Full Transcript for Rethinking Math Pathways: Beyond the Calculus Express with Josh Recio

00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:42.922 Yeah, I love what you said there about and we've had this conversation, as I said in some of these other math conversations, about how math can look different and why it probably needs to look different for different students and based on what it is they're hoping to accomplish in their career, based on what their skills are, based on what their level is. 00:05:42.922 --> 00:05:50.302 Kip has shared with me you know, a blog of yours, a case for quantitative reasoning, and you highlight the need for that, as you kind of just did. 00:05:50.302 --> 00:05:52.891 How does it differ from traditional math classes? 00:05:53.680 --> 00:06:08.584 Well, the top sort of priority of a quantitative reasoning course is that the skills that students are building are those skills that are meaningful to you know their future professional lives, civic lives, their personal lives. 00:06:09.206 --> 00:06:19.312 So a lot of the math focus tends to land around things like numeracy or math modeling, a good amount of statistical reasoning built into a good QR course. 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:26.548 And then one of the things that we have to think about with a quantitative reasoning course is the age level of the student. 00:06:27.250 --> 00:06:41.910 So what I mean is you could be teaching a quantitative reasoning course, let's say, in the 10th grade of high school or at an upper grade in college, and the math that students are doing may not be all that different. 00:06:41.910 --> 00:07:17.367 They may be using some of the same, those same kind of numeracy and modeling and statistical reasoning skills that I talked about, but they're doing so to solve problems that are relevant and meaningful to them at their grade level or age level, and so the types of problems they solve might be very different, but the math that they're using and the skills that they're building to do those, to be able to solve those problems, is very similar, and so, really, when I look at really impactful quantitative reasoning courses that I've seen. 00:07:17.367 --> 00:07:36.029 It's based on those sort of those life skills that are useful for every single person, but they're done so to solve problems that are either very relevant to that group of students or that are at least very interesting to that group of students. 00:07:37.161 --> 00:07:50.228 And you talked about how there is a push for calculus right and the streamlining of students to the calculus course and not having the other choice of statistics and things. 00:07:50.228 --> 00:07:57.552 Why do you think that it is important to have QR courses and how does it impact their readiness? 00:07:57.552 --> 00:08:03.526 What are you seeing that the push of calculus is doing for their impact to tackle real world problems? 00:08:04.708 --> 00:08:11.899 Yeah, it's interesting the way that we've done this, that sort of push to calculus which you know, just as a side note. 00:08:11.899 --> 00:08:18.153 I think calculus

is amazing and I think we need to continue to have students you know get access to calculus. 00:08:18.153 --> 00:08:33.893 In fact, one of the problems right now is that when you look around the nation at schools who primarily serve students who have been underserved, we see a lack of access to calculus, and that should change also. 00:08:33.893 --> 00:08:42.772 So, as I'm talking about things like quantitative reasoning and statistics, I want to be clear that the path to calculus is also very important and it needs to be accessible to all students. 00:08:42.772 --> 00:08:49.114 Important and it needs to be accessible to all students. 00:08:49.134 --> 00:09:32.648 However, what most people need, in terms of what they need for their civic lives and for their personal lives, are the skills that are taught more in a quantitative reasoning course, and the problem with the push to calculus what we've told many of our students is, if you are a high achiever, or you're perceived to be a high achiever, or you have goals related to STEM careers, then you should avoid the quantitative reasoning course and move straight along that path to calculus, and the problem with that is those students miss out on an opportunity to learn a lot of the things and to apply a lot of their skills that they've built through their high achieving math performance to solve problems and to understand how things work. 00:09:33.248 --> 00:09:39.750 You know that would of skills. 00:09:39.750 --> 00:09:45.412 When you talk to workforce leaders about what are the kinds of things that we want to see from our employees. 00:09:45.412 --> 00:09:48.974 What are the skills that employees should come to us with? 00:09:48.974 --> 00:09:54.618 It's typically not, you know, calculus related skills. 00:09:54.618 --> 00:10:06.339 It's typically things like problem solving, understanding some data analysis, those types of things that are taught in QR analysis, those types of things that are taught in QR. 00:10:06.339 --> 00:10:20.907 And it's sort of unfortunate that we've looked at a group of students and said, because you are high achieving or because you have the ability to be successful in something like calculus, you should just avoid that and we're missing out on an opportunity to build really important skills within all of our students. 00:10:22.115 --> 00:10:49.818 Yeah, and you just mentioned one that comes to mind there with the idea about data, and we see data in so many conversations right now out in the field about its importance in education but also other fields and you just mentioned there we might be taking some people that might be some of our best data people and bypassing them on an opportunity to not just grow that skill set and apply it, but also maybe find passion in helping solve problems through data analysis and through. 00:10:49.818 --> 00:10:55.057 I mean, it just plays such an important part in so many decisions that are going to be made moving forward. 00:10:55.057

