Speaker 2: Hey, everybody.
It's Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach.
I am here today at Tier One Interventions Podcast.
My sister podcast is The Writing Glitch.
And this past week, we offered some really amazing things on both podcasts.
On Saturday Math, we It was such a powerful conversation that we
aired the entire hour and a half episode on Tuesday, and on Thursday,
we aired Impact Wednesday, which was a follow up to that session.
The conversation on Saturday Math was about cognitive science of math.
And what are some of the terms that Jonily and I use when we are teaching
the instruction methods that we are teaching, and that is spaced
repetition, interleaving, spaced practice, and cognitive feedback.
I hope I got them right.
Jonily's shaking her head.
Close enough.
And in Impact on Impact Wednesday, we followed up with What parts of
the brain turn on when those types of instruction are provided and
what parts of the brain shut off?
What we discovered in that second part was that anything that has to
do with executive function shuts off.
How are kids going to learn and make connections if those parts
of the brain that kind of put things together get shut down?
If we're not teaching using a cognitive science method.
Go back, listen to the episodes from
the second week in January.
I will have the information in the show notes as to which episodes they are.
And look forward to some more sessions that correlate to the science of math.
And for anybody here at Tier 1 Interventions Workshop today, I have
the slides tuned up here that we can take some time and look at those as as
a group and go into them a little bit deeper here in Tier 1 Interventions.
Rise and shine, good morning ladies!
Teresa: Generally, just a quick question.
As I'm OCD and have to know ahead.
Anything I need to be prepped for the end of the month?
Jonily: Being a lifetime certified coach, you get to go through all
of the new cohorts coming in.
We need our own self awareness and our own confidence, because we need
to speak as if we're already doing it.
So if you want to prepare your mindset, that's fine.
What to prepare for, but physically, no, nothing you need
to do before the first session.
Teresa: I had an opportunity, I actually spoke to two teachers this week, but my
thing is, I, language, because I'm not, I'm, it's coming, I think that's where I
need to, because I can, I'm so excited to tell them about you and about everything
and about what I want to work on, but when it comes to putting it out there, it's
my mouth that doesn't, you know what I'm, you know what I'm trying to say is I don't
have you, I don't have your mouth telling them math and this and that, and I want
to tell them about interleaving and I want to tell them about all those good things,
it's just, it doesn't flow out of me as quickly as, As my brain wants to say it.
So those are the things I need to work on.
Jonily: And it's interesting you say that, and I'm going to make a connection today.
So as we're going through today, I want you to listen and look at
what I do through that exact lens.
Remember one of the things that I always say is that I plan in chunks.
I do that when I teach kids and I do that when I teach teachers.
When I start my paragraph with, I say I plan in chunks, I have
three or four sentences that I always Replicate verbatim.
What I do is I basically script all of my mini chunks for the first two or three
sentences, so that when someone brings that up and I'm going to be responsive
teaching and I'm going to teach on that chunk, I already know the two or three
sentences that I'm going to say first, because really our hang up when we're
speaking and presenting Our hangup are the first two or three sentences.
Once we get the first two or three sentences out, then everything else flows.
The intro is what's difficult.
So those are the sentences that I practice and memorize so that when I'm teaching on
that topic, it flows really beautifully.
So that's just a little piece of how I do it.
When I say I plan in chunks and not sequences, What I do is I
document about 30 different chunks of topics that I present on.
And for each of those, I write my best three sentences.
That's an exercise that I do, and then I literally memorize those.
Then I can ad lib after that.
That is a really great question, and these are the things at the end of the month
when we jump into certification, these are the things that I want to pull back the
curtain and tell you exactly what I do.
I used to not know what I did because people would say to
me, Jonily, how do you do that?
But how do you say it that way?
And how do you get people on the edge of their seat?
And how do you Make sure that you don't pause and it sounds awkward.
How do you make it sound like you're not reading off a PowerPoint?
And I used to not know, but what I've done in about the last eight to ten
years is I've unpacked the processes that I use to speak clearly, change
my tone, change my facial expressions, watch my hand gestures, and figure out
what language comes through my lips.
Teresa, you are so insightful and asking the exact correct questions,
and that is what I have analyzed for myself so that I can better help others.
Again, I never used to be able to do that.
That's what we're going to focus on as we go into the end of this month.
Great question.
Other thoughts or questions on that topic?
And you'll notice that I haven't gotten there yet.
Tell us more about the let's talk about this for a moment.
Sarah, good morning.
You have your hand raised.
Go ahead.
Good
Sarah: morning.
