The Build Math Minds Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 153: Virtual Math Summit Preview: Tips for Creating Student-Centered Classrooms Jan 14, 2024

Show notes

The 2024 Virtual Math Summit is just around the corner. This week's episode gives you a preview of 4 of the sessions. To see the full list of speakers, their presentations, and to get registered go to VirtualMathSummit.com/register. I'm a huge supporter of Student-Centered Classrooms and so for this episode I grabbed some clips to share with you that give you ideas for ways to create that in your math class. Tammy McMorrow, Latrenda Knighten, Ed Nolan, and Mona Iehl each have presentations at this year's Virtual Math Summit that help bring your students to the center. To get any links mentioned in this episode, go to the show notes page at BuildMathMinds.com/153.

Episode 152 - Why don't you talk about Time & Money? Jan 07, 2024

Show notes

I get asked why I don't do much training about Time & Measurement. I do have some videos, you can see them in my Playlists at the YouTube channel, but there is a real reason why I don't talk about those concepts as much as others. So in this video you get my thoughts (based upon what other math educators & researchers have to say) about why we shouldn't spend a bunch of time teaching time & measurement in math class.

Episode 151 - What Do Students Need to Know About Division? Dec 17, 2023

Show notes

This essential understanding about division is something even adults struggle with: Division is defined by its inverse relationship with multiplication. Our textbooks want us to teach division as its own separate operation but a key to helping students understand and become proficient in division is to teach it in conjunction with multiplication. In this episode I'm sharing an excerpt from one book in the Putting Essential Understandings into Practice series. To get any links mentioned in this episode go to buildmathminds.com/151

Episode 150 - A Quick Math Story Problem Activity Dec 10, 2023

Show notes

Want a quick & easy to implement activity that will show you how much your students know about the math operations and about math story problems? I've got it for you in this week's Build Math Minds podcast. This idea comes from the book Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices by DeAnn Huinker and Victoria Bill. You can find a link to it and any other resources mentioned at the show notes page buildmathminds.com/150

Episode 149 - Things to Say Instead of IDK Dec 03, 2023

Show notes

The two ends of the spectrum when teaching math seem to be "here are the exact ways to solve this problem, follow it exactly," and "you figure it out, I'm not telling you anything." Neither of these tend to work. Instead it's about finding a balance between these. We need to give some guidance, but not too much. We want them to figure out ways to solve problems on their own but we can't let them flounder.

The book 7 Steps to a Language-Rich, Interactive Classroom by John Seidlitz & Bill Perryman gives educators, as the title says, 7 steps and the first one is: teach students what to say when they don't know what to say. This also applies when a student doesn't know where to start with a math problem. So this week's episode is helping students have Things to Say Instead of IDK.

Join the Build Math Minds PD site: https://buildmathminds.com/bmm

7 Steps to a Language-Rich, Interactive Classroom by John Seidlitz & Bill Perryman

Build Math Minds YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/buildmathminds

Episode 148 - Why Is Understanding Fractions So Hard? Jun 19, 2022

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Episode 147 - Practice Makes Permanent Jun 12, 2022

Show notes

Here in the United States, it is the end of the school year and teachers are contemplating what work they should send home with students for them to do over the summer. In today's podcast, I get into why I'm not a big fan of general problem packets over the summer and how the phrase "practice makes perfect" is a little inaccurate.

Episode 146 - Standard Algorithms Compared to Computational Strategies Jun 05, 2022

Show notes

I've been on a kick about math fluency lately and how a lot of textbooks have their teaching of fluency wrong. Growing up, fluency to me meant being good at the algorithm. Being able to follow the steps that the teacher laid out for students was the sign of being fluent. But, as textbooks have started teaching new strategies, students and parents are left feeling confused. In today's episode I wanted to share this chart I found in an article by Randall Charles because it highlights the importance of letting kids use strategies instead of just the traditional algorithm.

Episode 145 - Math Textbooks Have the Teaching of Fluency All Wrong May 29, 2022

Show notes

In the last episode of the podcast, I shared the three ideas that make up computational fluency. Flexibility is often the piece that is missing in our fluency instruction, but recently textbooks have tried to incorporate more of it, but in the wrong way. In this week's podcast, I go over some of the shortcomings in the ways textbook's teach fluency and what we should really be focusing on when we're teaching fluency.

Episode 144 - What is Computational Fluency? May 22, 2022

Show notes

The Flexibility Formula courses that I offer have a huge focus on how we can help kids develop number sense, but the main reason to focus on number sense is really to help your students become flexible thinkers; to build their flexibility in mathematics. In episode 144, I talk about how my courses started and the research that inspired them. Come take a listen as I discuss the concepts that make up computational fluency.

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