Episode 76: Teacher Spotlight - Elementary Math Transcript


Voiceover: Welcome to the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. Each week we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self-paced, and mastery-based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. 




Toni Rose: Hello, and welcome to episode 76 of the Modern Classroom Project Podcast. My name is Toni Rose, he/her pronouns, and I'm a program manager at Modern Classroom. Today I'm joined by teacher besties Andrea and Beth, who bounce ideas off of one another. So Andrea is actually one of our mentors, recently - she's brand new. And also Beth just got last week a notification or an email from us saying that she's now a DMCE. So really exciting. So welcome, Andrea. 


Andrea: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. 


Toni Rose: And welcome, Beth. 


Beth: Thank you. I'm excited. It's so exciting to be in a space with you both. And thank you so much for saying yes to the podcast. So before we get started, I'd like to give you all an opportunity to introduce yourselves. So could you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you teach, a little bit of your school context, how you started your MCP journey, how you're feeling today? Anything? 


Andrea: All right. My name is Andrea Mahr. I currently teach fifth grade at Stanley Boyd School District. It's a little town in Wisconsin, central-ish Wisconsin. My Modern Classroom journey started back last spring. Beth and I, we like to listen to the Cult of Pedagogy podcast. And so she reached out to me asking if I heard one of Kareem's episodes. And so I listened. I was hooked. I wasn't quite ready to jump in just because it was an irregular school year. But I took the summer course in 2021. I took the course during the summer of 2021, the free course, and I just jumped right in this year in math. So I'm recently a mentor, and I'm super excited for this journey and where it can lead. 


Beth: And so I am Beth Copleen. I teach fourth grade in Southeast Wisconsin, formerly at the same school as Andrea. Andrea and I actually started dabbling in self-pacing and hyperdocs like, way back in 2018, but I can never really figure out how to make it work. And then during lockdown 2020, I heard Kareem’s episode on making good screencasts, and I think he mentioned Modern Classrooms. And so that kind of got my wheels turning. And then I was finally brave enough to implement it last spring in 2021. And once, I think I got a couple of weeks in, and it felt like just a lightbulb moment for me. And I had to email Andrea all about it because I knew that she'd really be interested in and be on board with trying it with me. 


Toni Rose: And so you two are able to do it kind of together, right? 


Beth: Yeah, for sure. 


Andrea: Well, Beth, you started first she was jumping in first, and then I was like, you give me the feedback. And when she was onboard, I was onboard with her. 


Toni Rose: I love that. I know sometimes teachers really listen to their teacher besties. I know that I wouldn't have been able to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do in education without my teacher besties. So I'm really glad that you two are able to work together for sure. So thank you for that. So now to start off, we've had a lot of questions about MCP and elementary classes. So what does the modern classroom project model look like in elementary math? 


Andrea: Well, I just felt like that was a really natural place for me to start. You know, I kind of like the logical order of math and how it builds on things for me. I teach fifth grade, so when the kids come in, we have math in the morning. And so I like to start with a do now activity which was recommended. We have little math boxes in our math resource that have automatic spiral problems. And so I like to use those as our do now because it just kind of keeps that continual review. And then we usually review our public progress tracker together. I might do a little mini whole group lesson and we talk about what's on pace. I like to give feedback to the kids on how they're doing, shout out to some rock star workers and things like that. If I need to pull a small group, I will usually mention that right in the beginning when we're kind of getting the pace of the day and what it will look like. And so kids know right away, like who's going to be meeting with me and what that will all entail before they jump in. I really do hate to disrupt them when they're in the middle of their learning path. It just doesn't feel quite right when they're so focused. So I like to kind of give them a heads up like, “I'm going to be meeting with you today.” Recently, I've tried to bring in a little bit more of a goal setting, and so we'll look at the kids’ - I'm using game board, and so I will print the game board as their student facing tracker, and they can physically check it off. But we also use that for goal setting. So I'll have them get out their highlighter and just highlight the certain parts of the lesson that they think they can accomplish in that day. It kind of laser-focuses them, and I have a lot better. Like, I can just tell on days when I forget to do that and days when I don't because they just are so much more focused. I just let them hop to it and then we get going. I use the electronic game board so there's a lot of cool game board versions out there that many teachers have made, I think not maybe a big difference, but something I really like to do is make my game board a one stop shop where I literally hyperlink everything. The guided notes are there, and they can see what that looks like. Any videos are linked right there. So I don't have like, I use Google Classroom. I don't have different events or different assignments for every lesson. It's all just within that game board, and they can click and progress as they see fit or as they're supposed to go through the learning progression. I don't know. Beth, do you want to chime in on some things you do? 


