The MCIULearns Podcast
The MCIU Learns podcast is where education leaders, innovators, and experts share insights and best practices to elevate learning and empower schools. Each episode features thought-provoking conversations with thought leaders, presenters, and program directors from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit (MCIU) and beyond. Whether we’re discussing cutting-edge programs, professional development strategies, or the latest trends in education, our goal is to inspire and build capacity in educators, administrators, and all those passionate about improving student outcomes.
The MCIULearns Podcast
Agency: Rethinking Math Through Voice, Choice, and Relevance With North Penn SD
What does real engagement look like in a math classroom—and how do we build it without losing rigor or pace? We sit down with North Penn’s secondary math coaches, Melinda Lyon and Rebecca Rousseau, to unpack practical strategies that put student voice, collaboration, and authentic problem solving at the center of learning.
We dive into the balancing act of agency and accountability, exploring how to honor standards and state tests while still offering choice and relevance. You’ll hear how UDL-informed structures let students select pathways based on quick self-assessments, how station rotations can blend mini-lessons with targeted practice, and why building a “toolbox” of routines equips teachers to respond to the class they actually have that day.
If you’re ready to make math feel alive, this conversation offers concrete steps you can try tomorrow. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and tell us: what’s one strategy you’ll test in your next lesson?
Go back into that toolbox, pull out what would fit best for those students or that day, that class, because we know it's not always one-set strategy. It's not always, you know, one fit for every class, for every student. So having that variety, like we said, within that toolbox and the recognition and awareness to be able to pull them out when needed, I think is something that makes our profession very unique.
Brandon:Hello, Montgomery County, and welcome to the MCI Who Learns Podcast. My name is Brandon Langer, and I'm the Director of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Norristown, Pennsylvania. This is our conversation with ed leaders, thought leaders, people in the space of education, looking forward to advancing uh learning outcomes on behalf of students and communities. And today is another amazing uh conversation with quickly becoming my my new co-host, uh Kirpa. I'm gonna go ahead and let her introduce herself and then our two guests from North Penn School District.
Kirpa:Thank you, Brandon. I'm Kirpa Chohan, educational consultant at Montgomery County Intermediate Unit. And today we're excited to be joined by two dedicated secondary math coaches from the North Penn School District, Melinda Lyon and Rebecca Rousseau. With 19 years of experience, Melinda brings a wealth of knowledge to her role, while Rebecca, who is in her 11th year, also serves as instructional coordinator for special content areas. Today, they work to provide engaging and impactful professional development for teachers not only in their district, but also across the math education community. In fact, they recently presented at the 2024 NCTM conference in Seattle, Washington. Driven by a shared passion for fostering student engagement and promoting student-centered learning, Melinda and Rebecca strive to make secondary math education both meaningful and accessible for all students. Thank you guys for being here today.
Speaker 03:Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Kirpa:So my first question is you have helped me in my role, so I'm from the North Pend. I was always like, okay, I'm going to, oh, if I had any question, I knew who to email. If I had a last-minute station request or calling someone in, I was like, I'm gonna email, and you guys responded really quickly. So it was really helpful to have both of you in my toolkit. So what I want to talk about today is how do you help teachers? How do you help teachers recognize when students are truly engaged in their math lessons? Are there any specific ways you guide them to boost engagement?
Speaker 03:Yeah, I think recognizing engagement is just kind of seeing how students are behaving in the classes. You look to see our students participating, is it the same students participating, or is everyone kind of getting a chance to share their voice within the classroom? I think that's kind of the biggest way to kind of recognize if the students are truly engaged in the lesson. You can see that, you know, if the beginning of the lesson, middle, and ending, kind of seeing if students are participating all the way through, or if teachers are having trouble in one air particular area of their teaching.
Speaker 02:Yeah, and a lot of that comes into the relationships and the awareness that teachers have in their classroom. They can then see, like Melinda said, who is answering and how often, and if they need to make an adjustment as they go along to increase that with a variety of students or in a variety of ways.
