When do you offer students help and what kinds of help do you offer? In this episode Pam and Kim discuss the balance of what kinds of help to give students and also where to find just the right help as teachers.
Talking Points:

• Encouragement alone isn't enough help
• Modeling thinking doesn't mean to take over the thinking
• Funneling vs focusing patterns of questioning
• Does your help create mathematicians or learned helplessness?
• Teachers also need just the right amount and kind of help

Registration for our workshops and Journey is now open! Find what help is best for you at https://www.mathisfigureoutable.com/workshops

See also Episode 113 for more discussion about helping students.

Check out our social media
Twitter: @PWHarris
Instagram: Pam Harris_math
Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education

 In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on January 18, 2023. 

Note: It’s more fun if you try to solve the problem, share it on social media, comment on others strategies, before you listen to Pam and Kim’s strategies.

Check out #MathStratChat on your favorite social media site and join in the conversation.

What does it take to change our perspectives so we can teach more and more Real Math? In this episode Pam and Kim discuss how they can help YOU when you join the You Can Change Math Class Challenge!
Talking Points:

• What is the Challenge anyway?
• Is the math you do at home different from the math you do in school? (Thank you John SanGiovanni)
• What are the major perspectives and how can I learn more about them?
• How does the perspective of how I was taught affect how I teach?

Register for the challenge here! https://www.mathisfigureoutable.com/change
Get the free ebook here! https://www.mathisfigureoutable.com/big

For more on the perspectives we talked about see episodes 24-28, and take the quiz to learn more about your perspective! https://www.mathisfigureoutable.com/xyz

Check out our social media
Twitter: @PWHarris
Instagram: Pam Harris_math
Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education

In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on January 11, 2023. 

Note: It’s more fun if you try to solve the problem, share it on social media, comment on others strategies, before you listen to Pam and Kim’s strategies.

Check out #MathStratChat on your favorite social media site and join in the conversation.

We have heard from both teachers and leaders that it's a struggle to know what to look for in a Math is Figure-out-able classsroom and how to evaluate it, and help each other better our teaching craft. In this episode Pam and Kim go through the NCTM Effective Teaching practices and discuss and suggest conversations about how those standards look in a Math is Figure-out-able classroom.
Talking Points:

• What does it mean to "establish mathematics goals to focus on learning"?
• What do tasks that "promote reasoning and problem solving" vs direct teaching look like?
• What all is entailed in "connecting matematical representations"? 
• Why is "meaningful mathematical discourse" critical and what does it sound like? (listen to Episode 128 for more about Do, Say, Represent)
• What do "purposeful questions" sound like? The difference between funneling vs focusing questions.
• How we tweak "build (procedural) fluency with conceptual understanding"?
• What is "productive struggle"? Do you need time, or help? (listen to Episode 113 for more about productive struggle)
• What do tasks or problems look like that "elicit evidence of student thinking" then "use the thinking" to move the math forward?

Don't forget to join the You Can Change Math Class Challenge! Register at mathisfigureoutable.com/change

Check out our social media
Twitter: @PWHarris
Instagram: Pam Harris_math
Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education

In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on January 4, 2023. 

Note: It’s more fun if you try to solve the problem, share it on social media, comment on others strategies, before you listen to Pam and Kim’s strategies.

Check out #MathStratChat on your favorite social media site and join in the conversation.

It's our wrap up episode on ratio tables. In this episode Pam and Kim answer some frequently asked questions and talk about how we can take ratio tables into higher math and beyond.
Talking Points:

• Why teachers erase and when should students erase?
• Do, Say, Represent: how to help students represent what's going on in their heads 
• Ratio tables aren't a gimmick, they make thinking visiable of how mathematicians and other mathy people think for the masses
• Using ratio tables to notice patterns and reason using mathematical relationships in order to write the equation of a line
• Using ratio tables to reason about rational functions and transformations

Check out our social media
Twitter: @PWHarris
Instagram: Pam Harris_math
Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education

In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on December 28, 2022. 

Note: It’s more fun if you try to solve the problem, share it on social media, comment on others strategies, before you listen to Pam and Kim’s strategies.

Check out #MathStratChat on your favorite social media site and join in the conversation.

It's time to talk equivalent ratios and fractions! In this episode Pam and Kim demonstrate how understanding equivalent ratios leads to powerful reasoning about fraction operation, without the need to memorize steps and rules or algorithms.
Talking Points:

• Empowerment is about having choice
• Ratio tables aren't a strategy, they're a model/representation of the strategy or strategies being used
• If you understand fractional equivalence, you don't need rules for fraction operations
• How to add 3/4 and 5/7 thinking and reasoning using a ratio table
• Do non-equivalent ratios go on the same ratio table? How do you handle adding non-equivalent ratios?

Note: for more information about the packs and sticks of gum scenario, listen to Episode 131
See Ep 64 and 176 for more on equivalent ratios!

Check out our social media
Twitter: @PWHarris
Instagram: Pam Harris_math
Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education

In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on December 21, 2022. 

Note: It’s more fun if you try to solve the problem, share it on social media, comment on others strategies, before you listen to Pam and Kim’s strategies.

Check out #MathStratChat on your favorite social media site and join in the conversation.