I think for myself, that I started with Pam Harris a few years ago and
then somehow, and again, I can't even conjure how I got connected.
with your stuff.
But what I know for Pam's work and her strategies it took me the
time of listening again, going to another thing, practicing it myself,
looking at the resources, like a long cycle of me doing it myself.
And that led to more confidence communicating it to.
Are teachers doing it with students?
And I know I'm not there yet with what you have shared with me and taught me.
And I and I think to Cheri's point, like sometimes, again, I know you
know what you're doing, but my mind is like definitely more linear.
And I'm like give me the book.
Give me the And here's, kindergarten, first grade, blah, blah, blah, like
all the like chapter by chapter.
And I understand that's not like always the most beneficial way either, and
we've talked about that, like brain development, like going here, then going
there, then going here, coming back here.
And so anyway, it's just taking time, but I think in some ways
time is just time and experience.
Helps to develop a little bit better understanding, and then when you really
own something, then you're able to communicate it, if that makes sense.
Jonily: It makes perfect sense and Sarah, I want to stamp something that you said
to make it really solid and what you're describing is interactions over time.
I preach that's how we need to be teaching kids.
What are the chunks?
What are the essential chunks?
What are the power standards?
And how do we deliver that in micro doses, interactions IV drip?
But as adults, that's how we become experts also is interaction over time.
When people say to me, I want to do what you do, I want to do it how you do it.
First of all, I don't want you to do it how I do it.
I want to teach you to be the best you.
Because the way I do it, You can't pull off.
The way Cheri does it, I can't pull off.
The way Teresa does it, I can't pull off.
And so we want to make us the best that we can be, but on the other side
of that, I think that as we start to Analyze, we do that through Sarah,
and I'm going to stamp exactly what you said because this is really good.
Just watching it over and over and over again.
This is a really exciting group we have here, and I'll tell you why.
Actually, you all know why, because I think you all know each other.
But a couple of things I know, Kirk, We were you, we'd wanna be you too.
I tell my family all the time, if I were you, I'd wanna be me too.
I'd wanna be me too.
I'd want, and my kids are like, mom, please, come on.
So yeah, let's just face it.
No, anyway Natalie and Amy are certified coaches.
Amy, I have not gone back and looked through all your texts.
You know me.
I will get to it and I will focus on it, but I need the time to
do it and I appreciate you so much, but so much has happened.
Amy, I did see your one question.
What year were you certified?
I think it was 2019.
Natalie, do you remember the year you were certified?
Was it 2021?
I think
Speaker 4: 2021.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's what I think.
So Amy and Natalie and Krista have continued to follow.
So once you jump into your first cohort, like most of us are lifers
and the program allows you to do that.
I would like to announce to everybody here on this audience.
Teresa, give us a wave.
Sarah, give us a wave.
They are brand new this year's cohort.
Project 2026, Jumping into the Certified Coaches Program.
So we start at the end of this month.
I think you know some of our Certified Coaches, Natalie, Amy,
Krista, that have been here.
Life gets in the way and but when we talk about the first session of
Certified Coaching and we start with the phrase, I'm the nation's leading
expert in, certified coaching can be more than just math achievement formula.
It can be thinking about lots of things that you want your face to be known for.
Think about that also.
Cheri I'm always hijacking our topic for today, but it's very exciting.
If we look at this group, we've got current certified coaches and we've got
people jumping into the program and We are all just so committed and move in
this movement so that so many people can experience it and grow from it.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: This was a good group to do that for because
of all the certified coaches.
that are here.
And I wanted to hack the conversation a little bit.
Of course, I know I go a little on the, this is what's happening
in the world of disability labs.
But one thing that Jonily and I have been thinking about, and I want
your opinion on this, a couple of you got the Christmas, the holiday
box, and you found the value in it.
One of the things that we were thinking about is I've created these quick start
guides for the different reference tasks.
Would that be something that you would find value in if we did a
digital subscription that Just highlighted those that you could
print them off yourself digitally.
Would that be something, you would pay for
? Because I was thinking about putting those together.
I can start, I can set it up and do that, but I wanted to ask before I did it.
Amy: I would say yes.
That would make it,
Cheri: okay.
Then I will get that ready, and we'll talk about that in February.
Today, we're going to be talking about the reference task called Staircase.
Jonily is going to separate this into four different sections, and
that is how to increase focus and engagement, how to individualize,
how to make math accessible, and how to improve memory and retention.
I know, we're talking about this math problem, and then none of those comments
that we have there say anything.
about mathematics.
