In this special COVID-19 episode of the BG Ideas podcast, Melody Freeland, a BGSU grad student and winner of the ICS ICS Student Research Award, and Dr. Cyndi Ducar, associate professor in World Languages and Cultures at BGSU, sit down to discuss teaching strategies in application to students learning math without English as their first language.

Announcer:

From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.

Musical Intro:

I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.

Jolie:

Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and director of ICS.

Jolie:

This is a special episode of the Big Ideas podcast, which we're recording during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means we're not in studio but are recording via phone and computer. Our sound quality will differ as a result, but we thought it was important to share with you some of the amazing work being done by members of our BGSU community. Perhaps now more than ever, we want to celebrate big ideas. As always, the opinions expressed are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.

Jolie:

Today, I'm joined by two guests, Melody Freeman and Dr. Cynthia Ducar. Melody is a BGSU alum with an undergrad degree in mathematics education for ages 7 through 12 who is currently working on a master's degree in Spanish, also at BGSU. She received an ICS student research award for her project "Analyzing and assessing the preparedness of math teachers to meet the needs of students for whom English is not their native language". Her faculty mentor is Dr. Cindy Ducar who teaches graduate and undergraduate Spanish courses and topics such as applied linguistics, Hispanic socio-linguistics, and heritage language pedagogy. Welcome, Melody and Cindy. Thanks for being with me today.

Melody:

Hello.

Cynthia:

Good to see you.

Jolie:

Melody, could you start us off with a description of your project and what motivated you? What questions were you trying to answer?

Melody:

Yeah, so my project, the official title is BGSU in mathematics education graduates self-efficacy for the teaching of Hispanic English language learners. So this project kind of focuses on looking at our own program at BGSU, which I went through as an undergraduate. So it's kind of a unique thing where I can kind of look at that program for mathematics education, but specifically at those who are studying to get their degree in a 7 through 12 grade certification for teaching math and those same students who are going through the program or have just recently graduated, kind of like myself and my colleagues, who I graduated with at BGSU, and looking at and studying or investigating their levels of self-efficacy specifically for teaching students whose native language is Spanish or who are classified as English language learners.

Melody:

I guess I would say that where this project came from, why this question, why this project, I think part of it comes from the fact that I did go through the same exact program as an undergraduate, so I have kind of this firsthand experience and our program is one of the top in the nation. But any program still has gaps or things to work on, and so I did notice or take note of a few things as I did go through the program myself, one of those gaps in preparation, which is related to preparing our future teachers who teach math specifically, to be able to do that efficiently and effectively for this student population specifically. So I think that those are kind of the main components of wha