The Extraordinary Educators Podcast

Transforming Middle School Math with Liz Peyser

• Sari Laberis • Season 6 • Episode 12

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Unlock the secrets to transforming middle school math education with visual tools and manipulatives that truly make a difference. Liz Peyser, our esteemed guest and National Director of Content and Implementation at Curriculum Associates, joins us to reveal how visual thinking strategies can close understanding gaps for students facing limited instruction time. Discover the power of algebra tiles and visual models in aiding the critical shift from concrete to abstract thought, essential for high school success. Liz shares actionable tips to seamlessly integrate these techniques into daily classroom routines, ensuring students build strong procedural fluency and comprehension without feeling like they're using "juvenile" tools.

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Sari Laberis:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Extraordinary Educators podcast. I'm Sari, and this week I am joined by my brilliant colleague, liz Peyser. Liz is a National Director of Content and Implementation at Curriculum Associates, and Liz has been working a lot with middle school educators. So if you are a middle school teacher, this episode is for you, and if you are not, I think it's always really helpful to know what's coming down the line for your students. How are you preparing them for when they're in middle school, and so Liz and I really dive into the importance of using visuals and manipulatives in the math classroom. So here's my conversation with Liz. Hey, liz, welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to see you again, and I'm excited to talk about math with you today.

Liz Peyser:

Hey, siri, awesome, glad to be on. Thank you.

Sari Laberis:

So I know you've been very busy working with educators across the country. Who are you working with recently and what is on your mind when it comes to math?

Liz Peyser:

I have been crisscrossing the country and I seem to find myself working with a lot of middle school teachers lately, so middle school has been on my brain a lot.

Liz Peyser:

So I think one of the things that always strikes me no matter where I go in the country, they seem to have the least amount of time for mathematics. I'm really lucky if I'm in a class that has 50 minutes of math instruction. So I am really wondering about what can be done at district levels or state levels to really increase the amount of time that students have, because we find that they come into middle school with gaps. They are still undergoing a shift from concrete thinking to abstract thinking, thinking, and this actually I read this really fantastic book.

Liz Peyser:

Temple Grandin wrote visual thinking, and it's just this fantastic book about how visual thinking is really important and 75% of the population is on the visual thinking spectrum. So this high proportion of people are visual thinkers and it is really imperative, as our students are shifting from concrete to abstract thinking, that we include visual models and manipulatives so they understand the mathematics. They're getting the concrete understanding, they're getting the visuals where they see. They can see the graph, they can see the drawings of the equations, they can see algebra tiles and then they can make sense of those equations and then shift their brain to the more abstract number models where we're doing procedural fluency, solving equations, you know, using those procedures. So the shift in the brain doesn't happen until late adolescence, and so really, that's in high school. So in middle school it's really imperative that we include visual models and algebra tiles and concrete manipulatives. They need just as much as our K-5 students, so we have to include it.

Sari Laberis:

That is so fascinating and I think thank you for sharing that. It's really interesting, in order to actually meet them where they are in terms of brain development, that we have to provide those resources to them. Otherwise, it almost seems as though we're doing a disservice, and I think it's been this way for so long, where, if you say to any adult close your eyes and imagine an elementary classroom, what do you see Now, what do you see in a middle school classroom? Or you think about the way that middle schools are portrayed in media, shows, books, you imagine these like bleak walls with no anchor charts, no student work displayed, no boxes full of manipulatives, right? So it's so important, especially now more than ever, with students still needing to catch up, that we provide these tools. So for our listeners, how do you suppose they go about if they're not using manipulatives heavily in their classroom right now? How do you encourage students to use these? How do you get them thinking that it's not babyish or that it's okay to solve problems and think about math this way?

Liz Peyser:

Well, it's so funny that you bring that up because our colleague, nanika Brathwaite, wrote a blog about this and I loved her comment in there about we use Bunsen burners and beakers and pipettes. You know, in our science classrooms we use manipulatives there, so it would be logical to use them in mathematics too to create understanding. So now some folks may not have used them, and that's totally fine. If you haven't ever used them, dip your toe into them. Don't do it whole class, just maybe. Some students are doing their iReady lessons on the computer and you have a small group with you and you're introducing them to algebra tiles. So it's within a small group, at a table, very contained, and they're getting familiar with the manipulatives and then, after everybody has used them in a small group, then we can have a whole class lesson where everybody's using them. They know how to use them appropriately not eat them, so that's how I would do it.

Sari Laberis:

That's really helpful, and I think on a past episode you also touched upon giving them time to explore before you dive into, encouraging them to use them to solve problems, just so they can focus on the task at hand and also get a chance just to play with them essentially and figure out what they are and touch them freely before you dive in to the instruction piece, and then also ensuring that you have a system and a routine. I remember when I taught middle school it's hard because, unlike elementary, they don't have their desk with all their stuff inside. You can't say, take out your bag, because that's not how it works, and so who's passing them out? When is it happening? And having that all planned out can kind of ease the stress and allow you to focus your brain space on the instruction versus the logistical piece of it.

Liz Peyser:

Absolutely. And then after they, you know, after they understand the algebra tiles, we can shift to a quick draw. So sometimes we don't even need to pull out the manipulative, because we can just have them draw the manipulative on their paper.

Sari Laberis:

So so you know, if, if that is an issue with time or something they can. Now they know what they look like, we can just go ahead and draw, draw it out. I'm always partial to actually manipulating the manipulatives. Yes, yes, that is important. Any other last parting advice or tips you have for upper elementary or middle school teachers about their instruction and encouraging their students to use manipulatives?

Liz Peyser:

definitely visual models. So yes, manipulatives for sure, but the visual models are really important. Even just you know, when we're talking about a word problem, can you visualize it? What is this about? Can you see it in your brain? Can you draw a picture? Or show them a picture of something that's mentioned in the word problem? Or show a picture of, hey, we're going to find the surface area of this cube, we're going to unfold it into a net and we have rectangles. So if we just verbally say that but we don't show them, students, you know, don't have a clear picture in their brain of the shape that they're working with. So this is what a rectangle looks like. Anytime we can show visual, it's just great for all kids. It's especially good for our students who are learning English, but it's just great for all kids because, as Temple Grandin said, 75% of the population is on the visual thinking spectrum. We need visuals Awesome.

Sari Laberis:

We do you and me both All right Well. Thank you so much, Liz. It was great talking to you, as always. Really appreciate all of your expertise here. Thank you.

Liz Peyser:

Thanks, good to see you.

Sari Laberis:

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