180 Days Education

Nubeja Allen is currently the Secondary Math Supervisor in Franklin Township Public Schools in Somerset, New Jersey. Throughout her 26 years in education, Nubeja has a diverse K -12 educational background having been a high school math teacher, a high school math supervisor, a high school vice-principal, an elementary vice-principal, an interim principal, and a K-12 district math supervisor. Nubeja joins us to share some of the initiatives she has spearheaded in her district around student-centered, math standards-based learning, equitable practices in mathematics instruction, and pedagogical techniques to support questioning techniques and student engagement. Her focus is on empowering teachers and enhancing their professional practice through professional learning, collaboration, and reflection. She is dedicated to supporting school leaders and teachers in creating school and classroom environments that are inviting to and nurture young adults. Nubeja is currently a doctoral student researching how school leaders can use social justice to advance equity in math education. To learn more about 180 Days, explore more conversations, and for full show notes please visit our website 180day.education.

You can also connect with us on Facebook and Twitter @180dayspodcast or subscribe to our newsletter for updates!

Links to Resources Mentioned in this episode:

1. Nubeja Allen
2. Twitter: Nubeja Allen
3. Franklin Township Board of Education
4. CLR - Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching
5. Karim Ani
6. Dear Citizen Math (book)
7. Citizen Math
8. Learning for Justice
9. Jo Boaler
10. Mathematical Mindsets
11. John Hattie
12. Danielson Group
13. Principles to Action
14. IXL
15. Imagine Math
16. Discovering Math Series
17. Interactive Math Program
18. enVision Math
19. 3-Act math Tasks
20. McGraw-Hill

What's the purpose of homework? Students hate it, parents often say it's too much or interferes with home life and students' free time, and teachers - who knows what they're thinking?! Is it punishment? Is it an assessment? Is it busy work? Is it necessary? The answer - it depends.

This episode explores the origination of homework and discusses different ways to look at the purpose of homework. We ponder such questions as "should you grade homework?" and "what's your end goal for assigning homework?" Not sure we get to any definitive answers but we touch on a lot of topics related to the purposes of homework, grading, alternative ways of thinking about homework, and intersperse a lot of our own personal experiences and strategies with homework.

Below are several of the links we found while doing our own research on homework that might be helpful if you want to explore some of the research and insights behind homework and it's purpose.

1. Article from American Psychological Association summarizing homework research: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/03/homework.aspx
2. Article from Alfie Kohn (noted education researcher) “Does Homework Improve Learning?”: http://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-improve-learning/
3. Edutopia article on homework research trends: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/research-trends-is-homework-effective-youki-terada
4. Educational Leadership article on motivating students to do homework: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb06/vol63/num05/If-They%27d-Only-Do-Their-Work!.aspx
5. Doctoral dissertation from East Tennessee State on parent/teacher perceptions regarding homework: http://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3283/
6. ASCD article on the purpose of homework http://inservice.ascd.org/whats-the-purpose-of-homework/
7. A history of homework https://www.quora.com/When-did-schools-start-implementing-homework-as-a-regular-activity-in-education
8. NEA article on homework - should we assign it? https://www.quora.com/When-did-schools-start-implementing-homework-as-a-regular-activity-in-education

Enjoy the podcast? Please don't forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and give us a rating!! We would love your suggestions as well for upcoming topics.

What are the advantages to digital content that is ‘evergreen’ and non-textbook specific? Who pays for this? Why is paid-for content more reliable and vetted compared to ‘free’ open-resource materials? What’s better - online, hybrid, or face-to-face? This and more in our jammed-packed episode with Dr. Stephen Sullivan, professor of anatomy and physiology at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Sullivan is also a digital author for McGraw-Hill Education. He shares his experiences as a professor and curriculum developer, around creating content for anatomy and physiology courses, and how this has evolved over the years.

