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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 fan hyzer. Me, dusty Jones and Joel Amidon. Today we're talking with Lydia classless Lydia, isn't it instructional coach for math and science at parmley? Elementary in Willis, Texas. We're talking with her for a number of reasons. But specifically, we wanted to hear about her experiences as an instructional coach, as school has moved away from the building. Also, I should mention, Lydia was my math coach, when I taught fourth grade A few years ago. Welcome Lydia, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background in teaching? Sure, I have been in teaching for 30 years, and I have had a variety of roles. I began as a special education teacher. And then I stayed at home with my four children for five years. And then when I went back, I was a third grade math science and social studies teacher at a title one elementary school here in Huntsville, Texas. After eight years, I was an an interventionists for mathematics at that school. So what does that mean? That means that I worked with students who were struggling or needed reteach or small group instruction that the teacher needed help with as well. I worked with second grade through fourth grade with that, um, in 2010, I had a wonderful opportunity to become part of the Texas regional collaboratives, math teacher mentor program through region six. And that was a two year program that I completed, and that was to groom teachers to be math leaders on campuses. I learned a lot and I've made a lot of professional contacts and new friends. I count that as one of the blessings in my career, huge opportunity. It led to me being two years of an elementary math specialist at region six education Service Center here in Huntsville. But I am a child person, I am a campus person, I really missed the connection to being in schools and in classrooms, and working with teachers and children on a daily basis. So I went back to Huntsville as a math instructional coach. And then I moved to Willis, this I've been in Willis for three years as a math science instructional coach. So I've been on another learning curve trying to learn the science aspect of everything. That's pretty much my history. So as you're in your current role as a math science, instructional coach, what classes and teachers do you support, I support every kindergarten first and second grade teacher on my campus with math and science instruction. Math is the priority in K one and two, although we find that those children love science, so a lot of the hands on science is happening in those lower grades. Those teachers k one and two are all self contained. third, fourth and fifth grade, I work with the math and science teachers. So there's three on each team. So nine, and then it's so about 23 teachers all together. I also help special ed teachers when they need assistance. So I'm available to anyone on our campus who needs instructional support for mathematics or science. That was kind of what was happening, you know, the last couple of years and then up through, I guess, around the middle of March, and then the pandemic comes. And so how does your role? How is your role changed? Now that the buildings are closed, and I guess just for our listeners out there, eventually Texas, closed for the entire year. At first it was I think, for a couple of weeks, and then a month. And now the school has just been closed for a year for the rest of the school year rather. So Lydia, what sorts of things are you doing now? Well, my main role is to support instruction. And I am still doing that it's just the format that I'm doing it is a little bit different. I've identified three things that I think a good instructional coach, regardless of the content that they are responsible for. They need to have strong relationships with teachers. They need to have a vertical alignment of takes in your brain at all times. And you are the person for best practices for teaching mathematics and science. So when I keep those three things in mind, those have not changed. It's just that we went I'm going to use the word catapult

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Because that's exactly what we feel like we have been going through, we've been kept metaphor. Yeah. Something that none of us were prepared for. It's a trite phrase build the plane as you fly it. That is exactly what we have been doing. The first week, right after spring break, I spent hours with our leadership team, the technology coach, the literacy coach, our principal and our assistant principal, we spent hours battling back and forth, what is the best way to do this, because we knew that we had to have something in place by March 30. That was the benchmark date that we were given. We had some teachers who were real go getters and who wanted to try some Google meets with kids before that March 30. date. So we had some volunteers of we had a first grade teacher, and we had a fourth grade teacher who helped us decide what platforms might work and what might be realistic or not. So I hope I'm answering your question is Yeah, okay. So what we decided was that teachers would only go back and solidify instruction or reteach instruction, on those really important essential standards that we had identified. My principal was adamant that there would be no new content taught to students. She didn't feel that that was fair. It wasn't fair to parents, it wasn't fair to children, and that no one would be receiving a letter or numeric grade, it was just our main goal was to help students maintain what they had already learned, and to help them stay connected with people with their teacher and their classes. So lots of things went bouncing around, we tried zoom, and then the district said, No, we're a Google district. So we need to use the Google platforms. So we are using Google mates, and we are using Google Classroom. And then it was decided that on our campus that teachers would post a video and instructional video on Monday with a short assignment. And then they would meet with their class later in the week on Google meats, to go over whatever work was done and to answer questions and just to stay connected. So this is our fifth week of doing that started on March 30. And we are in our fifth week, it seems to be working really well. We had teachers at different levels of technology, expertise, we have a teacher who is 70 years old, who always has wanted help and support with technology in her classroom. And what she has been able to accomplish in these five weeks is just it's just astounding. Some of the videos the first week, we were just checking off to see whether they were done or not. But then I started watching them. And you can see the teachers growing and feeling more comfortable in a video lesson format, was something that we wanted teachers to try in the classroom. But you know, there's a lot of fear and you don't want to watch yourself and you don't like the way you sound on a recording. So a lot of those kinds of fears, I think have kind of dissipated because they didn't have any choice, they had to do this. We've had about a 50% participation rate. documentation is key. Because as you know, schools are received funding based on attendance. So we just got word today that the documentation of children who are engaged or unengaged will count towards whatever kind of funding our district will get. It's been a journey, we've learned a lot. We've also realized that when if and when we are able to go back into our classrooms that recording your lessons and the benefits that this is going to have. When you're out and you have a substitute teacher. Well, your students don't have to miss instruction. If you have recorded your ahead of time. Students who might be in some sort of a disciplinary action and are removed from their classroom can also receive instruction from their teacher with another paraprofessional, possibly via computer but they're not in the classroom, but they're still receiving their teachers instruction. So some of the things that have come