Brandon:Well, and I think relationships in the classroom, as you said, are key both to actually engagement, but also to building collaboration in your space, right? Uh both with between teacher and student, but also student and student. So what are the ways that you've seen math teachers build collaborative learning environments actively in the classroom?
Speaker 03:Yeah, I think collaboration in classrooms can kind of have a wide range. You can have small collaboration where it's like student to student. You also can have the wider classroom discussion collaboration or small group learning. So we always tell our teachers who are struggling to kind of get students to talk more and have those more discussion points to kind of even just start small, having those think pair-share moments or having students kind of talk through a, you know, uh which one doesn't belong, um, kind of having those little small moments for students to kind of start to feel comfortable. Not only as Rebecca said, like building the relationships with the students in the class, but just kind of building the relationship with the teacher and knowing that they're creating a safe environment to have that collaboration kind of grow and become bigger. And then as teachers feel more comfortable and the students feel more comfortable, then those collaboration moments can get larger with a variety of activities.
Speaker 02:Yeah, we have some teachers that are definitely exploring the random grouping and the vertical whiteboards that have been in the Building Thinking Classrooms resources. We've also had teachers looking at station rotations and how they can build collaboration in that. But all of these types of environments, it it is a journey, and teachers need to look at where they're starting. Can they add those little moments in and then build as they feel more comfortable and as their students feel more comfortable?
Brandon:Yeah, I remember when the uh a lot of the HATI research was coming out, you know, at this point, probably 10 years ago. It was a while, um, when I was introduced to it. And seeing though, all those studies on effective classroom practices and best practices, and feeling like I need to do all of those things because look how good they are for learning. And that was a little daunting uh for me in my classroom. And I think one of the challenges though is to help people see, and I think what you're alluding to is you don't have to do all of them at once, right? It's it's about taking a first step. All right, I want to build collaboration, I want to build relationships great. And as you said, starts small, builds upon over time, but then it can naturally organically grow and become something larger. And that's something I think is is true of all classrooms, not just math classrooms.
Speaker 03:Yeah, and I think that one thing if you ever come to like our professional development sessions or the teacher that ha teachers that have, um, we'll learn that we really try to provide a variety of just resources and activities and and things to kind of get teachers to start thinking about it. But our main goal is to provide just more tools for their toolbox. I think that's really important as a teacher in an education, is you know, the more tools that you can kind of have and pull out, even in a moment's notice, if a class is going sideways, the better you're feeling, the better you're prepared, the more confident teachers kind of become, and the more ownership they can kind of put on to students as well. Um so for us, it's really trying to build that toolbox for teachers. Um, and for us, like learning more and more resources that we can then share with teachers, and then hopefully we'll get to students as well.
Brandon:Yeah, the toolbox is really a great analogy for what we do in teaching, I think, because first of all, there's so many different tools themselves, whether you're talking technology tools or other instruments, like you were mentioning before. But I think the other piece of that conversation is sometimes a tool goes in the toolbox and you don't touch it for a while. And carry it around, you go to your next thing, go to the next thing. But then you come back to it and you're like, oh wow, that did, you know. I I I found myself in that situation as a teacher. I'd be like, why am I not doing this more often? You know, I'd pull out a certain strategy, what regardless of what it is.
Speaker 03:Yeah, I uh recently went, I was in a teacher's room and we were trying to think of a collaboration activity for students. They were, you know, she like they're they're not, they don't love like talking to each other. I was like, well, let's do like a I'm like, what about low-key one? And I actually provided her one that I learned from my cooperating teacher back when I was student teaching. So it's just, yeah, exactly right. Like you just never know when, you know, that classroom dynamic is gonna which tool it's gonna need and when you can, you know, when you're gonna need it.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I think that's a large scale of teachers is being able to have all of those strategies in their back pocket. And it comes back to that awareness and those relationships to be able to see what setting they're working with, and then go back into that toolbox, pull out what would fit best for those students or that day, that class, because we know it's not always one set strategy, it's not always, you know, one fit for every class for every student. So having that variety, like we said, within that toolbox and the recognition and awareness to be able to pull them out when needed, I think is something that makes our profession very unique.