He talks about the digital tools and resources that he has used and helped develop over a decade, and how his experiences teaching online for years have made it easy for him to transition and support students and other educators during this time of Covid and distance learning. He shares strategies and provides some great insight into the impact of Covid both on his own instruction, but particularly on the struggles and challenges facing community college students.

To learn more about Dr. Sullivan and for full show notes, including links to all the resources mentioned in the episode, please visit 180days.education.

You can also connect with us on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter for updates!

Dr. Pamela Seda has been a math educator for over 30 years. She works as the K-12 Math Coordinator for Griffin/Spalding County Schools in Georgia. Dr. Seda is also the owner of Seda Educational Consulting.

Karen worked with Pam last summer on an Equity in Education Webinar, in partnership with Casio Education and TODOS Math for All, where Dr. Seda shared her “ICUCAREr” framework and talked about making mathematics a more equitable experience for all students to be successful, and thought it would be beneficial for you to have Dr. Seda join us and share more about her framework and her diverse teaching experiences that support equity in education.

The 7 parts of her I.C.U.C.A.R.E framework represent the seven principles for equity pedagogy:

• Include others as experts
• (be) Critically Conscious
• Understand your students well
• (use) Culturally relevant curricula
• Assess, Active and build on prior knowledge
• Release control
• Expect more

Dr. Seda explores each of the 7 principles in-depth with us and shares both examples and stories of how these principles promote the learning and teaching of mathematics from an equitable approach.

Some of the themes that emerged in our conversation were understanding your students, allowing students to be ‘experts’, and building an environment so that students are free to learn on their own and discover mathematics.

To learn more about Dr. Seda and for full show notes, including links to all the resources mentioned in the episode please visit 180days.education

You can also connect with us on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter to stay connected!

This episode focuses on STEM - what does it stand for, why is there such a push for 'STEM Education' and what does it mean for classroom instruction.

For those of you interested in more information about STEM, we've provided some helpful links with more information and resources that will give you a better understanding of STEM.

First, a basic descriptions of STEM:

S - Science

T - Technology

E - Engineering

M - Mathematics

There is also other acronyms, such as STREAM, STEAM, where R represents reading and A represents art. The idea behind all of these is that students should be learning in a 'real-world', connected way, where these subjects are integrated and students engage in problem-solving learning that requires the use of all these content areas. It's in integrative and applied approach, so that students are learning the skills they need to go into scientific, engineering, mathematics, and technology fields and be competent problem-solvers.

The purpose of STEM (and any other acronyms) is, according to the U.S. Department of education:

"In a world that’s becoming increasingly complex, where success is driven not only by what you know, but by what you can do with what you know, it’s more important than ever for our youth to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence, and make sense of information. These are the types of skills that students learn by studying science, technology, engineering, and math—subjects collectively known as STEM." (from https://www.ed.gov/stem)

Below are some links to articles and information about STEM that we used to help start the conversation.

1. U.S. Government - purpose and description of STEM https://www.ed.gov/stem There are many links within this page to more resources and supports for Teachers and schools
2. From LiveScience - a nice description of STEM, some of the education policy behind the STEM initiative and what STEM looks like at the varying grade levels https://www.livescience.com/43296-what-is-stem-education.html
3. From Teach.com, an overview of STEM and a listing of several STEM initiatives and links to resources https://teach.com/what/teachers-know/stem-education/
4. The STEM Coalition - an advocacy group http://www.stemedcoalition.org/
5. Information from NACME with an engineering focus on STEM http://www.nacme.org/information
6. National Science Foundation - resources and information all related to STEM https://nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool

Hopefully these links will give you a good start towards both understanding STEM and finding supports for STEM teaching/learning.

Thanks for listening and be sure to tune in for future podcasts. Don't forget to send us feedback and suggestions for future topics. We are still just beginning this journey, still working on sound issues (hopefully by Ep 5 we will have this ironed out!!), and still exploring this podcast universe - bear with us!!