Active Math Learning

Transcript

[ About the Teach Blue Fellows Conversation Series ]

Rod Franchi: Hi, my name is Rod Franchi and I welcome you to the Teach Blue Fellows Conversation series where we drill down with one of our fellows in the problem of practice they've been working on. If you don't know about Teach Blue Fellows, lemme fill you in anonymous, cool new program here at the Marsal School of Education. It's made up of six amazing alumni who now work in K12 spaces. Our aim is to pull back the curtain and show what it looks like from expert practitioners to take on authentic problems, all in the service of helping their students learn. In the last year, each fellow worked alongside their peers and a Marsal faculty partner to take on that problem of practice. Got a little smarter about the problem, crafted a solution plan, and then they implement it. Along the way, the fellows file accounts to tell their story in real time. Most accounts are in blog form, but this third one is a conversation. At the end of their cycle, each fellow will file their final account, a little talk at our Teach Blue Fellows Symposium.

[ Introducing Luke Wilcox ]

Rod: As part of the Teach Blue Fellows Conversation series, I'm so excited to talk with math educator, Luke Wilcox, Marsal School class of 2001. Today we'll be discussing Luke's efforts to hit the reset button on math instruction. In his classroom at East Kentwood High School, Luke developed a teaching model called Experience First, Formalize Later. When Luke saw it was moving the needle on learning, he wanted to scale up his approach, so he got to work with partners to develop mathematics, a website where teachers can use lessons centered around experience first formalize later to help their students. Through this, Luke and his team are improving math education across the country and beyond. The site has over 100,000 hits, wow. It's always a lot of fun to talk shop with Luke. Luke has this rare ability to make sense of challenging education issues with a clear eye and then dream big on what to do about it. Today, Luke takes us back to the original problem he recognized in his classroom, student engagement. I don't teach math, but his story is universal. I found myself thinking about that story and how it can inform the work I do in social studies. Luke is a true inspiration. Here's my conversation with Luke Wilcox.

Rod: Hello everyone. My name is Rod Franchi and I'm the Teach Blue Fellows Program Coordinator. Today I'm talking with Luke Wilcox, a former math teacher at East Kentwood High School. Also, Luke is an AP consultant and is the co-founder of Math Medic. Hey Luke, it's an honor to talk with you again. Let's dig in and talk some math instruction.

Luke Wilcox: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me, Rod.

Rod: All right, let's dig in. First of all, can you share with our audience your affiliation with the University of Michigan Marsal School of Education?

Luke: Yeah, sure can. So I am a graduate of the University of Michigan Marsal School of Education. I graduated in 2001 with my bachelor's degree, my teaching certificate, certified to teach math and physics.

Rod: Great, thank you. And tell us a little bit about your school and tell us about your students.

Luke: Yeah, so very proud to brag about East Kentwood High School. Kentwood is just south of Grand Rapids, Michigan. My whole teaching career at East Kentwood High School, which Rod already mentioned, is the number one most diverse school in the state of Michigan. Number seven most diverse school in the country. So we have students from all over the world, over 70 different countries with over 80 different languages represented at East Kentwood High School. And about 68% of our students are free and reduced lunch. So we literally have like people from all over the world. It's an amazing community to teach in, one that really, really values diversity. Students are very comfortable with being around other people that are not like themselves. And it's really just been a joy of a workplace in Kentwood, Michigan there.

[ Luke's Problem of Practice ]

Rod: That sounds so great, and I know that you've been a big part of shaping that environment there. So, thank you. All right, let's start with your problem of practice that you developed earlier this year. Your problem was in the, of course, in the world of math. And it was about like the broad problems with conventional math instruction. I'll just say that not all things conventional are bad, but the research tells us that certain conventional practices are just not effective. And as teachers of course, we see that with our own own eyes too. And so in your second account, you describe a moment earlier in your career that helped you realize that what you were doing in the math classroom was just not the most effective approach to math education. Can you tell us how you changed your instruction and the differences that you started seeing in the classroom?

