Changing Classroom Practice

This episode of Room to Grow brings together our 2025 series on the Mathematics Teaching Practices from Principles to Actions, an NCTM publication. After discussing each of the eight practices in isolation over the last several months, this month tackles the ideas and challenges in actually making substantive change to classroom practice. 

Our hosts share ideas for engaging with others in deeper professional learning, coaching, and peer observations, as well as ideas for individual teachers to work on making change in their classrooms. They acknowledge that change is complicated, and encourage listeners to engage in small, incremental steps that add up over time. 

Additional referenced content includes:

·       NCTM’s Principles to Actions

·       NCTM’s Taking Action series for grades K-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12

·       NCTM’s Principals to Actions Toolkit – Professional learning and other resources for a deeper dive into the eight Mathematics Teaching Practices

Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing roomtogrowmath@gmail.com . Be sure to connect with your hosts on X and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy. 

Transcript

Season 5 Episode 9:

Changing Classroom Practice

 00;00;02;02 - 00;00;27;07

Joanie

 In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and I complete our series on the mathematics teaching practices from principles to actions by discussing how teachers make real and lasting change to their classroom practice. We share the power of learning with others, but also explore options for educators who may be more isolated in their personal professional development.

We hope you're having a great back to school.

Let's get going.

00;00;29;17 - 00;01;43;08

Curtis

Well, Joni, I am so excited to be here again chatting with you today. We have a great topic for today. 

We've been reviewing the Principles to Actions book on its 10th anniversary this year. And so we've been celebrating each of the math practices outlined, in, NCTM’s  publication. And so today really we're just kind of reflecting on the past eight months of conversations and now thinking about, okay, so, so now what? You know, we, we've talked a lot about these math practices and what the things should look like in our classrooms and how our practice can reflect those math teaching practices. And our classroom cultures can kind of reflect those things. But now the question is, all right, we're back in school. We've, we've either just started or maybe we've been at it for about a month or somewhere in between. And we're thinking to ourselves, well, those were great, but, but now what? How do I actually do that in my classroom? So that's kind of our stage for today.

00;01;44;27 - 00;02;08;08

Joanie

I love that we're having this conversation that we didn't just end the principals to action series with, you know, talking about the eight mathematics teaching practices and then saying, like, okay, you have everything you need to know now go do it. Because this really is like one of the challenges of being a teacher, right? Like learning how to improve your practice is one thing, but actually changing your practice is a completely different thing, so I think we’re going to take the time and kind of talk through, you know, what some practical steps might be and, and how to frame thinking about actually changing.

00;02;18;00 - 00;02;19;23

Curtis

Yeah. Yeah.

00;02;19;23 - 00;02;30;25

Joanie

So let's dive in and start with like some of the, the practical stuff. Like first of all, you know, before we started recording Kurt you just said like  I wonder how many teachers actually own the book. Like maybe owning the book is a good a good starting place.

00;02;34;26 - 00;02;37;06

Curtis

I mean, it could be it could be.

00;02;37;06 - 00;04;31;14

Joanie

I would say, and, you know, here in Colorado, we have a, an NCTM affiliate, the Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics, CCTM and several years ago CCTM did a book study. But instead of doing principles to actions, we did the Taking Action series. And so if, if there's an educator listening who would like to implement some of the math teaching practices we've talked about over the last eight months, I would really recommend they start with the Taking Action series. And those there are three different versions of that book that are grade level specific, grade band specific I should say.

So there's a K-5 version, there's A6-8 version, there's a high school version, and each of them gets a little more into the weeds around the eight mathematics teaching practices, unpacking what they look like and giving like sample classroom scenarios and even sample math tasks that allow the, the, the reader to actually visualize and see and feel, what it looks like to implement that practice. And one of the other resources that comes with those books that I so appreciate that NTM does is they did this, they've been doing this for a while now. Where inside the front cover. It'll say more for you and there's a little code, and you can go out onto the NCTM website and you get access to all of these supplemental resources that go along with the book. And for the Taking Action series. A significant number of those resources are classroom videos, where you actually see the practice being implemented. And it's usually the teacher like the classroom that they're describing in the little scenarios. And you can see that happening and you can hear what the kids say. You can see what the teacher does. And there's such power in video, as a learning tool, I think.

00;04;31;14 - 00;06;37;15

Curtis

Yeah, I, I love that and I love that that that's an opportunity because another thing we were going to point to, that we mentioned as we were kind of talking about this call today and this recording was the idea of, of pure, observation and, and going in and visiting each other's classrooms. And that's fabulous.

