Math Teacher Lounge presented by Amplify + Desmos

Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., the New York Times bestselling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, recently joined Host Ana Torres on the Beyond My Years podcast to discuss her new landmark research on school cell phone policies. In this episode, Angela highlights the many complexities surrounding student cell phone use in schools and why there is a need to conduct research, such as her “Phones in Focus” study, to look at which phone policies are actually yielding the best outcomes. She also suggests four ingredients that set young people up to reach their goals. Finally, Ana and Beyond My Years Classroom Insider Eric Cross reflect on Angela's insights, and Eric shares the strategies he plans to implement to provide mentors to his students.Show notes:Subscribe to Beyond My Years at.amplify.com/BMY.Participate in Dr. Duckworth's research phonesinfocus.orgExplore Angela Duckworth's website: https://angeladuckworth.com/Read: Schools don't know how well cellphone policies are working. You can help

Dan Meyer recently joined the Beyond My Years podcast to share some of his favorite strategies (and hard-earned lessons) for engaging students in math class. Listen in, as Dan joins host Ana Torres to share his journey in education, including his early struggles to engage students. In this episode, The right questions for the “wrong” answers, Dan provides models for grounding lessons in real life, giving students more opportunities to show off their personalities, and reframing mistakes and “wrong answers” as valuable answers to different questions. He also touches on technology use in the classroom and how to know when it's the right tool for the job. Ana and Classroom Insider Eric Cross then reflect on Dan's insights, and Eric shares his top takeaways for the classroom.Remember to subscribe to the Beyond My Years podcast to hear more insights and lessons from leading education thinkers. Show notes: Subscribe to Beyond My Years at.amplify.com/BMY.Subscribe to Dan's Substack, Mathworlds.Read Dylan Kane's blog, Five Twelve Thirteen.

Host Ana Torres and Classroom Insider Eric Cross give you the first look at Season 2 of the Beyond My Years podcast, launching September 17, 2025. This trailer highlights what's coming after an award-winning first season, including shorter episodes and more takeaways to help you extend your reach. Season 2 focuses on common classroom challenges, looking to the experts and to the research to get you answers. Ana, Eric, and guests will cover topics from finding your teaching style, to engaging students in math, to helping students develop critical thinking, and more! Subscribe now to Beyond My Years: https://at.amplify.com/bmy(Not an Apple user? Listen on Spotify or the Beyond My Years website.)

To close out the year, we're revisiting some of our favorite moments from the first nine episodes of the Beyond My Years podcast – and looking ahead at some of what's to come in 2025! Listen to Beyond My Years: Subscribe to Beyond My Years on AppleSubscribe to Beyond My Years on SpotifyListen to Beyond My Years via web browser

The latest episode of Beyond My Years features 2023 National Teacher of the Year — and math educator! — Rebecka Peterson. On the episode, Host Ana Torres and Rebecka discuss their similar experiences as young immigrants to the United States. Rebecka shares all that she has come to love and appreciate about the K–12 environment after a tough transition from teaching college-level courses. She also reveals her most important lesson learned: Teach humans over content. Rebecka talks about her “One Good Thing” blog, where she documented daily positives in her classroom that transformed her perspective on teaching. She shares personal experiences of feeling like an outsider and how those experiences drive her to create an environment of belonging for her students. Rebecka stresses the significance of building authentic relationships with students as well as the impact of mentors in education. Taking all those lessons back to the classroom, Eric and Ana discuss strategies like “rebellious joy” that are essential to sustaining a long career in education.Show notes:Subscribe to Beyond My Years: https://amplify.com/beyond-my-yearsConnect with Rebecka Peterson:   - Instagram: @RebeckaPeterson_   - X: @RebeckaMozdeh“Dear Ana”: Tell us about a seasoned educator who impacted your life!Listen: Hear from Missy Testerman, 2024 National Teacher of the Year! Follow us on Instagram: @amplify.education Connect with Eric Cross: https://www.ericcross.org/ Connect with Ana Torres: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anayansi-ana-torres-m-ed-26a10654/Quotes:“That's how we build our joy, how we build our resiliency—when we do the work together.” —Rebecka Peterson“I thought…I had to earn my seat at the table. I don't want any kid to ever think they have to earn their spot. I want them to know they are in, exactly as they are. There is no need to perform. They are loved on their good days, their hard days, whether they make the 'A' or not—they are in. And more than that,  they are celebrated.” —Rebecka Peterson“It takes a lot of courage to stand in the present. It is mindfulness. It is joy.” —Rebecka Peterson“This was like training my brain to become a good noticer and to take delight in my students' quirks, and their genius, and their goofiness, as well as their beauty.” —Rebecka Peterson