Luke: Yeah, just to comment on sort of that, that story from early in my career, very early on, I was mostly a geometry teacher, algebra, and it was about my seventh year teaching when I got the first opportunity to teach an upper level math class. It was a pre-calculus class. And I remember very specifically, I had first hour Algebra one, which was mostly students that were repeating the class for the second or third time. And then second hour I had pre-calculus. And I remember my pre-calculus students started coming into my classroom and I kind of took a look out into the classroom and quickly realized that it did not look like the rest of the student body at East Kentwood High School. There was a serious lack of diversity in this pre-calculus class, which is present in my geometry and my algebra classes. And so, I got to wondering like, why is that, why is that the case? And I think there's a lot of reasons to explain that, but I think that the biggest reason for that is about the way that we teach mathematics traditionally. And you know, at that point in my career, I was mostly teaching mathematics the way that I learned it when I was in high school, which is the teacher does a lecture, the students take notes, and then maybe the students do some practice problems on their own. You know, that's how I learned math and that's how I'd been teaching early on in my career.

Rod: That's right. I remember those getting those like 35 problems for the next day. You might not have needed to do all 35, but 35 were due, right?

Luke: Yeah, it's like lecture, lecture, lecture, and here's a hundred practice problems. And you know, as I started to explore some other teaching models that were different than this, what I realized was that that teaching model works just fine for a small select group of students. It's those students that they know how to play the game of school. They know that they just need to sort of memorize the steps that the teacher takes and then reproduce those on the test. And it leaves a big chunk of students behind who get disengaged because of that model. And so I started to transition my classroom to be a little bit more student centered rather than teacher centered. And I had some incredible support from some colleagues. And what I found was that the more that students were talking, the more that they were working in groups, the more that they were thinking and reasoning rather than me doing all the thinking and reasoning,

Rod: Right? Yeah.

Luke: That a wider diversity of students were finding success in my classroom. So I really think it's a challenge to the way that we teach mathematics a little bit of a challenge to the traditional model of teaching mathematics if we truly want all of our students to be successful in math.

Rod: Yeah, that's so interesting. And that core problem that you describe is universal, like really all the subjects have a version of your story. And in one of the classes that I teach now, here at the School of Ed, we've talked about the Freire banking model. It assumes that learning happens when a teacher takes their knowledge and deposits it in the heads of their students. And then, so one thing I talked about with my students was that a lot of what we see in education reform, especially in the last 20 years, is an effort to pivot away from that model one way or another. And part of what we value here at the Marsal School of Education, part of our identity is a commitment to disciplinary literacy, which basically is like leveraging the practices of particular discipline. So teachers can study like how mathematicians do their work or how chemists do their work, and then kind of use that to create learning experiences putting students in these active roles. So like students are thinking like economists thinking like marketers or historians does that, is that what your approach is? Are your students thinking like mathematicians?

Luke: Yeah, so I love this idea of like getting students thinking like mathematicians and I think it's really based on, like what are our intended outcomes for our students when they leave our classroom? You know, is it the intended outcome that I'd like them to be able to use the quadratic formula to find all of the roots of a quadratic equation? Or is it my intended outcome that I'd like them to leave my classroom with thinking and reasoning and problem solving skills that will allow them to be successful in the world. And certainly when you think about it from that perspective, it's the thinking processes that are more valuable than the actual content itself, right? And so, like you mentioned that's a shift in the way that we teach math if we wanna produce students that think like mathematicians rather than students that do the quadratic formula. And so, rather than giving them like a set of steps to memorize and reproduce on a test instead, like you mentioned, I think we need to give them experiences where they have to think like mathematicians. So in my classroom, in my current version of a classroom, I want students talking to students. So typically they'll be working on some sort of a task in small groups where they're doing the thinking and the reasoning and the discovering of the content within their groups before the teacher provides some sort of like formal, definitions or theorems. And so in that way, the students are thinking like mathematicians, they're having to take their prior knowledge, what they know to investigate this like, sort of new task where they're thinking and reasoning. Because ultimately when they leave my classroom that that's what they carry forward with them, is that those think those critical thinking skills.

Rod: Right?

Luke: Rather than just content knowledge that we learn in high school mathematics.