Beth: Yeah. So I think that it probably looks pretty similar. So I do use a game board for a student facing tracker. And every student we actually just launched a new unit today. And so every student gets a copy of the game board, and that's also uploaded to Google Classroom. And then as view only. And it does have all of the links. So I think Andrea and I structure it very similarly, probably because we've collaborated about it. And then I also give them view-only to a spreadsheet progress tracker where I keep track of the students, more of like what you see, I guess, as a traditional progress tracker or the teacher-facing tracker. But they can see it just as another way to know, maybe, who would be good to collaborate with. And then that's where I highlight, like Andrea mentioned, rockstar workers, or I just actually added a wall of experts that I saw on the Facebook group. And that's been kind of a fun way to get some positive shout-outs, just in a little bit different. And so basically we start the day with a whole group lesson. My math program does not have really built-in spiral review. So I start with a spiral review question, and then they go right into the game board. We look at the progress tracker. Everyone gets going and kind of depending on the day, I might pull groups or work one-on-one. And then at the end we do a quick reflection. 4-3-2-1 on how they felt that their understanding was for that day. 


Toni Rose: I love that you have a routine. Both of you have your opening routines and the closing routines as well, which is great and exciting. I have some follow up questions. So, Andrea, you talked about the small group and basically letting students know before they get started. How does that look like exactly? Do you make an announcement? Is it up on the board? And how do your students feel about that? 


Andrea: So I have the public-facing tracker. That is a spreadsheet as well. It's all color-coded to match the lessons. And so actually on the left side, I just have a little column that says small group, and I'll put names in there. It's kind of almost more of a reminder for me when I'm giving them the daily to dos, but they know they're all about it. This is silly, but I have bigger whiteboards. Normally a whiteboard is like the size of a sheet of paper, but I have some mega ones that I accidentally ordered on a requisition one year and they're very mega size and the kids love to use them. So it's kind of a perk of like “come to small group and you can use these mega whiteboards.” We kind of just pick a spot in the room where it's not very occupied. I don't really have a teacher table, but I have flexible seating. So I'll just say meet me over here. But I will say just with the data-driven decision making and how my kids are doing, I do a lot more one-on-one and just quick refreshers than I do small groups. It's not even a daily thing. It's probably every other day type thing. 


Toni Rose: Yeah. And I'm glad that you mentioned flexible seating. I did that as well in my English classes. However, when they first come in students, they have a seating chart or seating arrangement. Right. So for those 1st 5-10 minutes where we have this opening routine where they do their do now and then we go over their pacing tracker and whatever announcements we had to cover, they also knew that based on where they were sitting, that was who they were going to be working with. So that could change every day. It could change every week. It just really depends on the lesson and the skills that we were covering. And so the students really were aware of that and they just kind of knew walking in. So like you said, I never wanted to interrupt and be like, “oh, by the way, now I'm going to work with these students.” Those were already put on the PowerPoint in front of them as soon as they walked in. And so I'm curious to see this game board. You hyperlink, both of you hyperlink it. And so does that mean that the students make a copy of the assignments and then upload it on Google Classroom? How does that look? 