Hi Math Teacher Lounge listeners! Here's an episode from Amplify's new podcast, Beyond My Years, that we think you'll like. It features math teacher extraordinaire Fawn Nguyen, who you may remember from past appearances on this show. On this episode, Fawn, a math educator with over 30 years of classroom experience, tells Host Ana Torres the story of her near-death experience being lost at sea while escaping Vietnam, and explains how it shaped the sense of gratitude she led within the classroom. She also discusses what it means to be yourself in the classroom, the importance of sharing your mistakes with your students, and the merits of advocacy vs. authority with students. Taking all those lessons back to the classroom, Ana and Classroom Insider Eric Cross then discuss connecting with students through shared struggles and challenges.Remember to subscribe to Beyond My Years to hear more insights and lessons from people who have thrived over decades in the classroom: seasoned educators. Show notes:Connect with Fawn Nguyen: https://www.fawnnguyen.com/ Subscribe to Beyond My Years https://amplify.com/beyond-my-yearsFollow us on Instagram @amplify.education Connect with Eric Cross: https://www.ericcross.org/ Connect with Ana Torres: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anayansi-ana-torres-m-ed-26a10654/Quotes:“We spend so much time [in the classroom] day in and day out. For some of us, it's actually more interaction than we have with our own family. And it is family. So be yourself. You're going to make mistakes, but what's nice about it if we think of it as family, is that we get to apologize and tomorrow is a new day.” —Fawn Nguyen

Check out Amplify's new podcast, Beyond My Years— host and educator Ana Torres seeks out educational insights and hard-won lessons directly from people who have thrived for decades in the classroom: seasoned educators.On this premiere episode, Ana soaks up wisdom from Joyce Abbott, an educator so passionate about her students that she inspired one of them to go on and write the hit show “Abbott Elementary.” Joyce tells all about her experiences working in a Title 1 school and what it means to know the community of Philadelphia. They also discuss how Joyce's time serving in the military informed her work as an educator, how she transformed a challenging classroom during her first year, how it has felt to witness the success of “Abbott Elementary,” and her driving force: passion. At the end, Ana is joined by Classroom Insider Eric Cross to discuss some actionable teaching tips for bringing Joyce's lessons into your classroom.Show notes: Subscribe to Beyond My Years on AppleFollow Beyond My Years on SpotifyWebsite: Beyond My YearsQuotes:“Sometimes your bad days are going to outweigh your good days, but when you see and remain focused and see what your goal is, and you look at those students and say, ‘This is my main focus,' that can be the greatest motivator.” —Joyce Abbott“A lot of times they are dependent upon you to teach them in every aspect of their life. When you understand the community, you can serve.” —Joyce Abbott“Me and my military buddies definitely had respect for each other. And we operated as a team, regardless of our differences, because sometimes you may not agree with every teacher on your team, which many times I did not. But you have to keep your focus toward our mission, [which] is to move a certain child or do this for the student body.” —Joyce Abbott“They know when you care. And they will have a whole different level of respect for you when they know you care. And you set the bar high for them. That shows that you care, because you know that they can do it and you believe in them.” —Joyce Abbott“I think it's so important in the schools that they embrace the younger teachers, because you only get better through learning and through support.” —Joyce Abbott“When you're passionate about a profession and committed to the goal of the whole school, you're going to do what you can to help these new teachers because they have to learn. So many leave because they're encountering so many problems and they don't feel that they're supported effectively.” —Joyce Abbott

Listen to this trailer for our new podcast, Beyond My Years, launching August 14th. Every day headlines tout something “new” in education—the latest research, the hottest tech, the trendiest new hacks for organizing your classroom. However, beyond all the hype there's one underestimated resource that's truly deserving of our attention: educators who've been doing this for years. In this trailer, you'll hear from host and educator Ana Torres as she explains her season-long journey of learning from the experiences and lessons of seasoned educators from around the world. Their stories will make you laugh, make you cry, and—just maybe—change the way you think. Subscribe now so you don't miss a thing.(Not an Apple user? Subscribe here via Buzzsprout.)