Rod: Right, and this is such a departure from the sort of game of school with a lot of the students are used to that unfortunately when they come into our classrooms. And then I'll also add that by focusing on skills and the way that you're focusing on them, it helps students learn the content in more depth so that they're like, so for example, in social studies, an approach like that can help deepen their understanding of psychology or civics whatever they're learning so that when they leave, they have the skills and a deeper knowledge. How do you scaffold those experiences for students so that they can, they're not gonna be, we don't expect them to be like PhDs in mathematics, but just as a graduate from high school, how do you scaffold those learning experiences for them so that they're learning math in the way that you want them to learn it?

Luke: Yeah, so in a typical one of my lessons, instead of the teacher being first where the teacher is like presenting some examples or definitions, instead, students start the lesson by working in those small groups. And as they're working through those small groups, I'm walking around the room and I'm listening in, I'm asking questions of the group, I'm asking them to explain their thinking to clarify what they're working on. And then once they've had a chance to like work through that entire task within their groups, then I pull the class back together as a whole group and I'll ask students to out loud, explain their thinking and reasoning. And then on top of that, I'll layer on whatever the formal definition is or the notation or the theorems that they, that they're actually talking about. Maybe they don't know the name of that, but I'm gonna provide that for them as the teacher. And so I call the teaching model experience first, formalize later. So the experience first part is when students are working together and they're actually like playing around with the mathematical concepts and ideas without the formal definitions and notation, which the teacher then provides as the second layer, that's the formalize later. So experience first, formalize later is the model.

Rod: Nice, so yeah, so start with again, where they're at. See how they're almost like playing around with these ideas. And then you can step in and guide a little bit and then bring them to whatever conclusion you're trying to get them to see or help them see new things that you're not even thinking about. So when you detach and depart from the conventional course, what's hard about math instruction? What's hard about that as a sort of a creator of learning experiences?

Luke: Yeah, I do think for some students, I mean definitely this is a departure from the way that they have learned in the past and specifically maybe the way that they've learned mathematics in the past. You know, a lot of them come from classrooms where they're used to the teacher providing all of the definitions and theorems and going through several example problems. And it can be frustrating for those students because they'll say, why aren't you teaching us? Or why don't you tell us what we need to know?

Rod: Yeah. - And so, that's where I have to sort of provide the philosophy around like, no, the value is in like the struggle and the challenge of figuring it out, right? If I just hand everything to you and I give you the set of steps that's not gonna produce like a deep understanding like you talked about, or like an enduring understanding that you'll have a month from now or two months from now. And so it does take sometimes some convincing on my part just about the philosophy of that model. But then I also just have to ask them to trust me, because I've been doing this for a long time and I know that it works and you gotta trust the process. And usually with students, there's some point where they realize, you know what, if I do it this way, I actually learn more and I understand better and I do better on assessments because of this. And so sometimes it takes a little bit of convincing, but usually by the end of the year I've won 'em all over.

Luke: I love that, yeah. I think it helps to be transparent with our students in whatever ways that we can. And I would think that like front loading that in the early part of the year probably helps 'cause they come in and then as you said, they're kind of used to that or some students are used to that sort of cozy routine that you described where the teacher, kind of lectures and shows them the model do it this way. That's that sort of comfortable game of school that a lot of students have been successful at sort of winning. But I found it sounds like you've found too, that a lot of times students can go through that, but when they exit the class, they really have just a surface knowledge understanding of the subject. So, applaud you for your efforts in doing that. So it's that, it's exactly actually, what we teach here at the School of Ed. So I love seeing that sort of application. So, okay, so let's move on to like sort of another part of your math leadership where you developed something called Math Medic and this is something that you wanted to do to broaden your reach in the field of math education. Can you tell us about Math Medic and how it helps schools and helps students?

Rod: Yeah, for sure. So these lessons, these experience first formalized lessons that I was talking about, my colleagues and I are just developing these at East Kentwood High School. We're testing 'em out in our classrooms, we're making modifications for it. And we realized like at some point now we have this collection of like really, really good lessons that help to engage a wide diversity of students. Wouldn't this be helpful for lots and lots of math teachers because I know a lot of math teachers that they, that's really how they want their classrooms to be run. But in terms of being able to develop those resources, it's just so time intensive and there are just so many demands on teachers time right now. And so we thought if we shared these out on the internet, maybe teachers would use these lessons and they wouldn't have to spend all of that time developing and they could focus more on their instruction. And so we created a website called Math Medic, it's just mathmedic.com and we put all the lessons up there for free. And we actually, by now, this is now nine years later, we have every high school math course from algebra one all the way through AP calculus. There are free lesson plans for every single day of the school year. And every one of the lessons is in the same format that I talked about the experience first, formalize later. And so teachers can create an account and download those lessons and try 'em out in their classrooms.