Andrea: Most of my stuff is paper-based still and I do have, like, a little hanging file folder area. So they're guided notes. It's all labeled. They go over to the file folder area, grab guided notes one, but they can match it and make sure it can see it and make sure it aligns to what they're doing. It's also color-coded, but the electronic activities, it doesn't really prompt them to make a copy. Like I might use, like, an Edpuzzle thing or some kind of thing where they can just do it and I can track it. I don't know. I guess so much of it is paper-based that all the videos are the big things that they need to access on that hyperlink document. So they have a video that goes along with the guided notes, and it's all housed on that electronic game board. 


Beth: Yeah, I'm the same one thing. So I don't link a lot to Google Classroom assignments, although sometimes they do. Most of the links are either to Edpuzzle for the video or IXL or a different website that I can link directly to the assignment in the website instead of a lesson in my Google Classroom, if that makes sense. So really, for the whole unit, the only things that they really need to access on Google Classroom is the student-facing tracker and then the spreadsheet tracker, and then everything else, the links take them to, like, outside of the LMS. Occasionally, for example, today I did link to a quizzes assignment that linked to another Google Classroom assignment. And I just take the link so that when they click on it, it just takes them to the exact assignment. So I really have tried to prompt and kind of train the students that they should just always open the game board. And don't worry about finding things in Google Classroom, because if they click the link, I've done that for them. 


Toni Rose: Great. Thank you for that. Also, just on a side note, Andrea and Beth, would it be okay if you all can share examples of, like, your due now and your gameboard? 


Andrea: Sure. 


Toni Rose: Okay, great. Cool. Perfect. So listeners, you'll also have access to the resources that will be in the show notes. So you'll see the examples that Beth and Andrea are talking about as far as the game board, and they're do now as well. Okay, cool. So what were some of the challenges and what were some of the celebrations of implementing Modern Classroom in your math classes? 


Beth: So I implemented it last spring, and I feel like I didn't truthfully have many challenges. It was a lot easier. It kind of was a more seamless transition than I had thought. I spent a long time stalking posts on the Facebook group and asking lots of questions, and then I kind of was able to use a lot of the language and the verbiage that I was already using in my classroom just in the model. And so I think in that way, implementing it in the spring was really helpful to me. And so some of those celebrations were, especially last year, which was like the first kind of COVID year where we're trying to, I was teaching simultaneous in-person and online and had kids in and out all the time. My district had made it so that anyone could be virtual any day. So I might have a student be present Tuesday and decide to be virtual on Wednesday and pop on the Meet. And so doing this model really made it so that they could do that. And it wasn't a lot of extra prep for me because I was prepping on the front end for that. And then because again, COVID, students who were absent for a really long time, even if they maybe didn't have Internet access or were ill and weren't able to keep up when they were at home, they didn't miss that instruction. And I think that was a big thing for me that made me really realize that it was a model that was worth it. It is more prep on the front end, but it was so worth it. When I had students who had been gone for five or six or seven or ten or twelve days and could come back and pick up right where they left off, that was a major celebration for me. This year I'm seeing a little more challenges as far as the executive functioning skills, just with the group of students that I have. And you could say it's a challenge, but I also think it's a good thing because I'm able to spend so much time helping them manage and organize and figure out what works best for them that I maybe wouldn't be able to do in a traditional model of teaching. 


Toni Rose: Yeah. And it's great that you mentioned executive functioning skills because I feel like as adults, we also struggle with that. Let's be honest.


Beth: 100%. I wish that I was the kid who went to college and figured out that I have to manage my time now. How do I do that? And so thinking about if I were nine and had an adult helping me figure those things out, I wish that I had had that for sure. 


