why, but also like, why are kids learning something? And how can they apply it in and then go backwards? And so I think that like really connects the way I teach math. And the way I look at integrated stem is through that golden circle. And it's a fabulous Ted Talk. I try to show every semester awesome.

Jennifer A. Wolfe: I really love what you both have shared here, because in the thinking about, like the pedagogy of pausing or just highlighting, how you intentionally pause, and then having those opportunities to reflect on why you do that in your methods, courses right like, what did we gain from intentionally pausing and listening to and building on students brilliances, and then further, like what you were saying, CAD, and if we have these kind of questions that frame like, Why are we doing this? What's the purpose? How? And taking a moment to pause and actually reflect on the ways in which you're modeling that in class, right? That can be very powerful experiences. So I think that's that's really awesome that you all center your work around those ideas.

Dusty Jones: So, thinking forward to the future. What advice would you give someone else who was starting out in teaching math teachers?

Cat Maiorca: So I think one of the things I would tell them. And I tell my students all the time, even when they're teaching the little ones that you have to pause, and you have to take time for yourself to do something fun. So because if we're not, you know. recharging our own battery, we can't help other. So that's one of the things I was like. Take time, do something fun. Don't feel guilty about it. and then know that when you go back to work you'll be you'll be a better teacher.

Jessica Ivy: So that's what I try to tell. That's really good advice, and just a follow up from that. It just a really specific thing. I'll try to do is at least once a semester find a day that doesn't have anything on it, and mark it off like in my ho, my calendar. I just mark myself busy for the day. I think we you know we tend to not get just an intentional day off, and sometimes we spend breaks catching up but having that time that you just designate, as no one else can reserve a meeting to stay. This is the day where I'm gonna do something something else. So I think that's that's part of that self care piece that was describing.

Dusty Jones: that's good, I mean. And this could really be applicable to careers beyond teaching math teachers what you've said. You know, it's important to take care of your whole self, but I think that's part of the issue. One of the one of the things that I think teachers are especially prone to is just trying to give as much as they can at at maybe sometimes to the detriment of their themselves. So so, thanks. That's really good advice. I'm glad that we're talking about this. I'm excited about maybe trying that strategy, Jessica, and picking a day that that there's a total solar eclipse coming next month, and the totalities coming right through my state. And but we're gonna have to travel a little bit if we wanna see the totality. So I think maybe that's a day that I'm just gonna call off and go not look directly at the sun. But okay. So one of the reasons we called you or I called you and said, Hey, let's I didn't call you. I'm sorry. One of the reasons I tracked you down at A. MTE. Was. I went to your session. The title was developing mathematics, lessons, and assessments with chat bots for learning in teacher education. innovation and challenges. I don't know if I emphasize the right words on that or not and there's a whole group of people that were involved with that. Thank you for for accepting the invitation to come and talk about it. let's just start with who all was involved in this. How did you get started with this? And then maybe we'll get more into what some of the big ideas were. But who was involved in this? How did it get started?

Cat Maiorca: So? As as like our we have, we are really blessed to have a fabulous group of friends. Who we do research with that we go to conferences like there. It's a family reunion with the family side you get you choose to hang out with and so it's part of a bigger group that we even got connected like during Covid. Excuse me. So it was, our presentation was like a subset. So a subset of the group and we call ourselves Stem rocks, and I'm afraid to call out everyone that I'm gonna forget them all. But I know that, like Margaret More, Schroeder and Krista Jackson, they they really started the work, and they brought everyone on like adopted us like family. And so it was a subset of that group. Just could you feel brave enough to try to call everyone out? I'm afraid I'll leave someone off.

Jessica Ivy: I don't. We have several leaders, but Sarah, you know Sarah Bush is another one. He's really a strong leader in the group. But there are at least a dozen of us we meet, you know we meet, and we try to do research together. And so we branch off into different projects. And this was one of the projects we worked on. So we, you know, we're all across the country and we have different different things we write on and we work on. And we research and and really help to encourage each other. I think going back to your question about advice. One piece of advice that kind of comes into play here. making sure that you're you have a group of people, and that group of people might not be at your university. So we encourage each other. We're going through this academic life together. We help each other when we need you know, advice on the specific thing, or one of us is looking for a job, or we have a paper that was rejected, and we have to figure out what to do. So we really help keep each other going. And it's been a very encouraging space. So this work was really a small project that came

Cat Maiorca: added that. And we we really envisioned it as a small thing when we when we started, it was really like, we just thought we want to go to mte together. And so let's do something. And and this was interesting. So we're like, let's just see what happens. So yeah, but that I guess you find your joy right? And