After watching so much great basketball analysis throughout March and April, Dan has been inspired to put the spotlight on a different kind of superstar: exceptional math educators. Check out a little preview of Dan's new project with Kelly Serpa Howe.Check out the full video

Listen to the final episode of Math Teacher Lounge! We'll walk through the past 10 episodes on math fluency and pull out the key takeaways from our amazing hosts–such as tips on defining and assessing fluency, fluency development in a bilingual setting, and the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on so-called fake fluency. We'll also talk about the future of the podcast and what's next for us. Spanning six seasons, we've had the privilege of reaching thousands of educators while exploring a wide range of topics including the Joy of Math, Math Anxiety, and Math Fluency, featuring  Amplify's Jason Zimba, Sesame Workshop's Rosemarie Truglio, Reach Capital's Jennifer Carolan, and Baltimore County Public Schools' Dr. John W. Staley.We can't wait to continue working on a host of other exciting projects this year, including webinars, conference appearances, and the 2024 Math Symposium. Listen to the finale of the Math Teacher Lounge podcast today, and keep an eye out for more!For more amazing math content, check out the following resources:Hear more from Dan during our 2024 Math Symposium.Check out all of our past episodes on the main Math Teacher Lounge page.Find more tips and strategies for math teachers through our upcoming webinars.

Tune into this episode of Math Teacher Lounge, featuring math teaching and learning specialist and friend of the podcast, Fawn Nguyen. Listen as Nguyen dives into the unique and powerful relationship between math fluency and problem-solving, and learn about how problem-solving activities can be leveraged to engage all students and fuel math fluency development.Learn why math fluency and problem-solving have a symbiotic relationship and how to create problem-solving activities that generate individual and peer learning opportunities, including examples from the California framework. Plus, hear tips for supporting  the relationship between problem-solving and math fluency that can implemented in the classroom, throughout the school building, and at home.

Join us for Episode 9, in which Bethany sits down with former classroom teacher Myuriel von Aspen to talk about the importance of a systematic approach to math-fluency instruction. Listen as von Aspen discusses how effective fluency instruction takes students beyond fact memorization into deeper learning through mathematical discourse.To hear more from Myuriel, check out the following resources:Watch Myuriel's welcoming message at NCSM, 2022. Listen to an excerpt of Myuriel's message at NCTM, 2021.Learn a little about Myuriel's journey.

Tune in to Episode 8, where we chat with guest and former grade 1 teacher, Jody Guarino, Ed.D., about how math teachers can collaborate to develop math fact fluency at the building level. Listen as Dr. Guarino talks about what it takes for schools to do this successfully, and her key takeaways from her own experience.For more from Dr. Guarino, check out the following resources:Follow Dr. Guarino on X: @jody_guarinoLearn more about Dr. Guarino and her work by checking out her University of California Irvington page.

Join Math Teacher Lounge as we continue our season-long discussion on math fluency with a special live recording at NCTM 2023. In this episode, our guest, Jennifer Bay-Williams Ph.D., and Dan dive into math fluency games to discuss how we bring joy into the classroom while building math fluency.For more from Jennifer, check out the following resources:Discover more math fluency games with Jennifer's book, Math Fact Fluency: 60+ Games and Assessment Tools to Support Learning and Retention.Move students beyond basic math facts and memorization with Jennifer's book, Figuring Out Fluency in Mathematics Teaching and Learning, Grades K-8.

Join us for Episode 6, where we discuss how to take an asset-based approach to building math fluency with John W. Staley, Ph.D., who has spent decades in math classrooms. In this episode Dr. Staley shares his experiences and research to provide strategies on how to utilize student strengths to encourage growth.For more from Dr. Staley, check out the following resources:Follow John on X at @JStaley06.Learn more from John by checking out his NCTM articles.Read John's book, High School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice.Read John's book, Middle School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice.

Tune in to Episode 5, where we dive back into our season-long discussion of math fluency with classroom teacher Lauren Carr. Listen as Lauren shares how she allows her students to approach mathematical thinking and learning with joy and fun to encourage the development of math fluency.For more from Lauren Carr, follow her on X!

Join us for a special episode of Math Teacher lounge where we take a break from our focus on math fluency to talk with scholar and author Nicole M. Joseph Ph.D. Tune in to this important conversation where Dr. Joseph shares her research and discusses how we can begin to uplift Black girls and empower them in our math classrooms.For more from Dr. Joseph, check out the following resources:Read Dr. Joseph's new book Making Black Girls Count in Math Education: A Black Feminist Vision for Transformative Teaching.Check out Dr. Joseph's Virtual Book Talk with Harvard Graduate School of Education.For more resources from Dr. Joseph, check out her website.To hear the latest from Dr. Joseph, follow her on X.