Andrea: For sure. I would say for me, some challenges are kind of aligned to what Beth was saying as far as like there are some students that need a little bit more of me and I can figure out who those are immediately right. I have some friends who like to stand up and kind of be very social or fall behind pace. And so just like little things like that, where they kind of struggle with the amount of freedom, I would say. You just quickly discover who needs to be closer to you in proximity and just little things like that. But thankfully a lot of those things are quick fixes and kids, I am also thankful that my kids have really latched onto the model. They were just as excited about it as me to have a little more voice and choice and they have been doing wonderful with it. And so my big celebration is just the best math scores I've ever had. I can see kids taking charge of their own learning. I have so much more natural, authentic collaboration in my room. A lot of my kids can work with each other on everything except for the mastery checks. And I see that constantly. They are always helping each other out. And I even have like little groups or pods of people who will kind of stay on pace together and work as a team throughout the unit. I just love seeing that. And I love hearing the language that they're speaking with each other because I've always been a firm believer - if you can teach it to others, you have truly mastered it. And I see that with so many of my students now that I never saw before. 


Toni Rose: Yes, I say that all the time as well, Andrea. It's just like my kids just eat it up, right? Like, oh, okay, I get to talk and I get to be with my peers. So, yeah, I'll definitely do it. These are all music to my ears. The model allows for learning to keep going regardless of whether they're at home or they're in the classroom or they're somewhere else, right? And then just being able to really work authentically with each other and not forcing them. It's just such a beautiful learning and teaching environment. And so since you were talking about the game board, I know that you both mentioned that you add prerequisite skills into the unit plan and the game board. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about your process? 


Beth: Yeah. So that was something that I had thought about last year when I was thinking about how changes I wanted to make to my system coming into this school year. And one thing I wanted to do was figure out a way to have small groups. That was how it started because, like Andrea said, though, my one kind of good struggle when I first implemented it is they would be so focused, I felt bad pulling them for a group. And so I wanted to figure out a way to have meaningful groups. And one of the things I wanted to do was pull groups for prerequisite skills. However, I was noticing this year, because of probably a lot of different reasons, that most of my students were missing some prerequisite skills for each unit. And so it wouldn't be pulling a small group. It was the majority of my students needed work with those skills. And so I just started adding the beginning of my game board being those prerequisite skills to help build them up so that they were able to access the grade level content more successfully. And I'm very lucky that the math program that I teach from has a prerequisite skill test for every unit. And so I actually just use that from the program. And then when I'm planning it suggests resources with the program that I could use to teach that if there is a deficit in that area. And then I also then use some online resources to find prerequisite tasks and skills for whatever standards, fourth grade standards that I'm teaching. And so my long term goal would be that my students would be able to access the unit at different points based on their pretest. But this year, the way it's working out is that I'm just having all students access at the beginning and get those prerequisite skills because that's what they need this year. 


Toni Rose: Yeah. I never even thought about that because the way I did was a unit zero, and that was just essentially all the skills that they needed for the year. But I think it may be even just as impactful if we chunk it. So whatever students need for unit one, what are those prerequisite skills that they can be successful in unit one? I've never even really thought of it that way. So this is a great idea. And I love that, Beth, you said there are multiple entry points for students, and so just providing that option, just having a prerequisite test or whatever, right? We don't really want to call it a test because I feel like students really get anxious with that word. But I love that point. I don't think that, I've never tried it that way before. It's definitely a great way to do it. I know that some teachers also have that pretest and then, like you said, multiple learning pathways, right? So if students mastered their pretest, then that means they can go on and move forward to whatever task they need to do that doesn't require all the extra review or whatever that may be, right? So I think that that's also a really great idea. 


Beth: I actually call it a preview for that very reason. And one thing that I kind of started doing, too this year is doing like, I know that one of the questions that I see in the Facebook group a lot is like, how do you put in a whole group? And so one thing that I've kind of started doing is doing, like, an anchor activity at the beginning of the unit and then taking the preview after just because sometimes I think that students maybe just need a little bit of a refresher and they probably do know it. And if you give them just like a pretest, like cold, and they might just not remember. So this we did kind of like a craft area. We were doing area and perimeter, an area robot. And that was kind of like my intro activity to the unit. Then they took the preview and then we started, actually officially started the game board today so that I could really see what they knew. And hopefully that kind of anchor activity got them excited for it and refreshed their brain so that I could actually see what they know on the preview instead of having them freeze and just, they can't remember. 