Kirpa:Yeah, and there's always a tool for different situations, it's not going to all to always be the same. So my next my thing is what is your favorite tool that you have used that has yielded the biggest student impact, you think?
Speaker 03:Well, it's like you said, I don't think there's just one strategy. So I have trouble just like picking um a certain one. Um, but I've really enjoyed the like just getting students to kind of talk in class and and really, as you were saying before, trying to get teachers to understand that it doesn't have to be this big activity, the like which one doesn't belong questions and kind of just getting students to kind of get their thoughts down and making them feel comfortable that there's not really a wrong idea. Those low floor, high ceiling questions, you know, the open middle problems that are really just good at um providing entry points for students. I think those have been some of my favorite. Because I think sometimes teachers are skeptical at first of like how that's gonna go. Um, but seeing them implement that and then seeing the positive effect it has on their classroom discussion has been um good for me. I don't know, Rebecca.
Speaker 02:What yeah, I I was thinking through some things that I have greatly enjoyed, you know, and seeing a lot of collaboration in my classroom. But I think my favorite kind of back pocket strategy is just a good turn and talk to your neighbor and you know, that think pair-share kind of idea of not only giving them the opportunity to think for themselves, to share with another, but then as they share out in a you can share what you discussed or what your partner discussed. So giving them a little bit more safety so that they can share something that wasn't even their own thought, but they're still sharing. So they've taken that time, they've had thinking, they've had discussion, and then it's uh becomes a larger group. So it's not very flashy, but that's one that you can always put in into any situation and get students talking to each other.
Brandon:And I think the thing you're both calling out is is the need to have student voice and have it be present in the room through activities. And and that by its nature of today's conversation is engagement, right? If students have voice in the room, if students students are engaged in the practice. And the other, you know, part of that phrase that gets thrown a lot is voice and choice, right? We hear that second part. And I think that student choice, and and quite frankly, what that's speaking to is agency. Student agency in the classroom is essential. But we also have things that we're held to. We have, you know, curriculum, we have uh rules, we have all the things handed down from the state and the and the federal level that we have to accomplish in classrooms. So I'm curious from both of your perspectives, how do you advise teachers or how did you yourself manage what is really student agency, voice and choice in a classroom with what we need to accomplish, what we need to get done, especially in a class like math that is traditionally very pre-programmed and pre-laid out, and and that can be one of the challenges.
Speaker 02:Yeah, and you're correct. We do have state standards, we do have state assessments, and there are things that we do need to make sure we're covering, and we have some parameters we're working within. We have really liked looking at choice not only within the curriculum, but how can we blend it with also that student reflection piece? And so can we have a warm-up, for example, where students are seeing how they perform on a certain type of question or series of questions, and then from there they have a choice. So it's almost a blend of the two because you want students to build all of their capacities of agency. And so that's a big piece that we've tried working for and have found a lot of um success with.
Speaker 03:Yeah, we've worked with uh our district has kind of worked with the MCIU. We've partnered um with uh you guys to kind of look at UDL practices as well and trying to implement some of those ideas within our classrooms environments as well. One thing that Rebecca and I have also really kind of worked with teachers is looking at the structure of your class. So when you're in that lesson planning stage, finding different ways to structure your class. And what I mean by that is is it a station rotation for that day? Do you want students to have more small group like help or review? Is it more, can you structure it where they have more choice? A choice in how the lessons getting delivered to them, maybe coming back together, going over things, and then also have a choice in how they're practicing that material. So we've really looked at, you know, different ways to structure the classroom, as Rebecca was saying, like that win model, like what is needed, um, kind of having the students kind of have a self-assessment first, seeing what they're struggling with, and then kind of looking at that for them to be like, okay, if you got question one and two wrong, you know, maybe you need to work on this material, and here's an activity for that.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I think sometimes a math classroom gets the um misunderstanding that it has to be a very teacher-driven or you know, there is information being delivered. It has a more of a traditional mindset at times, and so that's been our focus as math teachers as we work with math teachers across our district to shift that mindset and look at some of those structures that are still meeting high-level needs of mathematical understanding, but are providing those variety of activities, student choice, a little bit of reflection, and um branching away from some more traditional style classrooms.
