In this episode, I am joined by Rogelio Adame, Principal of Cesar Chavez Junior High School and Steve Merchant, Principal of Whitmore Charter School in Ceres, CA. Both principals attended the Building Thinking Classrooms Conference in Franklin, Indiana in June along with some teachers and instructional coaches from the Ceres Unified School District. We discuss some of the takeaways from the conference and talk about how the BTC practices can change the culture of thinking and learning in their schools. We discuss student engagement, using evidence of learning for grading, and...of course...how the BTC practices can help in their roles as leaders and evaluators of teachers.

Joining me this episode are two high school teachers, Diana Andrade and Sarah Mucha. We discuss our trip to Franklin, Indiana for the Building Thinking Classrooms Conference 2023! A group of teachers, coaches, and administrators from our district traveled from Ceres, CA to do some professional development all focused on the 14 practices.

Listen as the three of us discuss our thoughts on the sessions, implications for this coming school year and some new ideas that we picked up during the conference.

Joining me this episode are instructional coaches Kelly Linhares and Melanie Roche. Kelly and Mel have been working with elementary teachers this year supporting implementation of the building thinking classrooms practices. Both coaches share insights from their experience working with the elementary teachers and students. We also discuss the different issues that arise in thinking classrooms in elementary grades as opposed to secondary grades.

In this episode, I am joined by one of our district's junior high resource teachers, Sydnee Merchant. Sydnee is a special education teacher that teaches 7th and 8th grade students with mild or moderate learning disabilities. She has been using the Building Thinking Classrooms framework this school year with great success. Join us as she describes her journey into Building Thinking Classrooms, the assessment data that has been extraordinary as a result of the changes, her own personal growth and how her love of teaching has been reinvigorated. Stick around after our conversation to listen to some testimonials straight from her students!

We have made it to the end of our book study and deep dive into Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl. Our round-table conversation focuses on how we grade and the tools that help us do so in a thinking classroom. We follow that up with a wrap-up discussion of the book, talk about the two types of toolkits that are highlighted in chapter 15 and, lastly, describe what is next as we look to the beginning of next school year and implementing the 14 practices.

Join our discussion on Peter Liljedahl's powerful book, Building Thinking Classroom in Mathematics. This episode, I am joined by a panel of five awesome high school math teachers as we have a conversation about chapters 12 and 13. We dive deep in how we evaluate students using rubrics in competencies, in this case we talk the standards for mathematical practices. We also discuss how we begin to have students self-evaluate their learning. We connect this with learning intentions and success criteria, as well as, discuss the vital importance of students being able to see a unit of study as a collection of subtopics rather than one big concept.

Join our panel of teachers as we discuss implementation and thoughts about chapters 10 and 11 of Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl.  In this episode we discuss how we consolidate the learning in a thinking classroom. Spoiler alert: we consolidate from the bottom!  We discuss how this looks in our classes and ways we can support student learning using three different consolidation techniques.  We also talk about taking notes in a thinking classroom and how we can give students more ownership over their note-taking.

We  continue our round-table discussion of the book Building Thinking  Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl.  Our focus this episode is on fostering student autonomy and how we give hints and extensions in a thinking classroom.  Join us as we share more classroom experiences from implementing the practices in previous chapters and thoughts about future implementation.

We continue our round-table discussion of the book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl.  Our focus this episode is on how, where and when we give tasks to students.  We also talk about how homework is dealt with in a thinking classroom.  Join us as we share classroom experiences that we have had in implementing many of the practices thus far.

In this episode, I get to chat with one of our district math teachers, Enoe Ochoa.  Enoe is THE high school math teacher at our district charter school.  This year, she has implemented many of the strategies described in Building Thinking Classrooms in mathematics.  We discuss how the change has impacted her classroom culture, student confidence, and student performance.  Join us for this great one-on-one conversation focused on her experience.