Number Talks Workgroup – January Recap

Pete Reynolds Embedding Discourse, Initiatives, Math Conversations January 21, 2019September 12, 2019Number Talks

Our January session focused on what should happen between now and next fall for schools that want to expand the number of teachers using number talks as a regular practice or support an initial cohort of teachers willing to make that happen. Here’s where we landed:

Spring 2019

Introduce number talks in an in-school PD session for teachers new to the practice
- Understand how teachers think about Number Talks
- What are their goals for math lessons?
- Where do they hope the practice might bring?
- What do they fear might happen during number talks?
- What do they value most in their current approach to teaching math?
- What do they think is least effective in their current approach to teaching math?
Have a teacher or coach that is comfortable with Number Talks lead a session for the class of a teacher new to the practice
Have teachers try out the practice in their room with a coach or experienced teacher on hand to provide feedback
Participate in UWM’s Math Circle for Teachers
Line up funding for resources, PD
- Wisconsin Mathematics Educational Foundation grants
- Donors Choose
- Go Fund Me
Identify teachers for pilot effort– the goal here is to require participation, but identify teachers who want to kick of the 2019-2020 school year with Number Talks as a regular practice.

Summer 2019

Script the first 20 days of number talks so that teachers new to the practice can focus on leading the practice rather than figuring out what problems to use. Here teachers can tap into the work Brown Street Academy and LaCausa did to kick things off this year.
Assemble resources for teachers participating in effort
- Reference materials
- Anchor charts
- Number Talks quick reference card
Number Talks PD just prior to the start of school
- Teachers have a chance to both lead and participate in number talks
- Teachers have a chance to practice charting student thinking
- Teachers get a chance to preview strategies they are likely to see in their first 20 days of number talks

Fall 2019

Teachers use Number Talks 2-3 times per week starting the first week of the semester
Quick, frequent check-ins with in-school coach or teacher lead to address issues and concerns
Work with grade level groups to select problems focused on specific strategies to guide problem selection after the first 20 days of Number Talks
Participate in peer led PD with other teachers working with Number Talks

Want to be part of the Number Talks Workgroup?

Zoo Train Challenge – Conceptual Design Review

Pete Reynolds Initiatives, Zoo Train December 14, 2018December 14, 2018CSR, MSOE, Zoo Train

Teams participating in our challenge to design a replacement for the wooden water tower that services the Zoo’s steam locomotives presented their concepts at MSOE on Monday. We have more than 65 students involved, representing ten teams from six high schools. Given the number of students involved, we ran parallel sessions for the reviews, with each team presenting before a panel that included civil engineers from Excel and MSOE, experts in railroad history from The Center for Railway Photography & Art and the Coalition for Sustainable Rail (our partner in this effort), and the staff which maintain and operate the Zoo’s train.

We asked teams to cover, not only their designs, but how they organized their efforts, alternatives they considered, and where they need additional help. Students from Elmbrook’s media program stepped up to record all of the presentations for students and teachers to review.

After a short break for lunch we pulled everyone back together for a recap session with all of the reviewers. That provided an opportunity for the panelists to summarize what they saw in their session within a few broad themes. One of the most interesting things for us was to see the different ways schools with larger groups organized their teams– by functional area of the tower, expertise of the team, member, or into smaller teams who would each produce a design concept. We used the recap session to engage students and teachers in a discussion of how that worked and what it felt like over the course of the semester.

We’re pulling the teachers together next week for a debrief to guide adjustments we’ll want to make as we go into the detailed design phase next semester. That work will begin and end with visits to UWM– first, for a chance to play in UWM’s structures lab, and, on May 2nd, for the detailed design review where the review panelists will select an approach to be fabricated and installed.

We are very grateful to MSOE for hosting the event and working with us to get everything in place. They provided a beautiful setting with the 4th floor conference area inside the Grohmann Tower.

The Journal Sentinel was also on hand to cover the event. You can find their write up here.

Number Talks Workgroup – December Recap

Pete Reynolds Blog, Embedding Discourse, Initiatives, Math Conversations December 14, 2018September 12, 2019Number Talks

This month we joined the Milwaukee Area Math Council at City Lights Brewery for conversation about math and math education. We were also able to distribute copies of the latest version of our Number Talks quick reference card, which Milwaukee Succeeds had printed for us. We’ll have the final version laminated, but we’re taking advantage of a mix-up when the printer forgot to laminate these.

The unlaminated versions make it much easier for a teacher to highlight key things they want to pay attention to or write additional prompts. We’ll check back early next year with the teachers these have gone out to to see how they may have modified them and what other feedback they may have before we finalize the design.

