The Extraordinary Educators Podcast

Start from Somewhere with Uloma Achinanya

• Sari Laberis • Season 5 • Episode 48

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Unlock the secrets to empowering your math students as Uloma, a math specialist, joins us to illuminate the transformative power of a positive math mindset. Delve into the essential role of productive struggle within the classroom and discover strategies that allow students, especially those from diverse backgrounds, to overcome challenges and thrive in their mathematical pursuits. Uloma brings her expertise to the discussion, underscoring the significance of continuous assessment and sharing effective teaching practices designed to build a supportive learning environment. Learn how tools like anchor charts, explicit modeling, and consistent checks for understanding can scaffold student learning, instill perseverance, and nurture a sense of ownership over their own educational journey.

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Danielle Sullivan:

Hello everyone, welcome to the Extraordinary Educator Podcast. I'm Danielle and I'm Sari.

Sari Laberis:

This week we are joined by Extraordinary Educator podcast. I'm Danielle and I'm Sari. This week we are joined by extraordinary educator in the class of 2024, Uloma, who is a math specialist in Texas.

Danielle Sullivan:

And it was really fun to talk to Uloma around all of the things considering thinking about math, mindset, persevering through difficult tasks and how to approach students from different perspectives.

Sari Laberis:

Exactly, and productive struggle is such a buzzword right now, but she really dives into what does this mean for you and your students and how can you think about approaching it in your classroom. So here is our conversation with her. Enjoy. Welcome, uloma. It is so great to have you here today. Thank you, good morning everyone.

Danielle Sullivan:

So, uloma, we know that you are a math instructional specialist, so what makes you passionate about mathematics?

Uloma Achinaya:

Well, what makes me passionate about math will be just being able to support the teachers you know and then see students learn this concept.

Danielle Sullivan:

So, if you don't mind, we'd love to dig in a little bit around productive struggle or students persevering through really difficult problems. We know there's a lot happening in math now and a lot of discourse. Aha, there's math discourse happening, but discourse around mathematics instruction. So how do you get students to really dig in, try and push through when things are really difficult for them?

Uloma Achinaya:

So when it, comes to productive struggle in maths. So we have a lot of things that goes on in the subject. Now we see every time from the report Nationals report talking about the fall of the scores in maths and you kind of wonder what's happening. Are the teachers not well equipped or are the students not comprehending? But we have also seen that with regards to lots of newcomers coming into the country, right, they're coming with different understanding, different knowledge, right. And then we also see that research continuously say that as we move from one grade level to another, maths concepts become challenging. Now, these students coming with their different ideologies or their different cultural backgrounds or whoever has taught them, now they come into our country and you know they're trying to understand. This way mass is taught in the United States. Now, when we talk about productive struggle here, we kind of have students, you know, kind of giving up easily because they don't understand it. You know, when you understand something, it's easier for you to think about different ways to be able to approach it, as compared to when you don't even understand it at all. So when you don't understand it, it's easier for you to give up over it. I don't even know what he's talking about. Think about language barrier. You have this teacher speaking. You know all the English she knows, of course. She's doing a great job delivering English, right? And you have that Spanish or that Hispanic student sitting down at the background just listening to her. He doesn't even comprehend a word. Imagine going to the cinema, right, you want to watch a movie and the movie is in Chinese. You know they're doing all sorts of things. What would you do In the next five minutes? The next thing you're going to do is you bring out your phone and start playing around with it, right? So when you don't understand what's going on, you tend to just lose interest in it. But when you understand it to a great extent, you want to persevere. You want to find out ways to be able to solve it, you know. So once teacher takes this into consideration and understand that, you know everybody doesn't understand where they are coming from. We need to be able to think about those misconceptions. What are they coming to the classroom with, you know, and what is their educational background like? So these are some of the things we get to see with regards to productive struggle.

Uloma Achinaya:

So when the teacher is able to understand where they're coming from, we have continuous assessment to highlight um what they know and what they are yet to know. Then you're able to help them better. And that's where the i-ready comes in right. I have used i-ready and what we used iReady to do was we actually have students at the beginning of the school year take those assessments. Once they were done with the assessment, then you start to teach them. You're able to look at the data. You see where they're struggling with what concepts. Before a child can move on to algebraic expression, the child should be able to know how to add and subtract integers right. If that concept is missing, there's no way you can build right. So the best thing for you to do as a teacher would be to go back, re-explain those concepts and be able to move on to the next level. So these are some of the things that we have when it comes to productive struggle.

Sari Laberis:

That is so helpful and thank you so much for zooming out a bit, because I think it's important, just like you said, when you're working with students to identify is this an appropriate time to let that productive struggle happening, or are they really missing foundational knowledge that will allow them to not be successful, in which case we need to provide some scaffolding? So I'm curious, when you're working with students or working with teachers to then help students and you've identified that students can struggle productively so they have the building blocks to access the information, Are there any strategies that you use with students yourself or that you teach teachers in order to continue to put the heavy lifting with the students so they can really own that learning?

Uloma Achinaya:

Absolutely so whenever we identify that students have these shortcomings. Some of the strategies we'd use would be like the high level teaching practices, which talks about monitoring and explaining concepts. So I am very big on using anchor chat. I'm also very big on explaining and modeling. You need to show them what you're looking out for, a picture of what your expectations are from them. So I'm big on, you know, explaining the concept modeling. I'm also big on, you know, explaining the concept modeling. I'm also big on, you know, checking for understanding.

Uloma Achinaya:

Research has it also that every six minutes you should check for understanding. So you're teaching a concept and, depending on how you want to check for understanding, but after six minutes you should be able to stop and ask questions or have them, you know, talk to a neighbor about it, where they can be able to at least exchange ideas and be able to give back to you. So, basically, you just want to use different strategies. So I would always recommend the 21 teaching leverage practices because it has a lot of things. It talks about discourse, it talks about modeling, it talks about checking for student understanding. It also talks about managing behaviors because, again, once you're able to get and manage your behaviors, you're able to deliver your lesson, so he talks about a number of things.

Danielle Sullivan:

I mean, you've just given us so much, so much awesome information. So, in thinking about one next thing, so what would you recommend? If educators are listening to this and they're like, you know, that's a lot of great resources. I just where do I start? Which one should they really start with?

Uloma Achinaya:

So you have to start from somewhere. Like they always say, you just have to start from somewhere and then, when you start from somewhere, that way you're able to see OK, what am I doing right, what am I not doing right. So I would say start from somewhere. What do you think is your strengths? You know, some people understand the concept, some people are very great with producing anchor chats, some people know how to, you know, use textbook manipulatives, etc. Start from somewhere and then, when you start from somewhere, you're able to now use data observation and see if what I'm doing is working. So that reflective piece is very important. You want to be able to think about okay, I've done this. Are they understanding? If they're not understanding, why not? If they're understanding, what do I need to do next?

Sari Laberis:

Thank, you so much for that. I love that Start from somewhere. I think that can be applied to a lot in teaching. So thank you so much. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have for today, but we really appreciate all your insights and tips and best practices around productive struggle.

Uloma Achinaya:

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Sari Laberis:

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