Zach Diamond  0:00  
Matt, welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. Each week we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast.

Toni Rose Deanon  0:28  
Hello and welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Toni Rose Deanon, they them pronouns, a designated hype person here at MCP and y'all today is such a gem because I am joined by so many of my colleagues, my co workers. And so you all know, we work remotely, and so being in the same space, physically, virtually together to have a conversations, discussions about what's going on is just such a magical experience for me. So with that being said, we have Paul, we have Kim, Tony and Lauren all with us, and we'll quickly introduce ourselves as well. About You know, tell us about who you are, how you started your MCP journey, anything like that, and we'll start off with Kim, Lauren Tony and then Paul.

Kimberley Nichols  1:10  
All right, hey everyone. I'm Kim Nichols. I'm an educator Support Manager with modern classrooms project. I am a former secondary math teacher St Paul Public Schools live in Minnesota, I started using MCP in my math classroom, went through the virtual mentorship program, became a D MCP, became a mentor, and then joined the company, excited to be here.

Lauren Lutz-Coleman  1:34  
Thanks, Kim. I'll go next. I'm Lauren Coleman, Senior Director of customized curriculum solutions here at MCP, and excited to be one of our point people for our New York City Partnership we're going to be chatting about today. I am based in New Jersey, former classroom teacher here as well, and discovered MCP all the way back in 2017 when I was at the blended and personalized learning conference in Rhode Island. MCP at that point, I don't think was much more than just conversation around our founders who were getting some attention for their work, and it was being picked up there by the conference, in all these circles as kind of like an undercurrent conversation. So tapped in then and excited to have found my way to the team. I'll pass it over to my colleague, Tony to go next.

Tony Xiao  2:15  
Thanks, Lauren. My name is Tony Xiao. I am currently living right outside of Washington, DC, where I was formerly a high school math teacher, taught 11th and 12th grade for all you math teachers who are listening right now. Yeah, we know just, just how, just how hard it is, especially the upgrades, when, when kids start seeing a lot of letters and not not a lot of numbers. Yeah, and I started my modern classrooms journey about three years ago when I joined the team, and have just had the privilege of being able to support educators all over the country in all different kinds of contexts and settings. And so it's really been a joy over the last few years just to see so much, especially some of the really inspiring things that are happening in classrooms all over and I'll pass to Paul.

Paul O'Donoghue  2:58  
Hey everyone, Paul here. I'm an educator, Support Manager, just like Kim. I originally am from Massachusetts, where I started my teaching career. I taught high school math there for five years, and then I was in Michigan for three years. Found modern classrooms along the way, and just fell in love with it. And then when my family and I relocated to Connecticut and I was looking for jobs, I thought, You know what? Modern classrooms has an opening. I'll apply. Thought I had no chance to get a job here, but was lucky enough to be a good fit, and so I was recently hired this year and get to work with a lot of teachers all over the country and helping set up their modern classrooms. So thanks for having us today. Toni Rose,

Toni Rose Deanon  3:35  
yeah, of course. And y'all, we've had Paul on the podcast before, so we'll link the podcast episode so you all can listen to his like beautiful thing about self pacing, it is like, still, hands down, one of my favorite episodes, and that was back when he was a classroom teacher. And so as you all can tell, there's a lot of math teachers in this space, and I often say too that with me, math is such a still, still a toxic relationship with math here. So I'm trying to figure out how to have a better relationship, and I know that Kim has really helped with that so that I can continue supporting educators that we work with. And so we all had the privilege of being in the same physical space in New York City, actually. And I was like, What a better way to debrief than to have you all together, and let's have conversations about like, hey, what trends Did you notice across the New York City classrooms that you observed and then, as well as, like, what are some challenges? But of course, let's start off with trends, things that we saw, because we were all in separate teams. So it wasn't even like, Oh, I was, you know, we were all in the same classrooms, but we're all in separate teams. We're seeing different teachers, different grade levels, but I believe it's all math that we saw, so there was that similarity. And so yeah, let's start off with some trends. What did we see? And I know Kim, we're going to start with you, because you support a lot of New York City educators. So what did you see as far as trends with New York City educators, as well as some challenges? Um.

Kimberley Nichols  5:00  
I think the biggest thing, it's just a word, and it's brilliance that I saw in our teachers that are taking our model, interpreting it, modifying it, making it work for the students who are in front of them every single day. It's just, it's awe inspiring. I just love that piece of it. I think challenges. I think it was a tricky start for New York City this year. They had some tech issues in terms of getting access to technology, so I think a lot of schools were unable to really start that piece of things until right before Thanksgiving, and yet they just rolled with it. It was just amazing. I saw a lot of student voices who were so appreciative of things like I can self pace, I can do my own thing. I can get help when I need it. There was just so much, so much positive and, you know, I'm I'm in awe of teachers in general, and to see the effects and to hear from students that this is making a difference, my favorite quote of the whole trip, and I was there all week, a student looked at me and said, I used to hate math, and it's now my favorite subject.