That is because NumberSense is the foundation of understanding concept.
Not, NumberSense doesn't necessarily correlate or doesn't
correlate with procedures.
Procedures are a different animal.
Today, we're going to be looking at NumberSense and the staircase.
Jonily, take it away.
Jonily: The biggest component of improving NumberSense is counting.
The foundational gap filler.
for any math deficit is counting.
So we're going to take counting to the extreme today.
We can do that in many ways, but today we're going to take counting
to the extreme with Staircase.
I'm going to back up and layer two other intros before we answer that
first question with Staircase.
The first intro is If we zoom out a little bit let's zoom in.
Science of Math is coming.
Cheri talked about the two podcasts, she talked about our intro opinions
of Science of Math and Cognitive Science of Learning, and how we
need a cognitive science method.
If we zoom out, today is part of what we call Tier 1 Interventions podcast.
The bigger umbrella of Tier 1 interventions is the Mastery Math Model.
The Mastery Math Model is the cognitive science method Cheri was talking about.
So Tier 1, and I like to write as I talk, so I want us to get a visual of this.
If I have that bigger umbrella, and if we want everything focused within
cognitive science, COGSci, we call that the Mastery Math Method, which is a
core Tier 1 general classroom structure and approach to teaching and learning.
That is when we talk about Tier 1 interventions,
that's the big idea.
If I go to a different color on this, one of the Tier 1 interventions topics
is today's topic, and that is staircase.
We also know that above and beyond Tier 1.
We also have Tier 2 and Tier 3 math interventions that
depend on a strong core Tier 1.
That's not anything we're talking about today, but I want you all
to see the big picture of where all of this falls, and all of this
is grounded in cognitive science.
And as
Speaker 2: far as, I'm gonna cut you off, sorry, and as far as occupational
therapists go, we do need a really good foundation in Tier 1 with the classroom
so that when we have pull out sessions, Tier 2 and Tier 3 are also effective.
That's why it's essential for you to be part of the Mastery Math Method
because we're creating foundation for counting that is essential for these
kids that are struggling so much.
Speaker 3: Cheri, great point because the Tier 2 and Tier 3, when I use
the phrase, are dependent on Tier 1.
Most In most schools, these are completely separate.
The strategies, the workings, the therapy, whether it's speech therapy,
occupational therapy, behavioral therapy.
In order to have a highly effective Tier 2 and Tier 3 in
schools, we need the occupational therapist and the interventionist.
And the regular math teacher, and the tier one math teacher, and the
instructional coach and, we need all of these stakeholders to understand all
of this, and Cheri, that is, I want to, yes, special ed, paraprofessionals, all
stakeholders need to understand And I'll put a bigger umbrella, big cloud here.
All stakeholders need to understand the entire vision and process.
The entire vision and process.
And the reason that I back us up before we jump into this part of the session
is often when I present a topic, people get really amped up about it.
We have some really good game changing takeaways and people
send me testimonials all the time about, look at what my kids did.
Look what they said.
Here's a picture.
They were so excited.
It was so fun.
It was so impactful.
I uncovered this.
But many times, what we're missing is where that fits into the big picture.
Now, remember, in Tier 1 interventions, there are 12 of these.
There's a dirty dozen set of tasks.
Now, within all of this, I have to actually put a bottom umbrella.
A bottom umbrella.
Because, again, all of this is grounded in cognitive science.
But the goal of everything is improving number sense and understanding of
number, which I just said a few minutes ago is all about counting.
So the whole board is about counting, like counting is the key.
So this vision and this mission, and I'll move that away for a moment because I
don't want us to get distracted by it.
is really all embedded in a bigger picture of where all these pieces fit.
I think that's important to say.
The other important thing that I want to say, and I want to pull this up and draw
it for you today, I want two different ways of visualizing big picture, and I
thought I had it up, but I didn't, so give me just four seconds to do this.
In order to make certain that we don't take a new model and implement
it with our old beliefs, we have to talk about a new belief system.
When Singapore math came to the United States, Singapore math is powerful.
The strategies, the techniques.
But they're grounded in a certain instructional philosophy.
So when quote unquote Singapore math came to the United States in the
form of a textbook, we as Americans completely butchered it because
we were implementing this really powerful model without the inner
philosophies and beliefs and frameworks.
So we were Americanizing the Singapore math method.
And it completely crashed and burned.
In order to implement a new model, we have to invest in a new belief system.
We call this belief system
the Five Seasons of Mathematics.
So if we start our year in August, and let's say we go to June,
here's our entire year, In a typical traditional system, we have
Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 4.