Toni Rose: Yeah, that's a great word to use - a preview. And then I like that structure as well. Hey, let's do this activity together just to kind of refresh your memory, because I'm sure, right, like, we're assuming positive intent. We're assuming positively, really. Like, we know that you know this. So here's a quick little activity to just kind of do a refresher and then doing the preview. I love that strategy, but that's a really great idea. I know when I was teaching I would have like 10-15 comprehension questions whenever we're reading a text. And then I would always tell my students, “hey, your must do is to choose three to five to answer and then you should do would be like five to seven. And then aspire to do was seven to ten.” Right. But giving the students the autonomy to choose which questions they want to answer got them a little bit more excited. And if they needed more practice, they had that as well if they needed it. Right? Perfect. So then now we're talking about, we've talked about the game board and you also mentioned about implementations about gamification in the classroom. And so we have been getting a lot of questions about that. So tell us more about the implementation of games into practice opportunities. How do you decide you must do, should do, and aspire to do? 


Andrea: Well for me, I try to make my game board itself feel obviously like a game. I like to put little themes to it. Right now. The current one I kicked out is Clue-themed and after they turn in a mastery check I give them a clue and then they collect the clues throughout the game board and then at the end I have an aspire to do logic puzzle that they can use the clues to figure out the missing or whatever it is for Clue, the weapon and what room and all that stuff. But I do like to embed games for extra practice throughout the lessons and so those are should dos. The kids love them and so it's kind of a goal for them to stay on pace so that they get to do the games. If they're behind pace, then we ask that they skip it for now, but they always have the option of coming back and playing when they're looking at my public-facing tracker, we kind of use the language “in your lane or higher”. So I move the kids along rather than put, like, little check marks or X’s, I physically move their name so that they can look at that column for that lesson and say, “oh well, these other friends are in there, too. So these are my options for who I could play the game with or I could play with anyone who's in my lane or higher.” The games are always just for that extra practice honing in on that skill for the game board. And at some points I like to incorporate like Kahoots or different things like that just to gamify things a little more. They love to create Kahoots, so a lot of times if they're ahead of pace they will want to create a Kahoot for someone else in the room to solve. It's just always fun to mix it up and keep it light, as far as fun, not everything has to be a work page. And I think it's important to build in those games for extra practice. 


Toni Rose: It gets the students so hyped when they know that they're about to play a Quizlet Live or Kahoot. I love that you named that you have students create Kahoots because that's less work for us, right? It's good that they're practicing those skills to review and also being able to play it as a whole class. I know when I was teaching The Giver, reading comprehension instead of me coming up with those questions. My students came up with the questions and created their own Kahoot. And then we played them in class when they first get in, and it was just so much fun and I didn't have to do anything well. 


Andrea: And competing against a teacher is always really fun, too. They love to beat us. 


Toni Rose: Yes, they do. 


Beth: I actually just wrote that down, Andrea, to have them create Kahoots because I love that and I don't have my aspire to dos yet for this unit. So yeah, no, I like that. I think it's very similar. I do very similar to what Andrea does. I like to add in games and I like to add in, like physical games. There's a lot of online options, but I don't know, I like to do kind of like center-type games, and they're usually should dos. That's the first thing that I'll have a student skip if they're starting to fall too far behind pace. And then I like, Andrea, I let them choose who they want to play with. And I, again, try to help them with time management and making good choices for their learning. I tell them they can ask anyone they want, but the other person has the right to say no if they feel like it's going to make them fall behind pace or if they already have a different plan for the day. And then on the other hand, I tell students, if you're very behind pace and your friend asks you to play, you need to make the choice that's best for your learning. You might have to say, “I can't play right now, but when I get to that game, then I'll ask you to play when I'm there” or something like that. So I'm really trying to not make the decisions for them, but give them the tools to help them to make those choices for themselves. 