Luke: That is so cool. We will put that in the show notes as well. Also, we'll put a resource that shows how that works experience first, formalize later that sounds like, just the perfect approach to math education and so tell us about the Math Medic's story since launching it. Like, how has that gone?

Rod: Yeah, so we actually, well, we started in statistics. That was our first set of lesson plans that we put out and then, you know, calculus and eventually moved to all of high school math. And since our launch nine years ago, we now have over 100,000 teachers that have downloaded our lessons.

Luke: Amazing.

Rod: All over the country, in fact, all over the world. And so it's really, really incredible to think that the lessons that we made at East Kentwood High School are like finding their way into classrooms, like literally around the world. That's just been really, really cool to think about. And we now have like some communities, we have a couple of groups on Facebook with, we have over 10,000 teachers that are in these Facebook communities and they're there supporting each other and helping each other, everybody who's like using these lessons. So we've definitely, I think expanded our reach far beyond the walls at East Kentwood High School.

Luke: Wow, so when you're here at the School of Ed, getting your degree and your teaching certificate, did you ever think that you would scale up whatever you were trying to do where you would have such an impact on math education?

Rod: Not in any way, shape or form. It was like, for me it was about like, I just want to become the best math teacher that I can become, and I just put my head down. And for the first 15 years of my career, it was about how can I be the best here? In my classroom at East Kentwood High School. And it really was only recently that started to think beyond the walls and never ever would've imagined that when I was a senior at the University of Michigan in 2001.

Luke: Right, yeah, well, yeah. You know, when we take that sort of hedgehog approach, just put our head down and try to do some good things, so often good things happen, but on this scale is really an achievement. So thank you for all the work that you're doing in math education. You and I have had conversations about education and I've enjoyed every one of them. And one thing I sense is like there's this optimism at your core that your approach to math education can have an outsized impact on all students, and especially on like an underserved student populations that can have a big impact there. Can you talk about that a little?

Rod: Yeah, I actually think that a lot of that comes from like my own story, my own childhood. You know, I grew up in an affluent suburb of Detroit. I was like the only free and reduced lunch kid at my school. And I was lucky enough to have some amazing teachers and some amazing support at school. And because of that, was able to find success in high school, get into the University of Michigan. And so I think ever since that experience, I've kind of had this like, I root for the underdog.

Luke: Yeah, you kept that with you, yeah.

Rod: I like want to help the underserved, the underdog and that's why I think East Kentwood High School was so appealing to me and why I've been there for my whole career was because with the diversity of students there and low income and minority students who have been underserved by a lot of things in education, I wanna root for them and I want to help them to be successful. And so that's what I'm doing in my classroom. But I feel like with mathematics, we can do this on a larger scale where we can have an impact on that in classrooms all over the world. And so ultimately it's about me rooting for the underdog, I think.

Luke: Yeah, rooting, supporting, creating paths to help them learn and grow and empower them. That's amazing. A model for all of us really. Thank you. And so let shifting gears now back to our Teach Blue Fellows program. So in the spring we paired each Teach Blue fellow with a faculty partner. Can you tell us about your faculty partner?

Rod: Yeah, definitely. So my Teach Blue Fellows faculty partner, her name is Vilma Mesa, she's a professor at the Marsal School of Education and she has done a lot of work over her career around innovative teaching practices in the STEM field. So right in my sweet spot.

Luke: Yeah.

Rod: And so she has given me a lot of research to read about innovative teaching practices in math education. And what I have found most valuable is that up to this point, a lot of what I think about math education and what I share about student centered and experience first, formalize later, that is based on my experience at East Kentwood High School. And I have a lot of evidence, anecdotal evidence from my own classroom to support that this model works for a diversity of different students. But what Vilma has provided me is actual research that says the same thing.

Luke: So ah, right. Corroborates what your instincts told you and what you've been trying.

