In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie continue their conversation with Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta. In follow-up to our previous episode, this conversation shifts to a focus on teachers and how the Reason Routines help them to be more effective with more students. 

We begin by talking about what makes teaching hard – including the fact that teachers make a million decisions every day in response to the students in the room and how they are engaging with the content; and that doesn’t even include the day-to-day challenges of interruptions, meetings, grading papers, and on and on! The routines are a support for teachers to use a structure for learning that frees them up to be responsive to the students in the moment.

As we learned in the previous episode, the routines help teachers to (a) focus on student thinking, (b) get out of the middle of learning, and (c) support students’ productive struggle. These concrete strategies engage all learners in mathematical thinking, supporting special populations from the start rather than requiring an additional set of approaches to support them. Additionally, the routines create student agency in mathematics, providing ways for students to listen to, engage with, and learn from one another.

We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode:

• Be sure to explore Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta’s website, Fostering Mathematical Practices …
• … and their books, Routines for Reasoning and Teaching for Thinking.
• Explore infographics, tasks, and more for the Connecting Representations routine.
• See the Connecting Representations routine in action in this classroom video.

Be sure to go back and listen to Part 1 of this conversation if you haven’t already!!

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 [email protected] . Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.