Some of the spacing is a little bit bigger, a little bit smaller, and that
is our mastery way of thinking, but we need to have An implementation model
that is an exposure way of thinking and it's what I call an exposure map.
The mastery map is such that our district creates this pacing guide or
our textbook becomes the pacing guide.
If we have a mastery map, which is actually it's fine.
I'm not telling us to get rid of The Mastery Map, which I'm
going to list in pink here.
We have Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 4, Unit 5, and then what happens is the
end of the year gets near and then we're like, oh, we have to fit all these in.
And so we shortchange a lot of our curriculum.
And it happens every year.
By the time March 1st comes, we're in this panic mode, and it's because we've tried
new things, we've used a new textbook, we've tried to implement a new model,
but we have not transitioned our mindset and our philosophy about the delivery.
This new model
This exposure map is the five seasons of mathematics throughout the year.
The first season is the most essential.
This first season is called First 15 Days.
In the first 15 days, we expose every single one of these dirty
dozen in an intro, very quick exposure, maybe in 12 minutes.
And just get a taste of what that is.
But for every single task, that we do.
Kids get a little piece of it.
Now, I'm going to stop sharing there because I don't want to
share the whole five seasons.
I want to go right into what Staircase looks like in season one and what
our purpose is for this, which is, let's go back to our Staircase slide.
You guys are going to be proud of me today because what I've done is I have
about four linear maps going on right now.
I'm teaching to you very linearly today.
I want you to notice that I've done this for you.
You're welcome, okay?
But I actually have four linear presentations today.
It's the staircase, Which is the counting and the number sense and all that.
The second is this cognitive science brain base that Cheri is going to
keep like bringing in as I present.
The third is the model and then the fourth is The belief system of the model,
which is the five season of mathematics.
I've got four linear topics that I'm presenting today, but I'm going to
be bouncing around between each one.
Tier one math interventions, reference task number eight of the
dirty dozen is the staircase, and the staircase is like a quick dot.
The QuickDot module is another module.
If you want to watch and listen to that before, if you're watching the recording
of this, you might want to pause the Staircase recording and go listen to
the QuickDot module because you'll get the foundation of what a QuickDot is.
I'm not going to re explain that here, but I want to make that connection.
Also, in this Staircase chunk, I remind us of all of the Dirty Dozen.
The 12 reference tasks are exactly the same from preschool through high school
for every grade level and every course.
They're the exact same task, but they vary depending on the standards of
the grade level and the ability level of the students in that grade level
that we are exposing the task to.
And for our non math and our non academic and our support staff.
And for our parents and our interventionists.
And those of us that are trying to improve executive functioning with kids, improve
fine motor, improve visual processing, for those of us that are trying to just
help kids function, and that is our main objective and goal for our students, not
necessarily the math, these four focuses that we're going to go through today
in presenting the staircase problem are exactly what those stakeholders need.
Cheri has already mentioned these, but the first is How do
we increase focus and engagement?
Now, I will tell you, of the stakeholders that I mentioned, the regular math
classroom teacher has been asking this million dollar question for years.
My kids are not focused, they're not engaged, they're not on task,
they can't work independently, there's no perseverance, there's no
this is the complaint of everyone.
How do we use Staircase to increase focus and engagement?
In Season 1
We present a drip of it and here's what that looks like.
In a moment I'm going to show you a pattern.
I want you to tell me about this pattern.
Now you guys play along with me because this is not a reference
task that I teach on a lot.
The most frequent reference tasks that I teach on are paper
folding, 120 chart, Jesse and Kay, pizza problem, making rectangles.
Because those ones actually teach more mathematics than the staircase.
So let's play along with me for a moment.
Tell me about this pattern of blocks that you notice.
Tell me about this pattern.
How many stages are missing?
Each column is one less than the column before.
And Sarah, that's a great comment because I'm going to tell you
what I experience with students.
When I show this to students, Amy, your first graders usually say the
first one is included in the next one.
That, I don't think we, let's sit on that for a minute before
I go back to Sarah's comment.
I don't think we realize how brilliant that is for a first grader.
And we never, in mathematics, we never give kids time to think and
process and share their perspective.
So if I go back to the question,
how do we increase focus and engagement?
We help kids feel like they belong and that they matter.
And how do we do that?
Here are the exact steps.
Use my favorite three words.
Show them a stimulus, something that's going to stimulate mathematical
thinking, reasoning, and sensemaking, like what I've just shown you,
this picture of these blocks.
Do not ask a content related question.
Use my favorite three words, not I love you, tell me about, and let kids share.