Tune in to the latest episode of Math Teacher Lounge where we learn how to intentionally foster fluency with Dr. Art Baroody, Professor Emeritus of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Listen as Baroody shares strategies on how to utilize a student's natural problem-solving skills and desire to learn to build fluency.

Tune in to our latest episode where we sat down with Dr. Valerie Henry to discuss how math fluency assessments can be redesigned to provide teachers with better data and students with better learning experiences.Listen today and don't forget to grab your MTL study guide to track key strategies and make the most of this episode!For more from Valerie, check out the following resources:Learn more from Val and check out her resources on her website FactsWise.Dive deeper into fluency with Val and read her blog post Timed Tests – NOT the Way to Build Facts Fluency and NOT the Way to Assess Facts FluencyTune in to Math Teacher Lounge Season 3 Episode 4 to hear Val's previous conversation on building fluency.Join us in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook Community.

Welcome to Season 6 of Math Teacher Lounge! This season, we'll be digging deep into math fluency—exploring what it is, looking into the research around it, and sharing practical tips for building it in math classrooms. Join us as we kick things off with Jason Zimba, Amplify's chief academic officer of STEM! We sat down with Jason to get a clear understanding of what math fluency is and what we really mean when we talk about it. As a prominent math advocate with many years of experience, he can also help us learn just how important fluency is and how it fits into the standards.Listen today and don't forget to grab your MTL study guide to track key strategies and make the most of this episode!Unlock additional insights with these bonus resources:Read Jason's article, “How I See Addition Facts.”Join us in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook Community.Dive into, “Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics” and “Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity” at National Academics.Check out Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever to cook with Jason.

Join us as we continue our summer mini-series where we discuss how to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) as a teaching tool. In this episode of Math Teacher Lounge, we sit down with educator Kristen Moore to discuss how she is using Chat GPT as a tool to revolutionize student learning and streamline lesson planning.Listen today and don't forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode!

Join us for our summer mini-series where we'll be talking about artificial intelligence (AI): what it is, how it is already being used in education, and how it will continue to transform education in the future. In this kickoff episode, we sat down with Jennifer Carolan, general partner at Reach Capital, to chat about the current state of AI in education technology.As a former teacher and current leading-edge education technology entrepreneur, Jennifer has so much to share on how, if done correctly, AI will become a partner with educators and a tool for fostering social learning opportunities.For more from Jennifer, check out the following resources:Read Jennifer's article, “What AI will disrupt but never replace.”Hear more from Jennifer and follow her on Twitter.Keep up to date with the Reach Capital team.Join us in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook Community.

As we wrap up this season of Math Teacher Lounge, we're sharing our biggest takeaways from our incredible discussions around tackling math anxiety.We've been able to speak to five great thinkers on math and the anxieties that can affect students, teachers, and even caregivers. From acknowledging math anxiety and finding ways to immediately start relieving the pressure, to redefining math and establishing positive math routines in and out of the classroom, we've learned so much with every single episode. Listen now to hear our season highlights, as well as some of our favorite responses from listeners! 

So far in this season of Math Teacher Lounge, we've been very lucky to have had so many prolific and brilliant researchers on our show, and our next guest is no exception. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer to discuss how the attitudes of adults affect children and their anxiety levels, the need for meaningful, positive interactions around math, and how the right math technology can make an incredible impact on lowering math anxiety in children and caregivers. Listen now and don't forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

So far this season, we've investigated math anxiety in students and its causes with passionate researchers and curriculum experts, including Sesame Workshop! Now we hear from Dr. Heidi Sabnani, consultant, coach, and co-host of Math 4 All, as she gives us research-based tips for teachers who are facing math anxiety themselves! Listen as we discuss Heidi's own math anxiety and journey through math, the effects teacher math anxiety can have on instruction, and practices educators can implement right away for overcoming math anxiety. Listen today and don't forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

Listen as we chat with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content for Sesame Workshop! Continuing our theme of math anxiety this season, we sat down with Dr. Truglio to chat about Sesame Street and her thoughts on how to spread a growth mindset to young children and put them on course to academic achievement and long-term success.Listen today and don't forget to grab your Math Teacher Lounge study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

We're continuing our season's theme of tackling math anxiety, going beyond the basics, diving deeper into what causes it, and how we can help students move forward. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Erin Maloney from the University of Ottawa to better understand what's actually happening in the brain when a person experiences math anxiety, and steps we can take to shift student mindsets toward a positive direction. Listen now and don't forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode! 