If you would like to get a couple of the quick reference cards for yourself or colleagues, let us know. We’d love to hear what you think.

Family Math Update
February 26, 2025

Sadly, our present system of mathematics education is precisely this kind of nightmare. In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.– Paul Lockhart, A Mathematician’s Lament Over the summer we worked with a team from Golda Meir to map how we could offer a different way for teachers, students, and families to experience math. Not as computation and the memorization of which set of algorithms to use when, but open-ended, playful explorations that call for creativity and collaboration. That approach comes from the recognition that the fastest way to develop technical skills is in parallel with developing the creative skills and mindset that requires their use. No one every spent hours learning to dribble a basketball without the expectation that they would use those skills in a game. The result of this effort is a series of parallel activities with the school. Once a month, our merry band of math evangelists, Gabriella Pinter & Kevin McLeod from UWM, Mary Langmeyer a retired math teacher with 30+ years of experience, and Leah Rosenbaum, Co-Founder and Head of Research & Development with STEAM Milwaukee, meets with Golda’s Math PLC to walk through open-ended, hands on math activities that directly connect with the curriculum. In parallel, they, along with Bernardo Traversari, STEM Education Consultant for the Wisconsin Out-of-School-Time Network, facilitate a series of family math nights at the school. Family math nights provide an opportunity for Golda’s math teachers to gather with family and students for open-ended math activities, games, and explorations. Our team refers to the work as healing math trauma. We held the 3rd family math night with Golda last week. The laughter we hear in the room tells us we are on the right track. We’re planning now for how we might scale this work to support additional schools. Interested? let us know.
Building Community and a Joy for Math
November 17, 2023

Math = A Traumatic Experience.It’s almost universal and it stands in the way of our current generation navigating elementary, middle and high school with a different experience regarding math.Parents who have a negative experience with math are less likely to engage with their student children about homework, encourage them to attend school, etc.So this school year, Learn Deep is conducting a pilot, in coordination with Carmen Schools of Science and Technology’s Stellar Elementary, faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Math department and our friend Bernie Traversari, with a small seed grant from the Wisconsin After School Network to experiment with how we might provide opportunities for parents to modify their perception of math.Our experiment Tuesday night: arrange for parents and their children to spend time together in discourse, while attempting to solve math-based puzzles in an after school setting. Since many parents are non-English speaking, we provided UWM student support for translation when needed.The overall sentiment at the end of the evening: I enjoyed working on solving the challenges together, I will definitely be back for the next math evening, I wish we had math in this way when I went to school x years ago.Are you a school district interested in addressing parent math trauma as a way to enable parent involvement in the learning process? Follow our story as we host 2 more Math Events this school year.Thanks to Dean Joshua Mack, Kevin McLeod, Gabriella Pinter, Danny McCormick
#PublicMathMKE @ Doors Open Milwaukee
September 30, 2019

The weather was less than ideal, but the Public Math booth was there for the Doors Open Milwaukee Block party. Visitors had the chance to play with math actives and test their Venn diagramming skills with a street survey.

Coal Handling Virtual Design Review
May 8, 2020

Covid-19 threw a wrench in our plans for the final design review for students engaged in our Zoo Train Challenge. MSOE had planned to play host for the session, but as schools and universities first closed and then moved on-line we adjusted as well. As schools reopened for distance learning, five teams were able to continue work on the challenge to redesign the process used to store and load coal for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. In most cases, they were forced to do so without the resources and physical prototypes they had started to produce. On Wednesday, four teams were able to join a review session on Zoom where they presented their ideas to and took questions from a review panel representing the advisory team for the project. That group included industry professionals from We Energies, Kumatsu, County Materials, as well as faculty and staff from MSOE and UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science. While the virtual format was less than ideal, two things stood out across the presentations. All of the teams were able to leverage feedback and ideas from the conceptual design review UWM hosted in December to improve not just their designs, but their ability to talk through and communicate their design decisions. When asked by panelists about where they saw value in the experience, students consistently mentioned both the experience of figuring out how to work effectively as a team, and the opportunity to leverage and learn from outside experts. Congratulations are due to all of the teams involved in the project. Thanks are also due to their teachers. Nothing interesting happens in a classroom without a teacher willing to say yes. Their willingness to involve their students in an open ended project, coordinate student participation in project events, and help their colleagues at other schools with ideas on how to manage project teams is the key ingredient in efforts like this. Zoo Train Schools and Teachers Elmbrook Launch – Ryan Osterberg Golda Meir – Tina Gleason Menomonee Falls – Robert Regent-Smith New Berlin Eisenhower – Devin McKinnon New Berlin West – Bill Trudell Pathways High School – Angelique Byrne/Chris Kjaer St. Joan Antida – Cynthia McLinn/Melissa Peppler St. Thomas More – Emily Pirkl Wauwatosa East – Julibeth Favour West Allis Dottke – Bernie McCarthy
UWM Hosts Zoo Train Design Review
December 18, 2019