If you have a school where that culture has been cultivated. I know that I had the opportunity to sit in the back of, both my department chair classroom and then also, I shared a room. So a teacher would come into my room. And so during my planning period I was observing her teach and she was an experienced calculus teacher and I learned so many, many thing  just watching her and observing her classroom. And, and there was so many little things of culture that I picked up and learned just from the way she interacted with students in the way that she questioned and, and all of those things that, that, you know, we read books and we and we go to conference sessions and we hear people talk about we even see people model it with adults.

But actually going into a classroom and seeing it with students that I see in the hallway every day. And I think there's something very personal about that. And so if that culture is there in your in your school, love it. That's amazing. And that's, that's so helpful. But if it's not that video resource that you're, that you're talking about is a great way to get close, right? It doesn't replace it and certainly pure observation. But having someone come in, take notes and, and talk with you afterwards and, and have conversation about this and that and, and how come and I noticed you did and, and and getting yourself to be able to reflect on those things, but then also, you know, observing someone else, those are great. And those are incredible. And can't be replaced, but, a decent, substitute is that video opportunity?

00;06;37;17 - 00;06;42;04

Joanie

Yeah. Or even a third alternative is to video yourself,

00;06;42;04 - 00;06;43;04

Curtis

Oh, yeah.

00;06;43;04 - 00;07;50;29

Joanie

And you know, it's so easy to do now you just, you know, set your cell phone up in the back of your room and even, even an audio recording of yourself during the class can be super, incredibly valuable tool. And I think that, you know, bringing in some of the ideas around change theory, particularly change theory in education, it's, it's easy to think that we just decide to do something differently and then learn about how to do it and then go and implement and then, you know, presto, I've changed in my classroom is a better place for learning, but that's not really how it happens. Like actual change that sticks and that's meaningful in the classroom is an iterative process, right? So you try something. You determine how well you think it worked. You determine how it could have gone better, and then you adjust and then you try again and you do that process again. Right. So there's this like experiment with something, reflect adjust and then repeat that over and over again and that's how real change happens. Not like make a decision and then go and do it perfectly the first time. And every time after that it doesn’t work that way.

00;07;51;02 - 00;07;59;25

Curtis / Joanie

What? Yeah, I can I I that's how it works. No, it did not happen that way for me.

** They’re stepping on each other and cannot make out some dialogue. 

00;08;02;20 - 00;09;00;05

Joanie

The opportunity to like if I'm going to try, you know, pose purposeful questions. Maybe that's the first of the math teaching practices that I want to implement. Just, just, just recording on my phone and, you know, capturing the questions that I'm asking and how students respond to them. I could even just do it for 15 minutes of a class period and then take at the end of the day, take 30 minutes to listen back and reflect on, okay, what were the effective questions?

And oh, I didn't that wasn't a very good probing question that I asked. You know, how might I improve that question if, you know in tomorrow's lesson to, to get better insight into what students are thinking.

So yeah, these I think the key idea I'm trying to get at here is to have reasonable expectations of yourself and to think about starting small, like, just try one thing and give yourself 15 minutes to try it and then reflect on how it went and adjust and try again tomorrow.

00;09;00;05 - 00;10;39;25

Curtis

Yeah I think I, I love that I love that the, the encouragement that comes from that because it is so easy because so many in education, myself included, all, all of us are so passionate about seeing students succeed and passionate about good teaching, modeling and good teaching and, and doing this well, and all of the, all of the things that we are learning about education and the way our brains work and, you know, all the brain research that's out there and the, you know, these changing models of how, how we teach and the shift to focus on, on the student and all of these things. And, and you go, that's so many things. And I'm intimidated by that. And so I really appreciate the the grace. Give myself a little grace concept of start small. Let let me pick something and do a little bit and, and do iterative, kinds of things. And my mom always says this and, and I, I, I try to remember it and adhere to it, but every day doesn't have to be a monument, right? We can, we can, we can have a couple of things and just do a little things well, little at a time and learn from those little things and, and just grow a little bit at a time. I think that's why we called this podcast Room to Grow, is that we have tons of room for growth. So long as we're growing. Right. The only thing is that, you know, is forward progress. And so I just, I yeah, I love the, the encouragement that's there in that.

00;10;39;25 - 00;10;50;08

Music break

End of Segment 1

Start of Segment 2

00;10;50;08 - 00;14;27;01

Joanie

I just want to tap into that small, small growth, you know, small steps that lead to big growth. That was I think I've shared about this on the podcast before. So I apologize to our listeners that are hearing it again and you, but when I was a department chair I had at our monthly department meetings I gave out an award to one of the department members and I called it the Kaizen Award.

So Kaizen is this Japanese philosophy of small incremental change but continuous incremental improvement. And I loved the opportunity as a department chair to showcase teachers that were just doing some like one small thing that was making a difference, like you know, one teacher had had a creative strategy for handing back papers and going over, you know, a quiz or a test after, so, so like, that's just one small aspect of teaching. It wasn't about changing their entire classroom practice from, you know, teacher focused instruction to now student centered. Like that kind of change doesn't happen. And in, all at once. So the small things. So thinking about that philosophy of Kaizen and like, what's one thing I can try and, and not only that small incremental change, but the, the thing that makes that successful or one of the aspects, I think what makes that successful is that you can get a quick win, that you can feel successful. And when you try something and you feel successful at it, it works, then you're motivated to continue to try something again. And that frustration that inevitably comes in trying to change and especially around classroom practice and student learning like there are so many factors that are working against classroom teachers. And again, student learning that it's easy to get discouraged. But if you can set yourself up for a small win that motivates you to try again and to get additional wins, and then when the inevitable challenge arises you've got some momentum and some emotional energy to, you know, get your head straight about that. Like, hey, it's not the end of the world that today's lesson wasn't monumental, like your Mom said.

You know, tomorrow can be better. And what can I do to improve? So that attitude and that self grace I think is really important aspect. So I want to think too about like we're kind of in our idealistic picture here. And I think you and I thinking about back to our own classroom days. And I was in a very supportive community. I was in a large district. I was in a large, school with lots of department members, and it was easy to find people who wanted to take these kinds of learning journeys with me, somebody who I felt safe with that I could invite into my classroom or go into their classroom and learn from. But the reality is, not every math educator has access to that kind of thing. What about the teacher who is maybe, maybe it's a situation of like, I feel like I am the only one in my school who's interested in making this kind of change, or, you know, nobody else wants to, you know, engage in this kind of a learning process with me. Or maybe, you know, here in Colorado, we have a lot of really rural districts and underserved districts where and there might be only one math teacher in a whole building. So how do we think about opportunities for those folks to tap into support for their learning and engagement in their own kind of self-directed, professional learning? What are your thoughts about that?

00;14;27;11 - 00;15;59;06

Curtis

Well you mentioned it earlier actually when we were starting the podcast, the idea of NCTM local affiliates and, and we have, those here, we have those in, in Texas as well, you know, and you can go on the NCTM website and find those affiliates, in your,location and area. And so, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, we have more access now to professional development and professional learning online either via video or, even just podcasts and webinars and all kinds of things that are available to us. And so looking to those resources, I think, is a great way to do it. You talked about the, Taking Action series. And, you know, do we have, do we have the book? Right. And so that being a very practical, lots of, of resource available there to do that. But I think connecting to you know, affiliates, even if they're not local, you know, we have regions in Texas, we have regional service centers in Texas, and some of those regions are massive. They encompass many, many hundreds of square miles. And so you go, I can't get to everybody. So going to and finding those learning opportunities, even at those service centers and those kinds of things. And I'm fairly certain that those, those types of service centers exist,

00;15;59;06 - 00;16;05;11

Joanie

they're called Boces here in Colorado. yeah.

00;16;05;11

Curtis

Yeah, right. And so just those, those ideas exist in, in most of the states, for sure. And so getting connected to those kinds of communities is, is certainly, the space to, to maybe start as an individual.

00;16;21;27 - 00;16;22;27

Joanie

For sure.

00;16;22;27 - 00;16;33;13

Music break

End of Segment 2 

Start of Segment 3

00;16;33;13 - 00;19;31;13

Joanie

That made me think of a couple more things I want to add as resources for individuals. When you were talking about, like, regional service centers and Boces, I was thinking about math teacher circles. Have you ever engaged in a math teacher circle? They're typically, hosted at universities but it's a way for math teachers to come together and the ones that I've been to have been really focused on the content and conversation typically about how to teach the content, too. But, that's another resource that folks could look into, especially if they're, within a reasonable distance to a university. It's possible there’s a math teacher circle meeting, and I believe there are even some that are virtual.

So, I'll, I'll try and dig up some of those resources for our show notes. And then the other thing I was thinking about is, like you said, with the access to technology and  virtual professional learning, like there's so many options that didn't exist, you know, 15, 20 years ago. And NCTM in particular, I think is a great resource and because this is an NCTM publication that we've been talking about, if if our listeners are not and member of NCTM this might be a motivating factor because as a member  you can access lots of on demand webinars, on demand, professional learning opportunities. Sometimes you'll even find, you know, slide decks and resources from conference sessions.