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To light on this terrible situation, have some huge, I think some huge benefits for us in the future. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love the metaphor of the catapult. I think that's because I could just imagine, you know, sitting in a catapult and it's slowly getting pulled back, like we had a week where we could plan are, well, how we're going to, you know, deal with our new reality going forward. It's like that. But then as soon as that thing gets let loose, like Okay, here we go, let's see how this stuff works. And so I like that metaphor. But also, I just had some questions for you regarding your Well, two questions. One, how did your three keys and maybe even specifically thinking about best practices? How did that inform how you interacted with teachers, as they started rolling, you know, as they started flying forward on the catapult, right, how did that those that those three keys, kind of help inform how you interacted with them? And then what do you do with gaps going forward? Like already? Are you already thinking about the start of the fall, like and thinking about, like, hey, there's some content that wasn't taught. So I gave you two questions. I'll let you attack any of them you want or however you want to go about it. So the first question was supporting teachers with best practices. So we are a professional learning community campus. And so we have collaborative meetings weekly, in addition to a planning meeting with each grade level. So it's what we would do on a regular basis. So we still had those while we were, we just did them virtually through Google meats. The technology coach had not really participated in those in the past, but she did this time, she was a wealth of information and a great troubleshooter. You know, if we're ever questioning the types of skills and expertise that someone in that position can bring to a campus, she certainly proved it in a few weeks. So great addition to the PLC there. That's great. Yeah, absolutely. So she was included in the literacy coach was included in myself and our Lea our two leaders. In grade level collaborative meetings, we had those just like we would if we were on campus, we just did them through Google meats. So that's how we talked about we hashed out a lot of things. One example was that with our first grade team, who's a very cohesive team, but I wanted them to go back and review a place value standard that they had done at the beginning of the year, where they were composing and decomposing numbers to 120, they were reluctant to try it. It took me a couple of weeks to convince them because they thought addition and subtraction was what they needed to focus on. And so we let them do that. But then I said, you know, addition and subtraction is within 20. And students need to remember and be be exposed again, to those higher numbers, what are the different ways we can do that? Oh, it kind of forced them out of their comfort box, we talked about all the different ways that you can represent all of the different objects that students might have access to at home. And then the students who are participating on the online platform, starting to use some of those Virtual Manipulatives. So those are some things they hadn't really done before they were kind of hung up on the base 10 blocks that you've got to think of, you got to think outside the box on that, what are some other things that that students could use to represent those numbers. So it took some time, it probably would have taken some time at school too. But they really they started to embrace it. And this is their second week of they decided to chunk it into numbers 250, and then numbers to 100. I don't know if we're gonna cross that bridge over 100. And that will be kind of their beginning place when they go to second grade. Okay, I hope that answered your first question. Yeah, definitely. And Lydia, that sounds like you're thinking about that, that vertical alignment of the standards that that are there, you have that view as the coach, whereas I'm not saying first grade teachers don't have that view. But you certainly have that bigger picture of knowing what those students you know, place value so important at all, at all grade levels. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's kind of my job is I feel like I'm the liaison between grade levels, and getting teachers to see what came before and what, what, where they're where they're headed. So Joel's second question about gap instruction. I was concerned about that from the get go. And I started bugging my math coordinator here and Willis and I said, you know, this is something that I