Season 5 of Math Teacher Lounge is here! This season, we'll be talking all about math anxiety: what it is, what causes it, and what we can do to prevent or ease this anxiety in the math classroom. To launch this very important theme, we sat down with Dr. Gerardo Ramirez, associate professor of educational psychology at Ball State University. As someone who's been studying math anxiety for more than a decade, he had some interesting research and advice to share on why math anxiety affects so many students (and adults!), and tips for how to start reducing it. 

Join us for the third episode in our Winter Wrap-Up! In this re-run from season 3 of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we sit down with Valerie Henry, Ed.D, to talk about math fluency and what that means for students. Listen as we dig into the research, hear Dr. Val's three-part definition of math fluency, and explore her five principles for developing it.

While we're hard at work producing the exciting fifth season of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we're continuing to share some of our favorite conversations from our first four seasons. This time around, we're revisiting our popular episode that connected literacy and math!In this episode from season 3, we sit down with Allison Hintz and Antony Smith, authors of Mathematizing Children's Literature, to talk about what would happen if we were to approach children's literature, and life, through a math lens–and how we can apply those same techniques to classroom teaching!

As we prep for an exciting new season of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are looking back at the amazing speakers and conversations from past episodes and sharing some of their favorites!First up: A season 2 double feature of The Power of Problem-Solving with Fawn Nguyen and Facilitating Classroom Discussions with authors Christy Hermann Thompson and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind. Fawn is a specialist on Amplify's advanced math team, and is a former math teacher and math coach—so she knows her stuff! You'll hear about her five criteria for good problem-solving problems, and the power and importance of exposing all students to problem-solving.Then, we'll move into Bethany and Dan's conversation with Christy and Kassia to learn how hands-down conversations allow students to become better listeners and the steps you can take to implement hands-down conversations in your classroom.

In this episode, Bethany and Dan explore mathematical joy by visiting a math teacher conference in Southern California and Dan shares recent experiences on how he tried to cultivate mathematical joy in his own school-aged kids.

In this episode, Bethany and Dan chat with Sarah Strong and Gigi Butterfield, authors of Dear Math: Why Kids Hate Math and What Teachers Can Do About It. Listen in as they chat about their experience with finding joy in math, and how their passion helped tell the story of other students' journeys to find, or not find, joy in math.

In this episode, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are LIVE with more than one hundred Math Teacher Lounge listeners at the recent National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference. Listen in as they answer the pressing question: Who is the best teacher in film or television?

In this episode, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer get personal and share their “math bios”—their early experiences with math and how those experiences turned them into the educators they are today. 

This season on the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, we follow the theme “joyful math” and uncover its meaning.In this episode, Kanchan Kant joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss the key, early investment she makes at the start of the school year to ensure her math teaching will be joyful for herself and for her students for the rest of the year.

In this episode, Bethany and Dan take a look at several tweets that caught the most fire on Twitter during the 2021-2022 school year. The pair answer questions about viral teaching methods, the best teaching advice you can give in three words, and if students should use pencils or pens in class. Join them as they take on those questions and several others in a fast-paced episode.

Math education professor Lani Horn shares with us what it means to have an asset orientation towards students, contrasting it with a deficit orientation, and helping Bethany and Dan understand the many ways students experience one or the other. Their conversation hit both high notes and low notes and included a challenge that Bethany and Dan both found extremely valuable for helping a teacher develop an asset orientation towards their students.

Fluency in math can oftentimes be associated with negative experiences with its development— timed worksheets, for example. Bethany and Dan are joined by three guests to better understand fluency and how to make its approach fun. Dr. Val Henry shares her three-part definition of fluency and her five principles for developing it. Additionally, Tracy Zager and Graham Fletcher join Bethany and Dan to better understand fluency through a lens of equity and using multimedia as a tool.

How do we continue to grow and be more reflective about our own teaching? In this episode, Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer chat with Elham Kazemi to explore how to look at teaching as a collaborative experiment. Moving more toward analyzing student thinking and how that contributes to teaching itself, leaves more space for one's own understanding of math to grow throughout your career. When one revises their teaching based on the data we're collecting from students and peers, this allows us to be both teachers and learners forever.Explore more from the Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page. 

In this episode, Mathematizing Children's Literature authors Allison Hintz and Antony Smith join Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss what would happen if we were to approach children's literature, and life, through a math lens – and how we can apply those techniques to classroom teaching.Explore more from the Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page. 

In this episode Howie Hua (you may know him from his viral TikTok videos) joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss making math accessible for students through multiple social media platforms, creating an engaging space for students to share their ideas.