This past Friday, UWM’s College of Engineering hosted the conceptual design review for students in this year’s Zoo Train Challenge. Teams from 10 area schools presented their ideas to re-work the coal handling process for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. The Zoo’s current process has train staff manually sift coal into 17 gallon buckets that may weigh 80 to 90 pounds when full. These are then carried over an often slippery, uneven surface where they are staged for use later in the day. When the train stops at the depot to take on passengers, the train crew will hoist and dump these bucket’s into the train’s coal bin, which is close to four feet above ground level. The train team is also concerned with the deteriorating condition of the coal bin and a retaining wall against which coal ash and fines are stored prior to removal. New Berlin Eisenhower students present their design concepts. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey) At this point in the process, most teams focused on the design of a new coal bin that could keep the coal sheltered from rain, and automating or augmenting the process of sifting and loading coal. Teams presented their designs to review panels that included zoo train operators, staff from We Energies coal handing facility, students and faculty from industrial engineering programs at UWM and MSOE, and engineers with GZA Environmental and Komatsu. Following each presentation, teams responded to questions and feedback from both panelists and peers from other teams. Both panelists and students in the audience for other presentations also provide written feedback for each team. Golda Meir students provide feedback on presentation by their peers . (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey) Students will use the feedback and ideas they gained from this session to finalize their designs. The final design review for the project will be hosted by MSOE at the end of April. Nothing interesting happens in a classroom without a teacher willing to say yes, so we are extremely grateful to the teachers who stepped up to get their students involved. Thanks also to all those who helped pull both the project and review session together, and of course, the students who have taken on the challenge! UWM has a brief write-up of the event here: https://uwm.edu/news/gallery/milwaukee-area-students-create-solutions-for-zoo-train/ Zoo train Schools and Teachers Elmbrook Launch – Ryan Osterberg Golda Meir – Tina Gleason Menomonee Falls – Robert Regent-Smith New Berlin Eisenhower – Devin McKinnon New Berlin West – Bill Trudell Pathways High School – Angelique Byrne/Chris Kjaer St. Joan Antida – Cynthia McLinn/Melissa Peppler St. Thomas More – Emily Pirkl Wauwatosa East – Julibeth Favour West Allis Dottke – Bernie McCarthy
MATC Students Put Zoo Train on the Map
October 18, 2019

While MATC students were doing fieldwork to create a survey of the coal handling area for our Zoo Train Challenge, they took the time to shoot some 3D photos. Those images are now available on Google Maps, and give a good look at the site our Zoo Train students are focused on. [raw] [/raw] To view other images in the series, pull up the Zoo on Google Maps, and click the icon of the little person in the lower right corner of your browser
We Energies Hosts Site Tours for Zoo Train Students
October 18, 2019

Over the past two days, We Energies hosted four tours of their coal handling facility in Oak Creek for students in our Zoo Train Challenge. A team of five from We Energies walked students through the procedures they follow to safely store and move coal from when it arrives by train to when it is used in the power plant. On their tour of the facility, students were able to see the equipment and systems in use. What students learned about how to manage coal on a very large scale, they will now bring to bear as they think through how to revise the coal handling process at the Zoo.
Zoo Train Challenge for 2019-2020 Kick-Off
October 2, 2019

This year 140 students from 11 area schools will participate in our Zoo Train Challenge– redesign the coal handling process used for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. At yesterday’s kick-off event, students had a chance to visit the site, see what it’s like to lift a bushel bucket of coal, and meet their peers from other schools. Before we went into a Q & A session, we sat students at tables where they got to know peers from other schools and worked together to identify the questions they wanted to see answered at the session. That process was led by Dr. David Howell from MSOE, who brought along 13 MSOE student volunteers to help facilitate the work at each table. While students went through that work, teachers and industry advisers had a chance to meet and talk through how they will run the project in their classrooms. Two New Berlin students from last year’s challenge joined us for the event– one, who went to the school board for permission to retake the engineering class so she could participate this year, and a second who is now at MSOE, and came along to help.

Initiatives

Number Talks Workgroup – January Recap

Spring 2019

Summer 2019

Fall 2019

Want to be part of the Number Talks Workgroup?

Zoo Train Challenge – Conceptual Design Review

Number Talks Workgroup – December Recap

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2024-25 Collab Labs

Collab Lab 69: Re/Connect

Spring 2019

Summer 2019

Fall 2019

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