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Math coach team really, really needs to start tackling. I am blessed that I have four other elementary math coaches to work with in the district. And there are two middle school math coaches, as well as a math coordinator and a science coordinator. So we're a really strong team. And we've started to tackle that right now. We have put together a group of teachers, oh, and I feel like I'm going back and forth. About three weeks ago, we discovered that not all campuses, were really aligned on the content that we were reteaching. So we brought together a group of teachers, a representative from each grade level, to kind of hash out what we were going to do for the remaining weeks, so that there was a little bit more continuity for students, even though you know, you have half participating, I think it's kind of a moot point, I don't know where students are going to be. One of the things that really bothers me, too, is equity. The kids who have access to technology, who have parents who understand the education system, they're going to be okay, but our students who we worried about already, we're going to be even more concerned about moving forward. So this gap instruction is going to be really, really important. So we're taking that same team that identified standards for the rest of the year, we're going to bring them back together. And it's going to be the week of May 18. And we are going to look at pacing guides, we are going to look at vertical alignment. And we've got a calendar. And we're going to look at our units. And what are the changes that we need to make what are the units that need to be extended to allow for the missed instruction, or possibly those really important and essential standards that didn't get the review that they should have had. So we're still in the throes of that. I'm worried that if we don't go back into the classroom in August that this is going we're going to have to revamp it again. But we're at that point where we're really having to boil down what are the essential standards that each grade level needs to focus on? That's kind of where we are. So I have two questions as well. One is just a follow up on what you've said to Joel's first question. And I was wondering, as you were talking about grouping and regrouping numbers up to 120. What do you could give some specific examples like which Virtual Manipulatives that you suggested teachers should use? And if you were thinking about what they have in the home, like what came to mind? And my second question is following up on your second point, and maybe a little more specifically, how are you working with students with special need or that needs special support? So the first question, I am a big fan of math learning center.org. And there are free apps for Chromebooks and iPads. There's place value, there's money, there's base 10 blocks, there's pattern blocks, I created a video using their number line. So that is where we went because it's free, it was easily downloadable onto whatever device a child might have at home. Other things that we talked about, I was kind of iffy on a few things, because I feel like it really needs to be proportional, especially in first grade. If we give a child a pretzel rod, then the marshmallows that line up to the pretzel rod, the 10 needs to match the pretzel. So we talked about a lot of those different kinds of things. And some of them may not be as proportional as we would like them to be. But we talked about cereal, we talked about just putting things in containers, grouping tins, and containers. We talked about pretzel rods and marshmallows or just things that we thought might be easily obtainable at home. They had done the sketch of base 10 blocks already. So we talked about how that could be done virtually everything that they did with those items were in their video as well. So there was a stration that went along with that. What was the second part again, special ed students. So our special ed teachers have also been contacting their students, and they have been offering math lessons or guided reading lessons, one on one through a Google mate. How

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However, that population, I talked to two of our special ed teachers just on Monday, and that population has not been responding, like we would hope that they would, they've been attempting to do their interventions. And they're and to, to continue work on students IEP s, virtually, there has also been work sent home, there have been what we called low tech packets. So there were two or three different times where parents could come up to the school, to pick up things for their students to work on at home. Again, the response to that has kind of tapered off. So it's been a hit or miss. But everybody has been trying, if there have been the very first week, if there were people that we could not contact, then our leadership team was trying to contact those parents and children. Even some of our central office, people have been involved at trying to reach out because the goal was to reach every single student. I don't think we made it to 100%. But I don't think we I think we're somewhere between 85 and 90% district wide, at least contacting people and checking on them. Did that answer your question? I hope? Yes. Thank you so much, buddy. Is there anything else you want to share about this experience and what you've learned, you've really given us a lot to think about, all I can say is, and you've probably seen it all over social media, is that teachers are not given enough credit for what they do. Every single teacher on our campus has stepped up to the plate and attempted things that are way outside their comfort zone. They weren't given a choice. I mean, we were still receiving a paycheck. So we were still on contract. But it didn't even have anything to do with that it was a testament to our teachers commitment to students into learning. And I just cannot say enough that I'm sure this applies to everybody across the United States, that what teachers have been asked to do and the tools that they had, and the amount of time that they were given to plan and prepare. It's been simply amazing. Yeah, and this is Teacher Appreciation Week. We're recording this during that time. So that's a that is a great testament. And in honor of that Lydia, as one of my mentors in the classroom, I really just want to say thank you for helping make me a better math, science and social studies teacher. So those fourth grade students, you know,

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you know, the struggles I went through there. So I really appreciate the help that you gave me at that time. Well, you're very welcome. I wish I could have done more. I don't feel like I did enough to help you. Well,

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what if people say we're doing the best we can? I don't know if that's true, but

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we're really trying. I know, I know. But I really appreciate being asked to do this. This is an honor. And I certainly hope that I gave you some valuable information moving forward. Like I said, I don't think we're done with this by any stretch of the word, just trying to figure it out as we go. I like how you kind of had your three goals or the things that those responsibilities that are good instructional coach has, you know, having those strong relationships with the teachers a strong interpersonal relationships, knowing down pat the vertical alignment of the standards, and then being the go to person for those best practices? I mean, you that translates no matter what the situation that we're in, I think that's that's really helpful. Absolutely. Well, thanks again, everyone, for listening to the teaching math teaching podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. We hope that you're able to implement something that you just heard and take an opportunity to interact with other math teacher, educators.