Dusty Jones: yeah, yeah, well, that's that's great. So in there, you were talking about a I using a I and there was some connection that I think that you made. That made me think about the use of calculators, and how that had a lot of resistance, and and even in a different. I was reading a journal that was not related to mathematics at all. Mathematics, education at all. But it talked about this in the early eighties and Nctm. Conference, where there were protesters outside, saying, You know. down with calculators or something like that. And now, you know, 40 years later, we're. We're not saying, Down with calculators, necessarily. But we are saying, Down with AI, or maybe we're not we. This is very large. Some people are against it. Some people are for it. Just this morning on the news I heard that the European Union has issued some guidelines for how AI should be used, and things like that, and when I went to your conference or your session at the Conference, I learned about this report that the U. United States Department of Education put out. And so I've looked at that. And I'm like, Okay, this is kind of interesting. This is, there's there's some guard rails, some guidelines with that. So what? Based on your work? You know a lot more than me. About this. So what what are some? What are the major messages that you were trying to let us know about at Amte.

Cat Maiorca: So one of the things that Megan and I were thinking about like when we did it in our classes. our kids are using it. And so we might like, we're gonna embrace it. But then we wanted to give them space where we could talk about it, and like highlight, the benefits of AI and the strengths of AI, and what it could do well, but also let let have them recognize, like what it maybe doesn't well, doesn't do well, and so that what we thought it was really important, and that you give your students space to play with it and to discuss it and analyze it and talk about it in a setting where you have like we're talking about in reference to math, Ed. So we want them to be thinking about. What about the pedagogies you're learning in class? What about the standards for mathematical practices and highlighting those things, but really giving them a safe place to play with it and to let them know like this is a tool that you need to know how to use. And and if we wanna teach our kids how to use it like the little ones. we as adults have to play with it and be comfortable using it. Otherwise we can't teach them a skill we don't have ourselves.

Jessica Ivy: We also kind of nodded back to the judicious use of technology which was described in an nctom your book several years ago, and that connected really well to the calculator piece. And I think it. I think it gave a familiar context for us to use, as we consider the use of AI, because, like, you know, like hat mentioned, and like we see in this emerging literature that's coming out like we, it shouldn't be it. It can't be this argument over whether we should or shouldn't use it because our students are gonna use it like it's here, it's created. But how can we use it judiciously? How can we be thoughtful. How can we be critical? How can this help us? To to be more critical, perhaps, of the lessonor of a task, or of a piece of a task or of an assessment. So you know, we have this tool that we can't uncreate. We have it. Let's think positively about how we could use it. Moving forward. So that's that was sort of the

Dusty Jones: like, how we came into the work. Yeah, so what are some? What are some productive ways that AI can be used in in teacher education

Cat Maiorca: sometimes. So the I want really important. And I think this is something we wanted our students to be aware of, too, is that equitable use that like to think about? Because some of the AI you have to pay for, and even like chat. Gpt, you get it up to like what? 2021 for free but limited limited queries and those kinds of things. If you want the full version, you have to pay and make that and get them to realize that like, who's gonna have access to this and who might not have access to this, and still making sure that they're advocating the best that they can for their students and letting them use it as a tool. So okay?

Dusty Jones: And I totally blanked out on your question. Sorry I was so like, I have to say this in yeah. Well, that's that's great. So with that equity lens right there of who can? Who might have access to it, or who might not have access to it? If we're looking at free versus pay? What are some productive ways that AI is being used or can be used in in teacher education.

Cat Maiorca: So I think it's a great place to sometimes, as a launching point to get an idea or sorry it'll save like it can save time. But knowing that, like. I cannot go in like Tuesday morning to teach a class Tuesday afternoon and put in, put it in a I and get a fabulous lesson. But I might get like an inspired lesson or an idea. The other thing that my students found is that it's on magic school, particularly that you can put in a context for a problem. So it was some graphic novel that one of their little children, their kids were reading. She hadn't read it. She didn't know anything about the characters, but you could literally tell it, like, you know, first grade adding and subtracting, using. And you could put the name of the novel in. And it wrote problems with the characters in it. And so that was something that their child was super excited about, because we did something that they loved. And so you can write Taylor Swift problems, and I cannot, because that's what the girls really enjoy, which it's okay. But it makes them excited, right? And it's like, so then all of a sudden, they think you like this graphic novel, or that you're excited about because you took the time. And so it kind of it's more efficient that way. It doesn't make Rupert, too.