--> 00:10:59.648 I'm curious from your perspective, how do we repitch that? 00:10:59.648 --> 00:11:07.980 How do we help young people and also teachers and counselors and people to understand that, hey, this person's actually gifted in this arena. 00:11:07.980 --> 00:11:11.003 They might find this just as interesting as this. 00:11:11.003 --> 00:11:16.666 They might find these other pathways in terms of applying these skills as interesting as calculus. 00:11:18.047 --> 00:11:25.893 I would be willing to bet that many of them would find those other courses, the data analysis and those things, much more interesting. 00:11:25.893 --> 00:11:35.764 It's just this, it's this legitimization of the courses that we've we've decided, and you know the structure of the way high school math is built. 00:11:35.764 --> 00:11:37.847 This is it's a very old structure. 00:11:37.847 --> 00:11:41.477 You know it was designed a long time ago and with very little changes. 00:11:41.477 --> 00:11:43.720 You know it was designed a long time ago and with very little changes. 00:11:43.720 --> 00:12:10.399 And so, until we can, until we can legitimize a course like QR or like statistics, as being just, as you know, just as important as a course like calculus, we're going to struggle and so, you know, that's why we do the work that we do, which is getting the messaging out. 00:12:10.419 --> 00:12:34.681 It's why I, you know, wrote that blog post was, hopefully that, you know, people begin to see these things and we, you know, spread this message that the skills that we have, the ability or the availability to teach students can really, you know, impact how they think about what math is, even those best students who go through calculus and are, you know, successful and move on to, maybe, a STEM major in higher education. 00:12:34.681 --> 00:12:38.067 You know what you said, brandon, is exactly right. 00:12:38.067 --> 00:12:52.572 We very likely miss out on an opportunity to show them something that they would enjoy doing, that they would be very successful at that they would have really strong abilities in doing. 00:12:52.572 --> 00:13:11.892 Prioritize these other courses and legitimize them in a way that they're viewed by career folks or by higher education advisors or, excuse me, admissions officers, things like that. 00:13:11.892 --> 00:13:13.321 We're going to struggle. 00:13:14.134 --> 00:13:16.123 Yeah, we do the same thing in other fields too. 00:13:16.123 --> 00:13:41.232 I think about how often we push gosh gifted athletes to try and be NFL stars and we push gifted musicians to want to play in the Philharmonic and the reality is some of those people are going to find perfectly legitimate, sustainable and happy lives as teachers, educators, coaches in the community. 00:13:41.232 --> 00:13:50.687 You know, in ways that their skills and talents where you know, we've sometimes looked at very hyper-talented people and said, oh, it was a waste, they didn't pursue that. 00:13:50.687 --> 00:13:51.669 It's like no, it wasn't there. 00:13:51.669 --> 00:13:56.493 They're applying it and passing that on to thousands of people over the course of their lifetime. 00:13:56.533 --> 00:14:01.697 That's really powerful and I think this is just maybe another example of how you know. 00:14:01.697 --> 00:14:21.326 Maybe sometimes we look at certain kids because they show us skills and ideas in one area and then we might actually beat some of the love out of it by diverting them down a path that's just not what they're interested in doing and ultimately, we should be happy, you know, moving forward and as young, as young learners and adult learners on whatever path we're on. 00:14:21.326 --> 00:14:22.168 Kirpa, I don't know. 00:14:22.168 --> 00:14:25.517 I mean, you kind of brought Josh to us in terms of the conversation. 00:14:25.517 --> 00:14:33.899 I'm curious what stands out for you about this shift and how you see it playing out and why it matters to you. 00:14:34.945 --> 00:14:35.166 Yeah. 00:14:35.166 --> 00:14:54.210 So I'm agreeing that not a lot of people are going to go to the STEM and they're going to be taking calculus and never going to use it, while they can use math classes that are actually going to be helpful for them long term and have those knowledge, knowledge, ideas filled for them when they go to college, it's not a gap for them. 00:14:54.210 --> 00:15:07.710 And my concern is that a lot of high schools right now do offer quantitative reasoning or some sort of idea in that, but they see it as like the less rigorous, the alternative course. 00:15:07.710 --> 00:15:17.995 If you're not a math person and that that shift like Josh said, it's, it's a problem, it's a problem then we see these classes as the non-rigorous ones. 00:15:17.995 --> 00:15:22.032 And my question to you, josh, is how do we change that mindset? 00:15:22.032 --> 00:15:39.225 How do we change actually, first change that high school, high school's, offering this class, make it rigorous and have high standards for it, and then the second part of it how do we change that mindset that these math classes are equally important? 00:15:40.789 --> 00:16:20.804 yeah, you know what you said is so important here, but that the um that we do see that these courses exist, like there are qr courses in many states and many districts and many high schools, but they just get deprioritized or devalued as you know, just like you said, sort of the low rigor course, and I think that actually goes back to what we were talking about before, that you know we miss out on an opportunity of showing our high achieving students or our calculus bound students the joy that they might be able to find in something like, you know, in evaluating data or you know the kinds of things that you would see in these other pathways. 00:16:20.804 --> 00:16:33.938 At the same time, when we deprioritize those courses that we do have, we don't teach them in a way that really builds up the