Brandon:Okay, well, I'm curious from your perspective, you know, we're speaking about a challenge here and how to from your perspective in your classroom, what was one of the challenges that stood out for you as the leader, as the teacher in the room.
Kirpa:One of the biggest challenges for me was assessments. So I would like try building thinking classroom, I tried all these student center activities, but then at the end of the day, I'd have to take the standardized test that's testing them only in one way, and part of me is like, oh, I'm getting evaluated from that. So how do I how much time do I focus on actually prepping them for that test? I felt that the assessment was a bit of a limiting factor to the best interest of my students. And I always struggle with that balance. On when do I focus on how much do I spend on giving those tests? Do you have any suggestions that you've come up with with assessments in that?
Speaker 03:Yeah, I mean, so it's no secret that like public education is tied to standardized tests like the PSSAs and Keystones. And for teachers, we need to balance that and you know, help students feel prepared for those tests. So reviewing for them is not inherently a bad thing. But we also know that in math, like they need students need to be engaged, right? They need to understand the relevance of what they're learning to the real, to the real world. So our district has really tried to have an initiative starting in the high school level. Um, this was probably this our second year of really trying to integrate more authentic assessments within our um within our curriculum. So kind of replacing some of the traditional testing throughout the year with some more authentic um assessments. I've seen some really great ones ranging from, you know, algebra two classes, geometry classes. So it's been exciting to see teachers take that journey and really learn what an authentic assessment is and kind of push themselves. You know, we're trying to take steps to try to really um get students to see the relevance in math, as well as, you know, having to balance that with the preparing them for those state tests.
Brandon:Not to put you on the spot, but does one authentic assessment come to mind in a specific class you mentioned, you know, algebra one or like is there one from this year or the past couple years that stands out to you?
Speaker 03:Yeah, one recent just a recent um teacher was recently getting married and was gonna be out. And so she wanted to leave an authentic assessment, and she left one for her algebra two class that was on absolute value equations. And she did one where the students had to plan a road trip and they could plan it anywhere they wanted, but they had to have certain points, stop points throughout the way. So students had to research the different places that they were gonna stop and they had to figure out the equal distance between the where they started and where they were gonna end, and kind of have those equal distant points using the absolute value equations. And students really liked really liked that and were really engaged in it, and it um from what I heard just went pretty well.
Brandon:Yeah, we recently had a conversation with a gentleman from Texas, and I feel like when you talk about authentic assessment in math, I feel like, Kippa, we were talking about quantitative reasoning and um data science, that kind of a thing. It just feels like that area of mathematics lends itself so easily to authentic assessment. For me, again, I'm not a math, I don't have the math background, but I did I did enjoy math. I think sometimes we we get ourselves pigeonholed in the more traditional non-integrated path of math about well, how do I even make that authentic? That's why I asked for the ex example. Because I I know it's doable, I've seen it done. I just think as many of those examples as we can share is is gonna help people move along with this idea that it doesn't just have to be I talk, you do it, we do that four days in a row, then you take a quiz, then we do it four more days, take a quiz, then we take a test. You know, it can it can grow and develop over time.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I think there's another um series that you can look at with the resources that we have. I think a lot of our curricular resources now that are coming out of companies, they do have those incorporated. They have, you know, we're looking at one that has National Geographic blended into it. We have ones in our middle school level that has performance tasks blended in. And I think not only are those just good resources, it also gives people a good start and being able to see how those can lend at the middle school level, at the high school level, you know, and and even then start creating their own. Because, like you said, we see the math, we understand, we see it in real life, and then we want students to also see that as well so that they can go out into the world. I had a seventh grade teacher was doing a restaurant activity in seventh grade. We look at taxes and tips and discounts, that's a big unit in seventh grade, and she had them research local restaurants. They got to go in a group, not out to the restaurant, but pretend they were in a group at the restaurant. They looked at the menu, they had to work together to put their list of items, calculate the total, calculate the tax, calculate the tip, and then there was a discount with a coupon. So they had all those really real-world applications that they were doing together in a small group. And some of them was really um sweet to see. They're like, Oh, I go to this restaurant with my family. And she had blended it also with a little bit of a cultural awareness, so she had a variety of restaurant types so students were able to see themselves in the restaurants that they were looking at and could share with their classmates. Oh, I go here with my family, here's what we get. And and that was another layer that you know we like adding into some of these, and we hope to do more of.