Toni Rose: And that's such a great skill to have. Right? Like learning how to say no and also prioritizing. Those are really great skills to have as an adult. 


Beth: Exactly. 


Andrea: I was just going to add in about the physical games, too. I also love incorporating those just for those social skills and the kids learning that way. And it's really easy just to bag up everything that they need. And I talked earlier about that physical hanging file folder where all the kids go to get their supplies for their guided notes or this or that. And I just bag it up in a little gallon size baggy, and it's part of that hanging folder, and they come grab a bag and they're off for the races. 


Toni Rose: I'm sure they love that. All right, so before we get off, what are some tips and tricks that you have for hesitant elementary teachers? Is there anything else you'd like to mention? 


Beth: I guess my biggest thing is don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel. There's probably things that you're already doing in your classroom that you can just easily fit into the model. And so that was, for example, all of my mastery checks, I call exit tickets because I was already giving exit tickets in my class. And so I still call them exit tickets because that's the language that I'm used to. I already had exit tickets created. That's what we call them. And I don't need to totally change things. So think about the things that you're already doing or the things that you already like, and just think about how you can make small tweaks. The videos, I was already making slides for my whole group lessons, and so I can use some of those same slides. Like, I'm using some of the same slides that I made last year, and I'm just using them as my slide deck for my videos. And so really don't feel like you need to go out and make all new things. You can use some things that you already have. And then my other thing is you don't have to do everything. So even though I'm kind of fully implementing in math, I'm using videos sometimes in some other subjects, or I might use tiering tasks as my should and aspire in other subjects, that I'm not doing the full model. So you can use bits and pieces however you feel comfortable. 


Andrea: I agree 100% with everything Beth said. I just remember planning my first unit and having all these standards in front of me and this and that and my resource and feeling a tad overwhelmed. And it does take a lot to overwhelm me typically. But I thought, “Holy man, where do I start?” You know? And I just found that once I started the creative side of it and I started, like building that slide deck or, you know, recording that video, it just all started to naturally fall into place and it just seemed to map itself out. So you can spend so much time, like, sitting there and planning and drawing arrows and trying to figure out the perfect scope and sequence of everything. But it's not really until you just start jumping in and diving in and creating that it just finally works itself out. So start small, pick a lesson, start going, and then just let it naturally build. That would just be my biggest amount of advice. And have fun with it. Be creative and allow yourself to make mistakes because it's going to happen. 


Toni Rose: Yes, thank you. So much. Andrea and Beth, how could our listeners contact you or connect with you? 


Andrea: I'm an active part of the slack channels if you're on there as well as the Facebook group. If someone wanted to email me, that would totally be fine with me. It's my name Andrea.l.mahr@gmail.com. I am on Twitter but I am not super active and I am on Instagram and I'm not that active either. So slack and Facebook are the best way!


Beth: yeah, I would say that - Facebook. I'm on Facebook group and you're totally welcome to send me a message. It's probably where I'll respond the quickest and then I just got a fancy modern classroom email so that would be the other option, which is a very long one. But Elizabeth.benevides@modernclassrooms.org and so I would love that, too. 


Toni Rose: So again, thank you for saying yes. Thank you for, again, sharing some of your light with our listeners. And so listeners, remember you can always email us at podcast@modern classrooms.org and you could find the show notes for this episode at podcast ModernClassrooms.org/76. Again, thank you all for listening. Have a great week and we'll be back next week.


Voiceover: Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at www.modernclassrooms.org, and you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at Learn.Modernclassrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at modernclassproj, that's P-R-O-J. We are so appreciative of all you do for students and schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast.