Math Teacher Lounge Podcast
Math Teacher Lounge is a biweekly podcast created specifically for K鈥12 math teachers. In each episode, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson () and Dan Meyer () chat with expert guests, taking a deep dive into the math and educational topics you care about.
Looking for more free math content? Let student ideas take center stage with , a highly interactive teaching and learning platform with hundreds of free K鈥12 lessons, virtual manipulatives, and teaching tools.
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Meet our hosts:
Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer
Bethany Lockhart Johnson is an elementary school educator and author. Prior to serving as a multiple-subject teacher, she taught theater and dance, and now loves incorporating movement and creative play into her classroom. Bethany is committed to helping students find joy in discovering their identities as mathematicians. In addition to her role as a full-time classroom teacher, Bethany is a Student Achievement Partners California Core Advocate and is active in national and local mathematics organizations. Bethany is a member of the Illustrative Mathematics Elementary Curriculum Steering Committee and serves as a consultant, creating materials to support families during distance learning.
Dan Meyer taught high school math to students who didn鈥檛 like high school math. He has advocated for better math instruction on CNN, Good Morning America, Everyday With Rachel Ray, and TED.com. He earned his doctorate from Stanford University in math education and is currently the Dean of Research at Desmos, where he explores the future of math, technology, and learning. Dan has worked with teachers internationally and in all 50 United States and was named one of Tech & Learning鈥檚 30 Leaders of the Future. To hear more from Dan, check out his .
S6: Building math fluency
Tune in to Season 6 of Math Teacher Lounge! This season, we鈥檙e digging deep into math fluency鈥攅xploring what it is, looking into the research around it, and sharing practical tips for building it in math classrooms. Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer chat with leading experts to define what math fluency is, analyze how fluency benefits students, and explore how to engage students while continuing to build math fluency.
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Episode 11: Season finale of Math Teacher Lounge
Listen to the final episode of Math Teacher Lounge! We鈥檒l walk through the past 10 episodes on math fluency and pull out the key takeaways from our amazing hosts鈥搒uch as tips on defining and assessing fluency, fluency development in a bilingual setting, and the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on so-called fake fluency.
We鈥檒l also talk about the future of the podcast and what鈥檚 next for us. Spanning six seasons, we鈥檝e had the privilege of reaching thousands of educators while exploring a wide range of topics including the joy of math, math anxiety, and math fluency, featuring聽 抖阴成人版app鈥檚 Jason Zimba, Sesame Workshop鈥檚 Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, Reach Capital鈥檚 Jennifer Carolan, and Baltimore County Public Schools鈥 John W. Staley Ph.D.
We can鈥檛 wait to continue working on a host of other exciting projects this year, including webinars, conference appearances, and the . Listen to the finale of the Math Teacher Lounge podcast today, and keep an eye out for more!
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Episode 10: Supercharge math fluency through problem-solving
Tune in to Episode 10 of Math Teacher Lounge with math teaching and learning specialist and friend of the podcast, Fawn Nguyen. Listen as Nguyen dives into the unique and powerful relationship between math fluency and problem-solving, and learn about how problem-solving activities can be leveraged to engage all students and fuel math fluency development.
Looking for more free math content? Let student ideas take center stage with , a highly interactive teaching and learning platform with hundreds of free K鈥12 lessons, virtual manipulatives, and teaching tools.
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Episode 9: Unlocking a systematic approach to math fluency instruction
Join us for Episode 9, in which Bethany sits down with former classroom teacher Myuriel von Aspen to talk about the importance of a systematic approach to math fluency instruction. Listen as von Aspen discusses how effective fluency instruction takes students beyond fact memorization into deeper learning through mathematical discourse.
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Episode 8: Cultivating school-wide math fact fluency through collaboration
Tune in to Episode 8, where we chat with guest and former grade 1 teacher, Jody Guarino, Ed.D., about how math teachers can collaborate to develop math fact fluency at the building level. Listen as Dr. Guarino talks about what it takes for schools to do this successfully, and her key takeaways from her own experience.
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Episode 7: Building math fluency through games
Join Math Teacher Lounge as we continue our season-long discussion on math fluency with a special live recording at NCTM 2023. In this episode, our guest, Jennifer Bay-Williams, Ph.D., and Dan dive into math fluency games to discuss how we can bring joy into the classroom while building math fluency.
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Episode 6: Building math fluency through student strengths
Join us for Episode 6, where we discuss how to take an asset-based approach to building math fluency with John W. Staley, Ph.D., who has spent decades in math classrooms. In this episode Dr. Staley shares his experiences and research to provide strategies on how to utilize student strengths to encourage growth.
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Episode 5: Cultivating community and math fluency
Tune in to Episode 5 of this season, where we dive back into our season-long discussion of math fluency with classroom teacher Lauren Carr. Listen as Lauren shares how she allows her students to approach mathematical thinking and learning with joy and fun to foster the development of math fluency.
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Episode 4: "Making Black Girls Count," with Dr. Nicole Joseph
Join us for a special episode of Math Teacher Lounge where we take a break from our focus on math fluency to talk with scholar and author Nicole M. Joseph, Ph.D. Tune in to this important conversation where Dr. Joseph shares her research and discusses how we can begin to uplift Black girls and empower them in our math classrooms.
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Episode 3: Consciously foster math fluency
Tune in to the latest episode of Math Teacher Lounge where we learn how to intentionally foster fluency with Art Baroody, Ph.D. Listen as Baroody shares strategies on how to utilize a student鈥檚 natural problem-solving skills and desire to learn to build fluency.
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Episode 2: Assessing math fluency
Join Math Teacher Lounge as we continue our season-long deep dive into math fluency. Tune in to our latest episode where we sat down with Valerie Henry, Ed.D. to discuss how we can redesign assessments of math fluency to provide teachers with better data and students with better learning.
Listen today and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track key strategies and make the most of this episode!
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Episode 1: Defining math fluency
Season 6 of Math Teacher Lounge is here!
This season, we鈥檒l be digging deep into math fluency鈥攅xploring what it is, looking into the research around it, and sharing practical tips for building it in math classrooms. Join us as we kick things off this week with Jason Zimba, 抖阴成人版app鈥檚 chief academic officer of STEM!
In our first episode, we sat down with Jason to get a clear understanding of what math fluency is and what we really mean when we talk about it. As a prominent math advocate with many years of experience, he can also help us learn just how important fluency is and how it fits into the standards.
Listen today and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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S5: Tackling Math Anxiety
For the fifth season of Math Teacher Lounge, we鈥檙e exploring math anxiety鈥攚hat it is, what causes it, and what we can do to prevent it. Hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer will talk to experts and researchers about this important issue that affects both students and adults, and how to find ways to work together to create a more positive narrative around math and increase student engagement and understanding in class.
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Episode 8: Utilizing AI as a teaching tool
Join Math Teacher Lounge as we continue our summer mini-series where we discuss how to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) as a teaching tool. In this episode, we sat down with educator Kristen Moore to discuss how she is using Chat GPT as a tool to revolutionize student learning and streamline lesson planning.
Listen today and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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Episode 7: Discerning the role of AI in education
Join us for our summer mini-series where we鈥檒l be talking about artificial intelligence (AI): what it is, how it is already being used in education, and how it will continue to transform education in the future. In this kickoff episode, we sat down with Jennifer Carolan, general partner at Reach Capital, to chat about the current state of AI in education technology.
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As a former teacher and current leading-edge education technology entrepreneur, Jennifer has so much to share on how, if done correctly, AI will become a partner with educators and a tool for fostering social learning opportunities. -
Episode 6: Season takeaways for tackling math anxiety
As we wrap up this season of Math Teacher Lounge, we鈥檙e sharing our biggest takeaways from our incredible discussions around tackling math anxiety.
We鈥檝e been able to speak to five great thinkers on math and the anxieties that can affect students, teachers, and even caregivers. From acknowledging math anxiety and finding ways to immediately start relieving the pressure, to redefining math and establishing positive math routines in and out of the classroom, we鈥檝e learned so much with every single episode. Listen now to hear our season highlights, as well as some of our favorite responses from listeners!
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Episode 5: Math technology & hacks for math anxiety: research-based tips for caregivers
We鈥檝e been very lucky to have so many prolific and brilliant researchers on this season of Math Teacher Lounge, and our next guest is no exception.
Listen as we sit down with Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer to discuss what causes math anxiety, math hacks, and how the right math technology can make an incredible impact in children and caregivers coping with math anxiety.
Listen today and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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Episode 4: Coaching tips for managing math anxiety in teachers
So far this season, we鈥檝e investigated math anxiety in students and its causes with passionate researchers and curriculum experts, including one from Sesame Workshop! Now we hear from Dr. Heidi Sabnani, consultant, coach, and co-host of Math 4 All, as she gives us research-based tips for teachers who are facing math anxiety themselves! Listen as we discuss Heidi鈥檚 own math anxiety and journey through math, the effects teacher math anxiety can have on instruction, and practices educators can implement right away for overcoming math anxiety.
Listen today and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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Episode 3: Cultivating a joy of learning with Sesame Workshop
Listen as we chat with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content for Sesame Workshop! Continuing our theme of math anxiety this season, we sat down with Dr. Truglio to chat about Sesame Street and her thoughts on how to spread a growth mindset to young children and put them on course to academic achievement and long-term success. Listen today and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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Episode 2: Uncovering the causes of math anxiety
We鈥檙e continuing our season theme of math anxiety, going beyond the basics, diving deeper into what causes it, and how we can help students move forward. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Erin Maloney from the University of Ottawa to better understand what鈥檚 actually happening in the brain when a person experiences math anxiety, and how we can take steps to shift student mindsets in a positive direction. Listen now and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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Episode 1: Investigating math anxiety in the classroom
Season 5 is here! This season, we鈥檒l be talking all about math anxiety: what it is, what causes it, and what we can do to prevent or ease this anxiety in the math classroom. To launch this very important theme, we sat down with Dr. Gerardo Ramirez, associate professor of educational psychology at Ball State University. As someone who鈥檚 been studying math anxiety for more than a decade, he had some interesting research and advice to share on why math anxiety affects so many students (and adults), and tips for how to start reducing it. Listen now and don鈥檛 forget to grab your to track your learning and make the most of this episode!
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Winter Wrap-up: Catch Up on Our Most Popular Episodes!
While we prepped for season 5 of Math Teacher Lounge, we revisited past episodes and pulled out some of our favorite conversations for a special Winter Wrap-up. Check out some of our most popular episodes about problem-solving and facilitating classroom discussions, mathematizing children鈥檚 literature, and building math fluency.
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Episode 3 Winter Wrap-Up '23: Ideas to build math fluency
Join us for the third episode in our Winter Wrap-Up! In this episode from season 3 of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Valerie Henry to talk about math fluency and what that means for students. Listen as we dig into the research, hear Val鈥檚 three-part definition of fluency, and explore her five principles for developing it.
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Episode 2 Winter Wrap-Up '23: Mathematizing Children鈥檚 Literature
While we鈥檙e hard at work producing the exciting fifth season of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we鈥檙e continuing to share some of our favorite conversations from our first four seasons. This time around, we鈥檙e revisiting our popular episode that connected literacy and math!
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In this episode, we sit down with Allison Hintz and Antony Smith, authors of Mathematizing Children鈥檚 Literature, to talk about what would happen if we were to approach children鈥檚 literature, and life, through a math lens鈥揳nd how we can apply those same techniques to classroom teaching! -
Episode 1 Winter Wrap-Up '23: Problem-solving and facilitating classroom discussions
As we prep for an exciting new season of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are looking back at the amazing speakers and conversations from past episodes and sharing some of their favorites! First up: A season 2 double feature of the power of problem-solving with Fawn Nguyen and Facilitating Classroom Discussions with authors Christy Hermann Thompson and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind. Fawn is a specialist on 抖阴成人版app鈥檚 advanced math team and a former math teacher and math coach鈥攕o she knows her stuff! You鈥檒l hear about her five criteria for good problem-solving problems, and the power and importance of exposing all students to problem-solving. Then, we鈥檒l move into Bethany and Dan鈥檚 conversation with Christy and Kassia to learn how hands-down conversations allow students to become better listeners and the steps you can take to implement hands-down conversations in your classroom.
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S4: Discovering the Joy of Math
Listen to season 4 to discover the joy of math! Over the course of this season, we spoke to many educators and experts about finding joy in learning and teaching math. Episodes followed topics like investing in instruction and students, why kids hate math and what teachers can do about it, and cultivating mathematical joy. Bethany and Dan also discussed their own experiences, shared their math biographies, and facilitated a live podcast discussion at NCTM鈥攁ll with the goal of showing the joy of math and finding ways to cultivate that joy in the classroom.
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Episode 5: Cultivating mathematical joy
In this episode, Bethany and Dan explore mathematical joy while visiting a math teacher conference in Southern California. During this program, Dan describes his attempts to cultivate mathematical joy in his own school-aged kids.
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Episode 4: Dear Math
In this episode, Bethany and Dan chat with Sarah Strong and Gigi Butterfield, authors of Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math and What Teachers Can Do About It. Listen in as they chat about their experiences with finding joy in math, and how their passion helped them tell the stories of other students鈥 journeys to find (or not find!) joy in math.
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Episode 3: LIVE from NCTM with Bethany and Dan
In this episode, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are LIVE with more than one hundred Math Teacher Lounge listeners at the recent National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference. Listen in as they answer the pressing question: Who is the best teacher in film or television?
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Episode 2: Bethany and Dan share their math biographies
In this episode, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer get personal and share their 鈥渕ath bios鈥濃攖heir early experiences with math and how those experiences turned them into the educators they are today.
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Episode 1: Joyful math teaching with Kanchan Kant
This season on the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, we follow the theme 鈥渏oyful math鈥 and uncover its meaning. In this episode, Kanchan Kant joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss the key, early investment she makes at the start of the school year to ensure her math teaching will be joyful for herself and for her students for the rest of the year.
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S3: Building Your Math Instruction Skillset
Listen to season 3 of Math Teacher Lounge! As we made the transition from video series to fully fledged podcast, we sat down with experts, educators, and even TikTok star Howie Hua to discuss the latest hot topics in math. Hear about ways to make math viral, mathematize children鈥檚 literature, build math fluency, and look at teaching as a collaborative professional learning experience.
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Episode 6: Bethany and Dan take on Twitter!
In this episode, Bethany and Dan take a look at several tweets that caught the most fire on Twitter during the 2021-2022 school year. The pair answer questions about viral teaching methods, the best teaching advice you can give in three words, and if students should use pencils or pens in class. Join them as they take on those questions and several others in a fast-paced episode.
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Episode 5: Developing an asset orientation with Lani Horn
In this episode, math education professor Lani Horn shares with us what it means to have an asset orientation towards students, contrasting it with a deficit orientation, and helping Bethany and Dan understand the many ways students experience one or the other. Their conversation hit both high notes and low notes and included a challenge that Bethany and Dan both found extremely valuable for helping a teacher develop an asset orientation towards their students.
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Episode 4: Ideas to build math fluency
Fluency in math can oftentimes be associated with negative experiences with its development鈥 timed worksheets, for example. Bethany and Dan are joined by three guests to better understand fluency and how to make its approach fun. Dr. Val Henry shares her three-part definition of fluency and her five principles for developing it. Additionally, Tracy Zager and Graham Fletcher join Bethany and Dan to better understand fluency through a lens of equity and using multimedia as a tool.
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Episode 3: Math professional learning experiences with Elham Kazemi
How do we continue to grow and be more reflective about our own teaching? In this episode, Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer chat with Elham Kazemi to explore how to look at teaching as a collaborative experiment. Moving more toward analyzing student thinking and how that contributes to teaching itself, leaves more space for one鈥檚 own understanding of math to grow throughout your career. When one revises their teaching based on the data we鈥檙e collecting from students and peers, this allows us to be both teachers and learners forever.
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Episode 2: Mathematizing children鈥檚 literature with Allison Hintz and Antony Smith
In this episode, Mathematizing Children鈥檚 Literature authors Allison Hintz and Antony Smith join Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss what would happen if we were to approach children鈥檚 literature, and life, through a math lens 鈥 and how we can apply those techniques to classroom teaching.
Listen now -
Episode 1: Making math viral with Howie Hua
In this episode, Howie Hua (you may know him from his viral TikTok videos) joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss making math accessible for students through multiple social media platforms, creating an engaging space for students to share their ideas.
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S2: Encouraging Classroom Collaboration
Check out season two of Math Teacher Lounge to get tips and strategies for elevating instruction and encouraging classroom collaboration. Find ideas for facilitating student conversations, good problem-solving problems, and a cornucopia of other ideas and practices to bring to your classroom.
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Episode 4: Math potluck favorites
Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are hosting a Math Teacher Lounge potluck. Instead of bringing a casserole (or a store-bought item passed off as homemade), Bethany and Dan are bringing you a cornucopia of math topics. Looking for more free math content? Let student ideas take center stage with , a highly interactive teaching and learning platform with hundreds of free K鈥12 lessons, virtual manipulatives, and teaching tools.
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Episode 3: The power of problem solving with Fawn Nguyen
Rio School District Teacher on Special Assignment and 抖阴成人版app Math advisor Fawn Nguyen joins Bethany and Dan to discuss the power of problem solving. Hear from Fawn about:
- Her five criteria for good problem solving problems.