What that tells them is, I care what you think.
I care about your thinking.
You belong here.
You matter.
Your perspective is important.
So how do I get kids focused and engaged?
This is the first step of the process.
Now the stimulus, you notice, can't have a lot of noise.
Not the noise we hear, but the noise we see.
Words, questions that get in the way.
Our stimulus cannot prompt answer getting and solving.
My responses, go back and listen to the recording of this.
What were my responses to the comments?
Love that.
Now we're fancy.
Okay.
I'm not confirming or denying anything.
Now I'm gonna go back to Sarah's comment.
Each column is one less than the column before.
Many of my middle school, upper elementary students, even high school students
will say, because of Sarah's comment, each column is one less than before.
They'll say that as the pattern grows, there's one more each time.
Therefore, it's a linear function.
I'm going to tell you right now, I don't tell this to kids, but
because I'm presenting to adults right now, this is not linear.
There's not a constant rate.
I just wanted to give that.
I don't do that in the classroom with kids, but I say that in my trainings
with adults, just So that I can continue to stimulate your thinking.
I'll go back to what Natalie has said here, how many stages are missing.
What I typically do next is I will define some things for students.
I will say, look, in a moment we're going to get blocks and we're going to build.
So in a moment you're going to get some blocks and you're going to build and play.
Now this may happen the first day that I introduce it.
If this is season one, the first 15 days of school, I
might spend 30 minutes on this.
It's okay.
But if I don't want to spend a lot of time, I will say, the next time we come
back to this problem, we're going to use blocks and you're going to get to play.
And then I may not come back to this until season two in mathematics.
Let me go back to that.
Okay.
So season two in mathematics.
I want to get a different, I want to get blue here.
Okay.
Season 2 in Mathematics goes from about October to December.
to December.
And this is where, after we have a very intense first 15 days,
because we're exposing all of our curriculum we have to be on our game.
We have to be creative, we have to be intense, we have to be
the best facilitator we can be.
During this season two, from October to December, we can
chill out instructionally.
This is a lot of times where people are like, okay, Jonily, I've done your
first 15 days, I need to jump into my textbook, I need to get back to linear,
I need to go to my pa This is where you can really do whatever you want.
However, if you have done part of Staircase in Season 1, maybe mid October,
you might bring Staircase back and say, We saw this pattern about a month ago.
What do you remember about this?
Tell me about this pattern again, and today we're going to play with it.
We can roll this out throughout the year, not in one sitting.
That is the power of the model.
And if we go back to what Cheri is talking about with the neuroscience
and the cognitive science, what I've just done are two of them in, actually
three of them, interleaving, spaced repetition, and retrieval practice.
When I come, when I do a hint of staircase here, then I do my second interaction
of staircase, I've left space I've left space between that, and I've done a lot of
other mathematics unrelated to staircase.
That's interleaving, out of context.
It's also spaced practice because I've left space between the first
interaction and the second interaction of the same chunk, of the same task.
Then, if I grab a different color here,
Then, when I'm at this point, instead of jumping in and me reminding
students of what we've done before, I go back to my favorite three words.
Tell me about this pattern and what we talked about the last time.
That is the prompt for retrieval practice.
The reason retrieval practice is so essential is because we need to forget.
Kids are either going to say, Oh, I remember you were wearing that pink shirt
because I loved it because the bottom was like a U and I kept looking at that.
And then you had pink shoes, but they were a different shade of pink.
It's going to be insane what kids remember about the moment.
And memory is about the moment and the emotion.
We, I'm going to trigger you Cheri, so be ready to say some things.
Memory, deep memory, deep core memories are about the experience, the moment,
And the emotion of that moment.
So a month later, kids are going to remember the strangest things.
Now on the flip side, some kids are going to be like, I forget,
I don't remember doing that.
Or they're going to be like, Oh, I was absent that day.
I was absent.
See, this model doesn't matter if kids are absent.
If you have kids that are absent, 30 and 40 days every year.
This model negates their absences.
This does everything.
It does everything.
Kids will remember this, but that is retrieval practice.
And when kids say I forget or I wasn't here, I will then celebrate forgetting.
Forgetting is necessary because the process we do immediately after, the
re remembering, is what deepens those grooves, deepens the neural pathways
in the brain, and makes long term memory and retention of content.
Speaker 2: And Staircase is up into Disability Labs
Hey, listen in next week.
when, Jonily, and I talk about how to in individualize and adapt.
The staircase.
See you next week.
Speaker 3: love y'all.
Bye everybody.