Jessica Ivy: We did. Yeah, we found that largely. It was not great at writing the whole lesson like Cat said, and we are not suggesting that our students use it to create a lesson from start to finish. But get it when you feed it. Very specific prompts, or you have some back and forth dialog. It can create, perhaps an opening task or a nice analytic rubric. If you feed it, a problem and some specific criteria. You want to look for so in that ways it can be a time saver, or you can take a task and say, take this task and add in a context that the kids are interested in, like Nike Jordans or Taylor Swift, or something of that nature. And so there's some good things can come out of it. We've had mixed results with anticipating student responses, and some of that, you know. Sometimes we get grea student responses that it anticipates that really are realistic. And then sometimes it just gives us a bunch of correct ideas. That wasn't. It wasn't really super helpful. So it depends. And you know, from one conversation with an AI tool to the next, you get totally different things. So you know, it's it's getting better. But really we've had the most success wit picking maybe a stuck space in your lesson that you aren't sure. You know I I've got this lesson. But I really need to figure out how I'm going to. You know what's a great intro question to really hook the kids, or I have this great lesson. But II really need some help getting started on this rubric for the task. So it's that stuck space that we've had the most successful students coming in using AI and being able to get get unstuck, not necessarily using ex the exact product but using that product to help them move forward.

Cat Maiorca: One of the other things one of our colleagues has done is use like chat gpt in the class she guest lectured for me one day, and she did like a think pair chat gpt so that they were working together. But then also putting in prompts with Chat Gp and working on those those the skills that you need to get the right information that you want. So being very detailed. But using that information just like you'd use the Internet, right? People were against using Google, too. But then, I mean, but then, being able to like really harness it for that power, so that it would add to the discussion, and then they are my pre-service. Teachers were learning how to use it. And then how could they use it with their kids in their classrooms as well.

Jennifer A. Wolfe: I really love that idea of a stuck space like having them think about. Okay, where am I stuck? And then how am I creating really good questions to ask, as well as providing enough context for what I'm doing to help me navigate the stuck space. So I really like that kind of a a place for them to think about, not just putting in information, to be able to go that next day. And just, you know, or that that morning right, and do a lesson, but really thinking about where these pieces, where we get stuck. And then how do we carefully craft the questions that can help us get unstuck. But in also doing that in collaboration with our peers, I think that's a powerful, powerful way to kind of approach this.

Cat Maiorca: One of the other things we noticed is that like. when you ask, your elementary school teachers are very nice, they're very, very nice people, and they don't ever want to like. Say, someone is doing something badly. But when they were looking at at the lesson plans they got even from magic school they were totally comfortable, telling the computer, telling us that the computer did a bad job, whereas if they were watching like another looking at another classmates, lesson plans, they would always have something super nice to say, but they were comfortable, saying, This is an I do, we do. This is not. And so it gave us a tool to have them look at lessons that weren't great, and then they were able to identify how they weren't great and then modify them and then come up with like better quotes to like really finesse it so that they're getting closer. But they they felt more comfortable because the computer doesn't have feelings

Dusty Jones: that that's a good point. I I've noticed that phenomenon when I go to ask students to critique each other's work. and everybody does great. Everybody gets like an A, you know. If I were to add, I don't ask them for letter grades, but that's that's the feeling that's the vibe is that everybody's doing great. And I like that. You're just introducing this thing that you can't hurt its feelings. Here it is. What do you think? Can you evaluate that yeah, that's cool. So something that you said that just made me think about this, and I don't know if I was talking with a friend of mine or some colleagues that

Jennifer A. Wolfe: like this idea of feelings right like it doesn't have feelings. But I've also been told that, like you'll get different responses depending on the time of day. And then the way that you respond to the feedback that they give you like. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's a really good way that you kind of orchestrated this particular thing, and then by doing that, it can actually give you different responses. But I'm not sure this is just something I was like. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. So I don't know if, being kind and nice to the the AI actually evokes different responses. That you might get.

Jessica Ivy: And that's a good question. I don't know. I found that when I put in a request for something I often will say, please, or you know things like that. And I'm like, Why am I telling this AI bot to please do something? I could just order it around, but it's sort of the way I think the mannerisms just carry through. So I haven't. It seems to be cordial to me as well. It's mirroring that same attitude. That's a that's a really good question. I mean, I do know that it's.
 you know. as we're preparing for this for an upcoming webinar. We you know we were talking about some of the the things we wanna demo and we were like we should make sure that we are ready with the right prompts, because your prompt makes a big difference. But you cannot count on getting the same feedback for the same prompt. And so, even though we might prepare prompt, we think, is going to lead in a good at a good space. You do, you know it's it doesn't. It's not dependable like in terms of it's not going to be the same response next time. So there's this you know, there's a big, a big mystery to it, too. This sounds like an excellent context. For, like, what's not a function, you know. Here, I'm giving the same input

Dusty Jones: but I'm getting different outputs. Yeah.

Cat Maiorca: My students noticed it like they're sitting next to each other. They put the same prompt in, and they got totally different things, completely, totally different things. And they put exactly the same prop. So like, you have no control. So yeah, yeah.