skills and the excitement and the joy that it could be. 00:16:33.938 --> 00:16:42.980 You know, that view that a QR course is a lesser than course impacts the way, you know, teachers approach it. 00:16:42.980 --> 00:16:46.049 It impacts the way students are when they're enrolled in them. 00:16:46.049 --> 00:17:40.085 So not only are we missing out on giving those high achieving students the opportunity, those students that we are enrolling in these courses are not getting what they should get out of it in a lot of cases, and that's really unfortunate, because there are opportunities to see the relevance of math and to see the types of you know in the data analysis, the types of things that you can think about within your own communities, within you know in the data analysis, the types of things that you can think about within your own communities, within your own culture, and we just we it's just we miss out on on a chance to really do that, something that, at the Dana Center, we've been talking about a lot and trying to figure out how to do and need to get better at, which is reaching counselors and advisors. 00:17:40.085 --> 00:18:01.317 You know there's a, you can there, you can look at surveys of counselors who who help students decide what courses they're going to take and what the sort of wide view is that taking calculus is better for a student when it comes to their higher ed admissions, you know, to their opportunities when they leave high school, and that makes sense, because in a lot of cases, that's been true. 00:18:02.145 --> 00:18:33.429 What we've also found, though, is that colleges aren't prioritizing calculus as much as maybe we perceive them to, and so if we could get that word out, and if we can let counselors and advisors and continue to let higher ed admissions officers understand you know the really important work of math pathways, then we can you know, we can start to maybe change how we advise students or how we, you know, help them select what they want to take, and then we can actually focus on. 00:18:33.489 --> 00:18:38.651 You know what are your goals, what is it that you want to do, and let's find that course that's meaningful to you. 00:18:39.553 --> 00:18:52.788 But one of the bigger issues with that is you still have things like AP courses and you know if the college board is going to, you know, prioritize pre-calculus and calculus. 00:18:53.329 --> 00:19:11.077 You know obviously there's an AP statistics as well, but the calculus pathway is still viewed as really important within you know that AP track, and so I sort of have this dream of the college board at some point creating an AP quantitative reasoning course. 00:19:11.077 --> 00:20:00.778 And when those kind of things happen, when the high level, when the big schools like Harvard and Stanford, who have made slight adjustments to their admission statements over the last few years, if the college board looked at quantitative reasoning and said, yes, we value that as the type of skills that we think students can benefit from, we can change that reputation of the course itself, you know, and so right now it's sort of a large scale messaging campaign to help districts and schools and students and families understand that there are options that are meaningful, that are aligned to, are aligned to what their careers might actually look like, and it might still take some time, but that's what we're pushing for. 00:20:02.047 --> 00:20:17.044 Yeah, and I think that that's a great thing to end on with this conversation, because I know that we're going to hop in and do a future episode with you looking at you know one way that you and the team are approaching this problem. 00:20:17.044 --> 00:20:19.753 You know specific population and that's the Launch your Initiative. 00:20:19.753 --> 00:20:22.948 So we'll be on the lookout for that as you listen to this podcast. 00:20:22.948 --> 00:20:29.132 A future episode is going to feature that, with Josh as we kind of look into what does this look like in actual practice? 00:20:29.132 --> 00:20:31.136 How do we actually move the needle? 00:20:31.136 --> 00:20:36.076 Because, as Josh said, it takes time to move these systems and move the focuses forward. 00:20:36.076 --> 00:20:40.096 Josh, thank you for joining us and thank you for really bringing this to the forefront. 00:20:40.096 --> 00:20:43.492 This is actually a topic that I haven't really dove into. 00:20:43.492 --> 00:20:48.835 I haven't really heard much about in the space, so I'll be looking forward to learning more with you and Josh moving forward. 00:20:48.835 --> 00:20:51.951 But Josh thanks for hopping on today and Kirpa thanks for getting us pulled together. 00:20:52.854 --> 00:20:53.496 Thank, you so much. 00:20:53.496 --> 00:20:54.196 It's great to be here. 00:20:55.746 --> 00:20:58.615 If this is your first time hearing us, we are the MCI Learns podcast. 00:20:58.615 --> 00:21:06.569 We do these very frequently at this point, usually biweekly, and might be moving to a weekly format here with how much Kirpa is bringing in the math space. 00:21:06.569 --> 00:21:09.936 So lots of other stuff to look back to in our feed. 00:21:09.936 --> 00:21:20.707 If you want to check us out on the MCIU Learns Network that is learnmciuorg, you can follow us at MCIU Learns across all the social media networks and we'll catch you on the next episode. 00:21:20.707 --> 00:21:20.807 You