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In Vanessa's masters thesis titled "Imagining a World Where Paris Hilton Loves Math", there was nobody quoted more frequently than today's guest, Stanford professor Dr. Jo Boaler.  On the season 5 finale of Math Therapy, Vanessa sits down with her math ed hero to discuss how limiting beliefs vs a growth mindset impact the brain, how struggle and mistake-making benefit learning, and the extremely personal resistance she's faced in a career dedicated to making math more equitable and accessible.

About Jo: (Website, Twitter)
Stanford Professor Dr Jo Boaler is author of 18 books, numerous articles, and a White House presenter on women and girls. Her latest book is called: Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead and Live without Barriers. She co-founded www.youcubed.org, is currently one of the writing team creating a new Mathematics Framework for the state of California, co-leading a K-12 Data Science Initiative and was named as one of the 8 educators “changing the face of education” by the BBC. 

Links mentioned:

• App: Struggly
• Website: www.youcubed.org
• Book: Limitless Mind
• Standford study by Jo's colleague Lang Chen finding growth mindset helps student success
• Story of Nicholas Letchford - written off as a child with learning disabilities who went on to get a PhD in applied math

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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Peter Liljedahl is literally changing the math classroom.  His book "Building Thinking Classrooms" has taken the educational world by storm with a simple message: instead of teaching students to memorize, we have to teach them to think.  Sounds trite, but if you ... think about it, traditional classrooms are not designed that way!

Today, Peter explains to Vanessa how a "thinking classroom" swaps out tables for vertical whiteboards to reduce barriers for student interaction in problem-solving, and how small randomized groups foster collaboration that lifts the whole class.  He also shares what his time as an Olympic athlete (yep!) taught him about the difference between focusing on the rewarding work of process vs the perilous trap of focusing on outcomes.

About Peter: (Website, Twitter)
Dr. Peter Liljedahl is a Professor of Mathematics Education in the Faculty of Education and an associate member in the Department of Mathematics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.  He consults regularly with schools, school districts, and ministries of education on issues of teaching and learning, assessment, and numeracy.

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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Should mistake-making be encouraged in math class? Or should mistakes be shamed because “in the real world” you can get fired from your job from making a mistake? You can probably guess how Vanessa feels, but a fellow educator recently disagreed … so of course she took to Twitter and a spirited convo ensued!

On today’s episode she further outer-processes her thoughts on this topic, and shares two classroom exercises that encourage constructive mistake-making and help normalize growth from failure.

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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Today's guest literally entered the chat wearing a t-shirt that read "TRUTH MATTERS”, and that sure set the tone for this wide-ranging episode!  Crystal M. Watson is an educator who firmly believes in centering student voices in the classroom, and she also advocates for empowering students by making math practical and meaningful to their life experience.  Throw in some discussion on defining success, different approaches to grading, and a simple but thorough explanation of what "critical race theory" is and what it definitely isn't, and we've got an astonishingly jam-packed episode that left Vanessa with even more questions than she came in with!

About Crystal: (Website, Twitter, Instagram)
Crystal M. Watson, Ed.M is an innovative, passionate mathematics educator and life long learner who you can count on to always ask “What do the students think?” Her work is centered around providing space for student voice and identity development in order for everyone, particularly those from marginalized and historically excluded backgrounds, to experience high quality, deep, and personal mathematics.

Links referenced:

• Book: Unearthing Joy by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad
• Tool: Pear Deck
• Name-drops: Nolan Fossum (grades), Dr. Kristopher J. Childs (rich tasks), Kimberlé Crenshaw & Derrick Bell (CRT), Ibram X. Kendi (anti-racism)

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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In today's episode, Vanessa explores the dangers of narrowly defining success and argues that contrary to popular belief, failure and success are actually BFF, not opposites (looking at you, Merriam-Webster!).  She also shares a practical classroom tool for teachers and students to collaborate on shared definitions of success to support everyone's learning.

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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In honour of Pride Month, we're taking a mid-season 5 break to re-air one of our all-time fave episodes featuring mathematician / drag queen Kyne Santos.  Drag has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, so we wanted to share Kyne's inspiring story of breaking stereotypes and defying the haters.

If you're new to the podcast we also highly recommend going back and listening to the season 4 finale with Dr. Anthony Bonato which dove further into the fraught relationship between academia and the queer community and the trailblazers working to change the status quo every day.