Dusty Jones: so you mentioned a webinar can you tell us a bit about that.

Jessica Ivy: Sure. We have an amte webinar that's coming up on April third at 11 Am. Central. It's titled AI powered math education. What math teacher educators need to know. So there is us, there's a group of us. So it's a it's a subset of the Stem Rocks group that cat mentioned earlier. And we're going to be leading this webinar. We're gonna share some of the
 some highlights from the literature. And you know what's really exciting about the literature related to AI is that it's new. You know. I felt like I was in the space of a doctoral student again, going back and digging through things that were totally, just totally new. And I didn't have really something to tie them to. So anyway, we're gonna share a few highlights from that. We're gonna talk about the study a little more. We're gonna talk about teaching and assessment with AI and then have some exploration space. So we're really excited coming up on April third, and then what? We're gonna have some panel discussants from the technology committee there as well.

Dusty Jones: Awesome. We'll put that link. Actually, I've already got it in the show notes, so it's ready to go once we get this out and the webinar is free, and you just have to be an amte member. So if you're like, well, that's not free. Well, okay, but it's a member benefit there. Is there anything else you'd like to promote or share that that's coming up? Besides that, webinar.

Jessica Ivy: That's a good question. I think I just encourage everybody to to explore the tools that are out there. You know, we don't necessarily promote one AI tool over the other. But you know, magic school has lots of teacher related resources, and then we've used Claude's nice because you can upload documents, and you know, Chat Gp is kind of the go-to that lots of folks have used, and you may have other things that you like, but I would just encourage everyone to to really try to think judiciously about the tools that are out there and recognize that our students are are going to use them and think about how we can, how we can use them to help help us be better teachers and help our students to be better teachers.

Cat Maiorca: I guess, definitely take the time to play with it like, have some fun, someone was saying like, Get it to plan a menu for the week. And just so, it's like anything we play with it. Yeah, yeah. My wife is experimenting with having it planned some different

Dusty Jones: vacation routes options, you know, to do on vacation. I was like, well, that's that's great. That takes like that's a stuck space for me, you know, what are we gonna do when we get there?

Jennifer A. Wolfe: So for my final stuck space, like, I'm always thinking about that, like I think about when I'm at breakfast. Where am I going to go for lunch? And then when I have lunch, where am I going to go for dinner? And then how are we going to do all the other activities in between? It's like you could just ask, provide an iterary for this particular city that we're going to.

Jessica Ivy: and then double check, because occasionally and sometimes there, you know, there's information. But yeah, I mean, that's a great use. Yeah, it might tell you, you know. Hey? You're gonna be here. Go to burning man, and you're like, well, burning man's not happening right now, you know. So

Dusty Jones: check that out. What is something that you like to do outside of your role as a teacher of math teachers?

Jessica Ivy: I'll start. I really like to. I'm guessing I'm I'm thinking you're thinking this is more of a what are what are things we enjoy personally like human. I love to bake sourdough bread and make other sourdough products. So I have a sourdough starter. And so I make pasta and crackers and bread and that's something that I can share, which is a lot of fun, and then, when the weather is nice, My family and I like to go on outdoor ventures like hiking, and you know we were in Kentucky for a little while. There's some beautiful waterfalls, and during sort of covid, when things were so limited that was something that we were became really interested in. So we still enjoy hiking, camping that kind of thing.

Dusty Jones: What about you, cat? What's something you like to do?

Cat Maiorca: Okay, so I absolutely love Pilates, but on the reformer Pilates I'm not like on the map, Pilates, but reformer like old Lady Pilates, but very hardcore. It is hardcore, but it's safer on your back. I absolutely love it. And I tried to do that as much as possible. But I also love like I like spending time with my family, and I love being able to go to Las Vegas and see my husband. And we have 2 little pugs. Those are our children. So I spend a lot of time with the pugs who are outside with my mom right now. So they would not bark during the podcast cause. That's what they would do. So yeah, so that's what I try to do.

Dusty Jones: Well, thanks. So much for joining us today. This has been a lot of fun, and I'm glad we get to share it with our listeners.

Jennifer A. Wolfe: Yes, thank you so much. Y'all

Dusty Jones: thanks for having us. Thank you so much and to the listeners. Thanks again for listening to the teaching math, teaching, podcast if you like, what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast we're hope, you're able to take action on something you just heard maybe play around with some of these A I tools and interact with other math teacher educators just like Jessica and Kat recommended, find a group of people that you can work with.
 Also, did you know that a MTE has another, podcast, the mathematics, teacher, educator, podcast. the Mte podcast, accompanies the latest edition of the mathematics, teacher, educator, journal and has authors discuss the work. They've submitted for publication to the journal. find a link to the Mte. Podcast in the show notes for this episode.