Rod: Yeah, it has been so validating to see that like, this has been studied by researchers in the math education field, and they are coming to the same conclusions that I came to, in room 205 at East Kentwood High School. And so that just makes me all that much more sort of inspired and motivated to like, continue doing the work that we're doing.

Luke: I love that, thank you. Alright, so now in a sort of broader education question, so we're still in the early part of the school year and we know how busy this period is. I guess really, I don't know, is there not a busy period for school teachers? But one thing I tell my students and talk to 'em about is that hey teaching is physically demanding, mentally demanding, and that we need some sort of balance to kind of balance that out. What's something that you do to take a break from teaching so that you can recharge? Could be anything.

Rod: Yeah, so for me it's like, it's physical activity, it's like getting out for a hike. I'm a runner, I'm a long distance runner and that's like just part of my routine that I need my daily or long run where I can just let my mind go free.

Luke: Wow. - Yeah. I recently got a Peloton, so that's also been some of my physical activity, but that's like my time where I get to sort of clear my head.

Rod: Nice, and one time when I was doing a little background for some of your work, I saw that on your site you have, you've done something with, was it race cars or cars?

Luke: Yeah, I've definitely been like in and out of car culture for the last years. I did some sort of amateur road racing when I was younger, but-

Rod: Oh my gosh, cool.

Luke: Yeah, I have a little garage that I work on cars and motorcycles. I'm a bit of a car enthusiast, so that's definitely something that also like, allows me to have some creative outlet.

Rod: Yeah, I that's, we'll have to talk about that as more another time, but we're about ready to wrap up, but I have a question I'd like to kind of end these conversations with, and that is, is there one question that you wish that I would've asked?

Luke: Well, a lot of this is about the work that's happening at the Marsal School of Education and I feel a very close connection to the University of Michigan and the School of Education. So I guess maybe my biggest reason why, like what is it about the School of Ed that really inspires me? And the truth of it is that like this idea of equity in education and helping the diversity of students, you know that I like root for the Underdog and that's my thing. And what I love about the University of Michigan is that they don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk. I think there's a lot of absolutely schools and organizations that like to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but when it comes to actually like creating real programs that actually have an impact on students and equity and education, I really believe that the University of Michigan does incredible work around that. And so that just makes me proud to have come from the University of Michigan.

Rod: Well, thank you. Thank you for pointing that out and yeah, we love having you part of our community. It's made up of people like you who are committed to a better education for everybody. Alright, so my last question is, so what's on tap this year for mathematic or any other initiatives in the world of Luke Wilcox? Like do you have any races planned or anything like that? Or, I know that you probably did that before, but maybe you have a hankering to get back into it, I don't know.

Luke: Yeah, in terms of mathematics, so we have full curriculum for high school math, algebra one through AP calculus. And so the additional resource that we've been working on a lot lately is like, we wanna make sure that teachers have everything that they need to teach those classes, which we know is not just simply lesson plans to do each day. And so homework quizzes and tests, we know is a big part of what teachers need. And so, we have created those resources for teachers to use in those classes. And we're almost done. We've got AP calculus left to finish out, but that's on tap for this school year here. And in terms of upcoming running events, I guess in my long distance running, I always do the riverbank run every year, so that'll be in the spring. Racing events, I don't know, we started this thing called the Chop Top challenge, where teams have to cut the roof off of a car and then drive across the country. And so there's a chance I'll do another one of those in the spring as well.

Rod: Oh my gosh, that is really interesting. You'll have to fill me in about that. I wanna see some video. Well, very good, Luke. Thanks very much. Thanks for joining us and we look forward to seeing how your story unfolds this year as part of the Teach Blue Fellows program.

Luke: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Rod.

Rod: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Teach Blue Fellows Conversation series. I hope you enjoy this chat with Luke Wilcox as much as I did. What an amazing educator. Special thanks to our guest, Luke, and to the Ed Hub for Community and Professional Learning at Marsal for their many production talents. For resources related to today's topic and to learn more about Teach Blue Fellows, be sure to check out the links in our showcase. Also, don't forget to join our social communities at Marsal.humans.edu. You can stay connected with Teach Blue Fellow. I look forward to more conversations with our amazing Teach Blue Fellows, and I hope you'll join me next time.