MLC Bug

The Math Learning Center Blog

Our team offers insights and happenings in elementary math education and the Bridges in Mathematics curriculum. 

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Dr. James Brickwedde, How You Say It Matters: Teacher Language Choices That Support Number Sense

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 7 Carry the 1. Add a 0. Cross multiply. All of these are phrases that educators heard when they were growing up. This language is so ingrained that many educators use it without even thinking. But what’s the long-term impact of language like this on the development of our students’ number sense? Today, we’re talking with Dr. James Brickwedde about the impact of...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Drs. Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey; Nurturing Mathematical Curiosity: Supporting Mathematical Argumentation in the Early Grades

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 6 Argumentation. Justification. Conjecture. All of these are practices we hope to cultivate, but they may not be practices we associate with kindergartners, first-, or second graders. What would it look like to encourage these practices with our youngest learners? Today we’ll talk about this question with Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey, authors of the book...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Summer Pettigrew and Megan Williams, Building Asset-Focused Professional Learning Communities

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 5 Professional learning communities have been around for a long time, in many different iterations. But what does it look like to schedule and structure professional learning communities that help educators understand and respond to their students' thinking in meaningful ways? Today we’re talking with Summer Pettigrew and Megan Williams from the Charleston County...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Beth Hulbert, Making Sense of Unitizing: The Theme That Runs Through Elementary Mathematics

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 4 During their elementary years, students grapple with many topics that involve relationships between different units. In fact, unitizing serves as a foundation for much of the mathematics students encounter during their elementary years. Today, we’re talking with Beth Hulbert from the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) about the ways educators can encourage...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Drs. Zandra De Arajuo and Amber Candela, Choice as a Foundation for Student Engagement

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 3 As educators, we know offering students choice has a big impact on their engagement, identity, and sense of autonomy. That said, it's not always clear how to design choice into activities, especially when using curriculum materials. Today, we’re talking with Drs. Zandra De Araujo and Amber Candela about some of the ways educators can design choice into their...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Dr. Corey Drake, Principles for Responsive Curriculum Use

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 2 When it comes to curriculum, educators are often told to implement with fidelity. But what does fidelity mean, and where does that leave educators who want to be responsive to the students in their classrooms? Today we’re talking with Dr. Corey Drake about principles for responsive curriculum use that invite educators to respond to the students in their classrooms...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Dr. Peter Liljedahl, Grouping Practices That Promote Efficacy & Knowledge Transfer

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 1 We know from research that student collaboration can have a powerful impact on learning. That said, how we group students for collaboration matters — a lot. Today we’re talking with Dr. Peter Liljedahl, author of Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics , about how educators can form productive, collaborative groups in their classrooms. More Episodes BIOGRAPHY...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Danielle Robinson and Dr. Melissa Hedges, The Promise of Counting Collections

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 2 | EPISODE 18 Earlier this season, we released an episode focused on the complex and interconnected set of concepts that students engage with when they learn to count. In this follow-up episode, we’re going to examine a powerful routine called counting collections. We’ll be talking with Danielle Robinson and Dr. Melissa Hedges from Milwaukee Public Schools about counting...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Dr. Robyn Pinilla, Making Sense of Spatial Reasoning

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 2 | EPISODE 17 Spatial reasoning can be a nebulous concept that is hard for many educators to define. In this episode, we’re talking about spatial reasoning with Dr. Robyn Pinilla from the University of Texas El Paso. We’ll examine the connections between spatial reasoning and other mathematical concepts and explore different ways that educators can cultivate this type of...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support

Drs. Amber Candela and Melissa Boston, Strengthening Tasks Through Student Talk

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 2 | EPISODE 16 In this episode, we are talking with Drs. Amber Candela and Melissa Boston about powerful but practical strategies for supporting student talk in the elementary math classroom. More Episodes RESOURCES Discourse Actions to Promote Student Access Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching to Inform Instructional Quality 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive...
Mike Wallus, Vice President for Educator Support