- How problem solving should involve all students.
- The power of exposing all students to problem solving.
- And much more!
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Episode 2: Hands Down, Speak Out | Facilitating classroom discussions
Authors Christy Hermann Thompson and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind chat with Bethany and Dan about facilitating student conversations in the math and literacy classrooms. Watch the video to learn how hands down conversations allow students to become better listeners and learn about steps you can take to implement hands down conversations in your classroom.
Looking for more free math content? Let student ideas take center stage with , a highly interactive teaching and learning platform with hundreds of free K鈥12 lessons, virtual manipulatives, and teaching tools.
Listen now -
Episode 1: An asset-based return to school | Math teaching ideas
A lot of great learning occurred over the last school year. Watch Bethany and Dan鈥檚 conversation with math educators (Zak Champagne, Natali I. Gaxiola, Howie Hua, Janaki Nagarajan, Brian Shay, and Dolores Torres) to hear what learning, practices, and ideas they want to bring with them to the 2021-2022 school year.
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S1: Bringing Math Out of the Classroom (Distance learning, math in public, and more!)
Watch the inaugural season of Math Teacher Lounge! See how what started as a video series turned into a podcast, as we discuss distance learning, technology in the math classroom, the power of data science, and what wrong versus brilliant answers can reveal about student understanding. Hear from professors, authors, researchers, and teachers as we delve into these important math topics.
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Episode 6, Segment 3: Math in public with Omo Moses
MathTalk鈥檚 CEO Omo Moses enters the Math Teacher Lounge to chat with Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer. Watch their conversation to learn about how communities can create positive math experiences for all.
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Episode 6, Segment 2: Math in public with Molly Daley and Chris Nho (Part 2)
Molly Daley and Chris Nho are back in the lounge to answer this question. In this segment they join Bethany and Dan for a mathematizing public places game. Watch the video to join in the game and see how you can spot and make sense of math in public spaces.
Learn more about Public Math by visiting聽.
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Episode 6, Segment 1: Math in public with Molly Daley and Chris Nho (Part 1)
Where is the most unusual place you have seen math in the last year? In this segment of Math Teacher Lounge, Public Math鈥檚 Molly Daley () and Chris Nho ()聽join Bethany Lockhart and Dan Meyer to discuss all the unique places one can find math, including a laundromat, to elicit and invite math conversations.
Learn more about Public Math by visiting聽.
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Episode 5: Slow reveal in an 8th grade classroom
In the latest segment of the Math Teacher Lounge series, Dan Meyer () substitute teaches an 8th grade class. Students interact with a few activities authored by Dan using the slow reveal described first in the Power of Data Science segment.
Looking for more free math content? Let student ideas take center stage with , a highly interactive teaching and learning platform with hundreds of free K鈥12 lessons, virtual manipulatives, and teaching tools.
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Episode 4, Segment 3: Wrong and brilliant with Megan Franke
The conversation around wrong and brilliant in the classroom concludes with UCLA Professor Megan Franke聽().聽Professor Franke discusses with Bethany () and Dan聽()聽the amazing things students are doing in math (in a pandemic!) and more.
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Episode 4, Segment 2: Wrong and brilliant with Mandy Jansen
University of Delaware professor and author Mandy Jansen聽()聽joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to continue the discussion around wrong and brilliant and the idea of rough draft math.
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Episode 4, Segment 1: Wrong and brilliant
Is there a different and better way to teach rightness and wrongness in math class? In this segment, Bethany and Dan use a Desmos activity to discuss how wrong and brilliant answers can reveal student understanding and inform your instruction.
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Episode 3: The power of data science with Jenna Laib
Curious how data science can reveal profound noticings in your math class? Special guest Jenna Laib joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss this and the power of data science in the classroom.
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Episode 2: Effective and ineffective technology in the math classroom
Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer discuss technology in the math classroom with the following special guests: Idil Abdulkadir, Robert Berry, Lauren Carr, Steve Leinwand, Francis Su, and Theresa Wills.
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Episode 1: Welcome to MTL, let's talk distance learning!
In this episode, Bethany and Dan talk distance learning. You鈥檒l learn a little about what鈥檚 in store for series subscribers, listen to your hosts figure out the topic du jour by playing a game, and hear from Idil Abdulkadir as the group discusses real vs. fake Zoom norms.
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