So there’s a ton of resources available in addition to that. More for you. And, you know, the videos and the supplemental resources that come with purchasing a book. So I think those are great. I also just thinking about free kinds of opportunities. Joe Bolers, you cubed site offers some really great free, on demand, professional learning, to help improve classroom practice. So I those are things that I'm intimately, personally familiar with that I would highly recommend. And then looking again, this is probably part of tapping into your own local resources. One of the things that we have for any of our Colorado listeners our State Department offers a free, yearlong, asynchronous math teaching course.

I think there is about ten modules in it, and each focuses on a different aspect, and they are sort of aligned with the math teaching practices. But it's also a little bit broader than that. And there’s video and then like reflective journal practices and you know, additional resources to explore, articles to read. I think they may even have reference to a couple of episodes of group to grow. I would like to thank the people who created that course. I’d like to think it’s a nod out to us but yeah, if if there are other opportunities like that in folks local context to take advantage of those things, there's always something to learn. There's always room to grow.

00;19;31;20 - 00;23;03;26

Curtis

There's always room to grow. I love that and, you know, it makes me think, I, I was we were talking before the podcast started about this. You know, this is, early in the school year. Most, folks are coming off of some kind of summer rest. Although, you know, we chuckled about the idea.

What do you mean, summer rest? The. You know, just because it wasn't, just because there was no school in session doesn't mean I was resting. And so, you know, just thinking about that. But most of the time, this back to school time frame, highly energized and lots of people with smiles on their faces, and I just, I, I genuinely am excited for this time of year For folks, you know, it's starting to cool down.

A lot of people, you know, fall is just this warm and, and cozy time frame, just culturally, we think about that. But then, you know, I just there's a lot of joy in doing what we do as math educators and educators in general. Just the idea of, you know, it's an active service, right? This, this, career is a calling on, on people's lives, you know, and it's a gifting in a talent. And so I just, I sit here not in the classroom anymore. Affiliated in education as a math educator. In my heart, even though in my practice, I'm. I'm more, you know, working on the technology side of things and thinking about that, but I just I think back and I go, you know, there's so much joy in being involved with students and, and seeing them grow and,

teaching them not just, math topics in joy for the content because there is joy in the content, and there is interest and excitement that we as math educators and have passion for, you know, just the content itself, but then even more just teaching them about life and learning and how do you learn and how do you take what you've learned and apply it and, and all of those kinds of things. And I, I don't know, I just get excited about that. And, and I want to remind folks that, you know, amidst all of the pressures of testing and standards and changes in standards and people observing in my classroom and all of the pressure of parents and grades and, you know, assessments, we can pause and we can go, you know, this is cool. I have an opportunity to impact student lives for the better and for, the future. Some of those students may, reject that, and, and that's okay. Like, it's, it's okay that I put myself out there, and I, I tried to impact that. Students life and, you know, eventually that that will be evident in their life.

They will reflect on that. And so, I don't know, I just I'm, I'm trying to offer an opportunity for encouragement because, you know, it's a long school year. This is the time for excitement. And I just want to elevate that.

00;23;03;26 - 00;24;38;29

Joanie

I really appreciate that. And, I just have to say, I love that about you. I just think you live that principle of remembering, like, what's really important. This is life and it's the life part of this that is really important. And I think it is easy to get caught up in all of the external pressures and feel like what's important, our test scores or, you know, grades or attendance or whatever we're getting the external pressure about.

It's easy to lose sight of why we actually came into this profession to begin with, and that is the relationships, like the, the ability to connect with other people and have an impact, a lasting impact on their lives. Each of us can name teachers who had, who had that impact for us. And those are the things that extend beyond what we learned from those teachers.

The most memorable teachers. For me, I'm not remembering specific lessons. I'm not remembering the mathematics that made sense from them. I'm remembering how they made me feel. I'm remembering their passion for learning. And you know, ultimately for students, whether their learning happens in our classroom or beyond our classroom, what they're going to remember is what our, our passion for learning is going to be what sticks with them and what excites them for their passion for learning.

00;24;40;10 - 00;24;58;07

Curtis

I 100% agree with that. I'm so excited for this school year. I'm so excited for, seeing this next several months come to fruition. And yeah, this is going to be amazing.

00;24;58;07 - 00;25;02;10

Joanie

yeah. I just wish everybody an amazing school year.

00;25;04;23 - 00;25;22;24

Joanie

Well, that's it for this time.

Be sure to check the show notes for the resources we mentioned and others you might want to explore. We would love to hear your feedback and your suggestions for future topics. And if you're enjoying learning with us, consider leaving a review to help others find us and share the podcast with a fellow math educator. See you next time!