*this interview first aired Apr 8th 2021*

Links mentioned:

• S4E10: Queering math w/ Dr. Anthony Bonato
• Vanessa's interview on Kyne's new podcast "Think Queen"
• Kyne on socials: @onlinekyne (Insta, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube)
• Kyne's website

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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Think of this week's episode as a kind of reverse palate cleanser ... Vanessa and today's guest Robert Kaplinsky more than make up for the lack of swearing last week!  What got them fired up?  Oh, just the systemic barriers to educational reform and the lack of support for both teachers and students when it comes to working through math anxiety ... But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom; Robert is certain that if we make math more practical to daily life and more welcoming to a diversity of learners, we still have hope.

About Robert:  (Twitter, Website)
Robert Kaplinsky has been an educator since 2003 as a classroom teacher, teacher specialist for Downey Unified School District, instructor for UCLA) and presenter at conferences around the world. He co-founded the website Open Middle, has been published in Edutopia and Education Week, and created the #ObserveMe movement.  He’s also the founder and president of Grassroots Workshops.

Links referenced:

• Robert's Book: Open Middle Math: Problems That Unlock Student Thinking
• Open Middle on Twitter: @openmiddle & #whyopenmiddle
• Grassroots Workshops: Twitter, Website

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

Topics discussed:

• 01:28 What is "Open Middle"?
• 07:13 Diversity of learners
• 11:01 What kind of math do we actually need?
• 18:43 Rethinking assessment
• 23:09 The benefits of struggle
• 26:04 Normalizing mistakes
• 31:57 Rethinking professional development

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Last week's episode featured a deep dive with Vanessa into math trauma: what it is and how to avoid it. Today, brain expert Liesl McConchie joins her to explain the neurological science of trauma, debunk the myth of the "math gene", and discuss the hopeful promise of neuroplasticity.  And not to be all clickbaity, but Vanessa ends up sharing some pretty intense math trauma of her own...

About Liesl:  (Twitter, Website)
Liesl McConchie is an international expert on how the brain learns, and co-author of best-selling book Brain-Based Learning with Dr. Eric Jensen. With over 20 years of experience in education, Liesl bridges her knowledge of how the brain best learns with her experience of teaching math to create tangible strategies to support teachers and schools across the globe.

Links referenced:

• Past episode: What even is math trauma? (S5E03)
• Past episode: Pi Day in Prison (S5 bonus)
• Book: Dear Math By Sarah Strong and Gigi Butterfield 
• Rosenthal effect (teacher expectations affecting student performance)

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

Topics discussed:

• 1:52 What is brain-based learning?
• 12:31 Neuroplasticity: a message of hope
• 15:05 Myth of the “math gene”
• 20:21 Epigenetics
• 22:26 How math trauma actually works
• 31:42 Classroom strategies for teachers

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Each episode, Vanessa discusses the impacts that math trauma can have on our collective relationship with math.  But she realized she's never explained what it is!  In this episode she defines what math trauma actually is, unpacks why traumatic educational experiences happen more often in math than in other subjects, and lists 8 common causes of math trauma for educators to be aware of.

• The tweet that started it all
• Free webinar by Dr. Kasi Allen: Math Trauma: Healing Our Classrooms, Our Students, and Our Discipline

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)

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You know how readers read and writers write?  Well one day Deborah Peart decided that math should also be a verb, so she created the Mather movement.  She and Vanessa discuss the difference between a "mather" and a "mathematician", how numeracy and literacy are basically the same thing, and how bringing a mindfulness approach to her classrooms led to her being known by her students simply as "Peace Lady".  Shake up your glitter jar (yep, that's a thing) and settle in for this hilarious and uplifting ep!

About Deborah: (Website, Twitter)
Deborah Peart is the founder and CEO of My Mathematical Mind. She speaks on a variety of topics related to math identity, elementary math content and instruction, and literacy connections to mathematics. She is the Director of Elementary Learning at UnboundEd and the lead author for second grade for the Illustrative Mathematics K-5 curriculum. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Mather merch
• Layla’s Curve
• #BlackWomenRockMath on Twitter
• Glitter jar: instructional video
• Grounded Kids Yoga
• mindfulschools.org
• Book: How We Are Smart by W. Nikola-Lisa
• Book: Mindfulness for Teachers by Patricia Jennings
• Book: Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

Connect with us:

• Vanessa Vakharia: @themathguru (Insta, Twitter, TikTok)
• Math Therapy: @maththerapy (Twitter)