Kirpa:That is such a good idea. I wish I thought of that when I taught seventh grade.
Brandon:That's the point of teaching. You don't have to be the one that thought of it to bring it into your space, right? I mean, it's such a it it it let's share good ideas, let's share, you know, good, good units, good, good assessments, good, good lessons, individual lessons.
Speaker 03:Yeah, that's borrowing steel. Yeah, and that's one of the things we loved about, like love about our jobs is we're, you know, instructional coaches for math, seventh grade through twelfth grade. So we really get to see a variety. We see how the content, you know, builds, but we also get to see, you know, the seventh grade lesson of like tip tacks all the way up to that algebra two lesson as was as I was talking about. So, you know, I think authentic assessments can get a little bit tougher as you get into the harder materials, but we have seen good ones um, you know, throughout pretty much every grade. And it's just trying to find them, sharing them as you're saying, and like working together collaboratively as a teacher team too, to kind of bring them forward.
Brandon:So today was a lot about collaboration and engagement. We use those words over and over and over again for the all three of you. I'm I'd love to know what you think needs to shift, where we need to go, what's the step we need to take in order to move the math classroom forward? But really, nothing we have said is really just applicable to math. It could go anywhere. But let's keep math in our mind.
Speaker 03:Yeah, I mean, I think embracing that idea of the student-led classroom, trying to keep pushing our instructional practices to kind of put more ownership on the students and getting them to kind of lead the classroom, trying to get, as a teacher, I know sometimes for me it was hard to not be this age on the stage, right? And really kind of putting more onto students, whether that's through more vertical whiteboard activities, different, again, like we said, classroom structures that have students um, you know, taking more ownership in their learning and practice. Um for me, that's kind of where I think it needs to go, along with um pairing it with some UDL practices. I really loved the book Um The Shift to Student Led by Catelyn Tucker. Catelyn Tucker and Katie Novak. Um to me that was a really good, uh good blend of what I'm what I'm talking about, and we'd like to see those um practices be more um more universal in our classrooms.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I think there is a big mindset shift, like I said before, where teachers kind of giving up that ownership uh and that can be uncomfortable and and it can be uncertain because you're not sure how students are going to react, and you might not know all the answers if you're doing, say, an open middle problem, because there could be a lot of different answers, and some you just don't think of, and that can be very a very uncomfortable place when you are managing 30 bodies in your in your classroom. And so uh giving teachers that ability to have that discomfort in a safe way and just continuing to encourage them to make those small steps. So start small, try something, and then build from it. And we're not saying to jump to a full vertical whiteboards and completely student choice model on day one, but can you start with something and then continue to build and create that relationship and that environment in your classroom to get to those points eventually? But um to be in a safe way that you know teachers feel like they can jump in.
Speaker 03:Yeah, and just keep learning, keep learning those, you know, the different strategies and instructionals and pushing yourselves to kind of keep keep learning because you never know when you'll need a tool and what kind of class you're gonna get next year and and what will be needed. So uh like I we say we always build that toolbox.
