I Grew up on Sesame Street

Recently, I visited New York. I lived in New York from the ages of about 3 to 10 and I was excited to bring my husband (who I have been with for over 25 years) to visit Hampton Bays and some family. Before heading down the Island, we stopped in NYC to see some bands and for an experience I have been very excited about: The Jim Henson Creature Shop Tour!

I am a child of immigrants to the United States and a first-generation college student. My parents worked a lot and also emphasized the importance of an education. My mom likes to tell me that I learned to read before kindergarten (I’m still a very avid reader), and she says a good part of the reason was Sesame Street.

Like many people my age, I grew up on Sesame Street. It opened a world of fantasy to me (probably why I still like the fantasy genre), introduced me to puppets with big personalities and new ideas, and helped me love learning. To this day, my dream is to consult for Sesame Street (hit me up if you know someone!). Now, you may be thinking, what does this have to do with mathematics education? Well, buckle up because here we go!

Sesame Street attends to how people learn. They anchor much of the learning in storytelling. You learn about a feeling or a topic in the context of someone’s experiences. They also use a lot of humor, when appropriate, to connect with learners. These stories often connect to real-world experiences, which gives the learning relevance. And because the learning connects to a character’s life, it also allows us to further know the character and build empathy.

The learning experiences also include multimodal communication. They will say a number, show the numeral, write the number word, and illustrate it with a context or a gesture. The multiple representations they utilize help build a deeper understanding of just what they are talking about. I also notice that they use a lot of non-examples, which are incredibly important for building an understanding of what something is—and what it is not.

As teachers, we can learn a lot from how Sesame Street brings these aspects into the learning experience. Through a bit of whimsy and joy, relating what we learn to others’ experiences and connecting ideas in different ways can help build deep understanding. Asking kids what they think, giving them opportunities to make sense of ideas, and asking them to think about what they learned are also important parts of growing up on Sesame Street.

Maybe that is one of the biggest lessons Sesame Street has for mathematics education: learning doesn’t have to feel stripped down to be meaningful. It can be joyful, funny, visual, connected to stories, and grounded in experiences while still helping learners develop deep and important understandings.

Instructional Nudge – Put a Bow on It

There seems to have been a proliferation of “bite-sized” or quick instructional strategies as of late. I am fully supportive of it and am glad something we’ve been working on since 2015 or so is gaining steam. I still think our( Practice-Driven PD) emphasis on instructional nudges, and how we define them, is a bit different from how others are thinking about these practices. In particular, ours aren’t necessarily aimed at accumulating toward a particular ambitious practice. Rather, we emphasize that instructional nudges are suggestions you can choose to take up (or not) if they align with your goals and needs.

Put a Bow on It came about because we watched a lot of lessons in which students were working, and then the bell rang and class just…ended. No closure, no closing remarks, just work → bell → buh bye.

We thought, wouldn’t it be nice to take just a minute or two to bring the students together and state the big takeaway from the day? Might it help students reflect on what they should pay particular attention to from the lesson before they set about their day? We thought so, and Put a Bow on It is the result.

UnTeach Project – What is a Fraction?

One of my favorite ways to start a discussion about fractions is to ask, well, what is a fraction?

Many people think about fractions as pieces out of some whole. So, for a fraction like 1/2, they might think of this as 1 out of 2 pieces. This gets super confusing when you think about 3/2, as it would be 3 out of 2 pieces. What the heck does that mean?

It can also get confusing if you draw a picture with 1/2 shaded in, but the shaded amount is actually made up of 2 pieces that are each 1/4 of the whole. Someone may fail to see this as equivalent to 1/2 because they are conditioned to look for just 2 pieces, rather than thinking about the size and amount of the pieces.

A more helpful way to think about fractions is to think of a fraction a/b as a pieces, each of which is 1/b of a given unit in size. For example, if you have 1/2, you can think about it as 1 piece that is 1/2 the size of the given whole. Then 2/2 would be 2 pieces, each 1/2 the size of the given unit. And 3/2 would be 3 pieces, each 1/2 the size of the given unit. This is helpful because it lets you think about improper fractions in a sensible way. It also makes it easier to think about 2 pieces that are each 1/4 of the whole as the same amount as 1 piece that is 1/2 of the whole.

This way of thinking also makes it easier to use common numerators to compare fractions. You can reason that 3/5 is larger than 3/8 because 3 pieces that are each 1/5 of the whole must be larger than 3 pieces that are each 1/8 of the whole. After all, 1/5 is larger than 1/8. The same number of bigger pieces makes a bigger amount.

Similarly, common denominators make more sense. If you compare 3/5 and 4/5, you can reason that 3 pieces that are each 1/5 of the whole are definitely less than 4 pieces that are each 1/5 of the whole. More pieces of the same size make a bigger amount.

One important last note: in each of these examples, the whole is the same size. That is a very important idea. When we compare fractions, we assume they have a common referent unit, or whole. Without knowing what the whole is, we can’t necessarily compare the fractions.

Upcoming Events & Happenings

Here are some updates and upcoming events I have planned. Let me know if you plan to be at any of these, it’s always nice to say hi in real life.

SXSW EDU Panel Picker

I’ve put in a session proposal for the SXSW EDU Conference. It’s an interesting conference and I enjoy hearing from people outside of the math education world. They also do things a bit differently, they have a voting system they call Panel Picker to determine who gets accepted. If you have a minute and are willing, I’d be grateful if you would give me a vote and maybe a comment! Just visit this link to do so.

Math-on-a-Stick at the MN State Fair

I am excited that I had the opportunity to meet Christopher Danielson and arrange to visit Math-on-a-Stick at the Minnesota State Fair later this month. Math-on-a-Stick is a “large-scale public math playspace at the Minnesota State Fair” (Talking Math With Kids). I’ll definitely report back about my experience in the September updates.

NCSM Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado

I’ll be a major speaker (I am so excited!). I’ll be presenting a session titled, “Ideas for Aligning Messages, Actions, Feedback and Evidence and Data to Feedback and Actions” on October 28th.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado

I’ll be rebooting one of my favorite sessions I’ve done. It’s called “Thinking Outside the Box with Substitution and Elimination” and I’ll be presenting it on October 29th.