Kirpa:And you guys do a great job with it. I remember coming to your double line PD, I think last year, right? Last year. And I took away from it, and the next day I was implementing that because that was the next unit for me. And even in this role, when I show the ideas from that PD, teachers are like, oh wow, this is this is awesome. I didn't think that kids could not know about equation and start solving equations with variables on both sides and have those thin slicing incorporated with it and use the same method. But I'm just gonna say you guys do an awesome job.
Speaker 02:Thank you. And I think you bring up a good point that there is a there are different methods that are being used to instruct math at this point in time for our elementary students building into middle school that are different methods than the way the teachers have learned it. And so when I'm saying that mindset shift, I I'm not putting any negative, you know, viewpoint onto teachers. We were instructed in a certain way. We went through our secondary education and and post that, and now coming back into the classroom, realizing there are other ways. You can solve equations with a double number line or algebra tiles, but that's not how we were instructed to solve them. So there is another layer of learning that we're doing. It's almost an unlearning to relearn to then reinstruct, um, that kind of adds that layer to this whole process of that shift.
Kirpa:I agree. Teachers are I feel like teachers are very open-minded and if they know the methods, it's the they will adapt to it, they'll take it, they'll start using it. It's just that they need that exposure. And if we provide those exposure moments for them, I think they will be on board with these things because they see they love student engagement, they see all these things, the benefits of having students in a classroom, but they just there is a disconnect on because they learned a different way, and what the way the new methods, they don't have as much experience with it.
Speaker 03:Yeah, and I think that starts too with the professional development of teachers, and I think districts really need to, you know, we're talking about all these engagement strategies for students, but it really starts with the professional development of teachers too, and making sure that we're providing engaging and relevant professional development for the teachers so that they can take these, you know, learn and take the strategies and are willing to implement them for the students too.
Brandon:Yeah, my half-baked analogy here for all for this part of the you know wrap-up conversation is you know, we've gone as humans, many civilizations, different w methods of moving ourselves around, right? Like we've walked, we've used horses, we drove cars, we've flown planes, now we got you know, some of us rocket ships. Um I think to the point is at some point we had to navigate that change from learning how to drive a horse to learning how to drive a car. And but the end goal didn't change. The goal was to move ourselves. We just found a faster way to do it, a more efficient way to do it. Um safety could be debated. But the point being, to your point, we had to we had to institute a process in which we we now prioritize to this way of learning, this method of of teaching, and and that is ever evolving for us, and that and that will I don't think we'll ever arrive. We'll we'll probably continue to see evolution in math, reading, and other practices, the more we learn, right? The more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about our communities and how students are and are not um accelerating, particularly in mathematics, which is a very difficult subject uh for so many students, so many families. Uh, when we look at test scores, you know, math, from my view at the state level often comes in lower than your reading and and and writing scores, and that's a problem, right? We have to continue to evaluate how we're teaching, not to just to make the test go up, but to address where we know there's deficit, where we know we need students to engage. So this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you both for what you do. Uh for those that don't know, North Penn is uh a school district in uh the n northern central part of the state uh county. Uh so around 14,000, 15,000 students, I'm guessing, about that size. So great work with your team. You have wonderful coaching, great great leadership, and just a great staff over there. So thank you both for coming and sitting down and chatting with what's going on over there.
Speaker 02:Thanks, go nights. Thank you very much.
Brandon:Kirpa, thanks again for looping us in on another math. I know we've got more on the schedule, so we're gonna have to eventually just make a math-specific podcast because you're doing such a great job bringing these conversations to light. So thank you for that.
Kirpa:Thank you.
Brandon:Uh, for those that haven't heard our show before, this is the MCIU Learns Podcast. We do these very quickly, moving to a weekly format here because we got so many great things going on in the county, across the state, and across the country. Uh, thank you for those that are listening. Be sure to follow us on uh all the social media networks at MCIU Learns. You can also check us out on the MCIU Learning Network, learn.mciu.org, and we'll hear you or see you on the next episode of the MCIU Learns Podcast. Thank you.