Toni Rose Deanon  6:36  
Oh my gosh. I mean mic drop right? Like that's That is such a beautiful thing when we hear our students talk about how they go from hating it to loving it, that's a huge impact there. And I know Kim, I also wanted to say that our New York, New York City educators, this is all kind of like a voluntary thing, right? It's not mandated. Our teachers sign up and welcome us and invite us into their spaces, to be thought partners, to support them, to give feedback. And so it's really interesting to see as well. This is something that Kim and I talked about, is that hunger that teachers have to like, hey, I want to be better. I want to improve so that my students improve. What can I do to make it better for all of us, and that was such a beautiful conversation that I heard you have with one of our teachers, who taught a seventh and eighth grade split inclusion class, right? Like that was such a beautiful thing. And so moving to Tony. Tony, you've worked with New York City educators for a couple of years now. The past three years that you've been with modern classrooms. What have you seen? What has changed? What has what is going really well? What is something that has surprised you after three years of being around New York City educators?

Tony Xiao  7:51  
That's a great question. I think the biggest thing that I noticed in this past visit and over this past school year as compared to previous school years is that teachers are really, I think they have the tools to keep going right, and that they can persevere. They can sustain their practice, especially in these math classrooms. Now that they have, you know, like, a full set of resources they have, like, really amazing and specific sort of guidance. You know, a lot of that from, from Kim in her work with these mentees to say, like, Hey, I I see that the model is great, right? Like, I see MCP, everything I've learned. It sounds amazing, right? But then as soon as you get into the real world and you're looking at your students, and you're spending time in class, and you're trying to put all these things together, it gets really complicated really quickly, not to mention, you know, all the limitations that you might have with, say, technology that you may or may not have, what your administrators may or may not want you to do, initiatives that may or may not be, that you may or may not think is ultimately helpful for your students. All of those things right make actually implementing really complicated, and I think for a lot of teachers kind of they, I mean, I hate to say this, but it is the reality, like they kind of lose hope over time, right? Or they say, like, Hey, I tried this thing and it just really didn't work. So let me just go back to, you know what is familiar to me, even if I know that ultimately it may not be the best kind of thing that I could be doing for my students. I mean, that's just the reality of being a teacher, and they need to make decisions. But what I saw in every single classroom that I was a part of in this last week where teachers are really trying and teachers are really hopeful, and teachers knew right. Teachers know when things kind of are working or not, and they're like, Hey, I know this needs improvement. Like, please give me some ideas, because I really want to, you know, make sure this works. Like, how can I make sure I all my students questions get answered if I'm if I'm working in small groups, right? How can I make sure I'm keeping up with my illustrative math pacing? If my students are able to self pace? So I think teachers are just asking a lot of questions, which means that they really want to engage, which ultimately, I think is a wonderful thing. Especially, like you said, Toni Rose, this is voluntary, right? Like none of the teachers who we saw need to do this, right? They have not been told, like, you must do this. This is all opt in. Teachers are wanting something better, and I think they're finding that what they're doing is helping them get there.

Toni Rose Deanon  10:18  
And I want to piggyback off of that too, Tony, because you and I also saw some classrooms together of like, there are some teachers who are like, I'm not doing anything right, and it's like, no, actually, you're doing all the things that we want, like that we were encouraging you to do. And so I think this is another conversation too, that happens often with educators, is that they feel like they're not doing enough, and it's like, no, you are crushing it, and I want to show you all the different ways of how you're crushing it. And I love that we're in there, in person, having those conversations of again, like that, making teachers feel valued, feel heard, feel like they are being supported. And I love that. And so now, Paul, I have a question for you, because again, you just joined our team. You implemented the model, and now you were witnessing other teachers implement the model, right? Like, what are some gems that you're finding out? Because I know that you had also been a mentor for us, and so you've been supporting educators this entire time that you've been with us and implementing as well, right? And so now you get to see it in action. You get to visit different classroom teachers and really engage and have that, like, live feedback happening or conversations happening with students. How has that been for you?

Paul O'Donoghue  11:29  
Yeah, it was a little surreal to walk into my first modern classroom visits and see like, oh my gosh, there are other teachers doing this. Because, like so many modern classroom teachers out there, there's a lot of lone wolfs that are either the only person in their school or their district that you know, like we said that, you know, a lot of these teachers are signing up to learn about modern classrooms and go through the training on their own. So it was so exciting to walk into classrooms and see modern classroom happening in front of me, which was so exciting. And so I think, you know, a lot of the success that I saw in New York was based around teachers teaching the kids that were in front of them. And I thought that was so valuable, because it felt like when I walked into a classroom and got a sense of who the kids were and what they needed, the teachers had adapted modern classroom to work for those kids. And I was in classes of, you know, 30 kids, where the abilities are all over the place. And then I was in inclusion classes, and I was in classes and I was in classes of, like, less than 10 kids, and all the teachers had, they had adapted the materials and their self pacing and their blended learning to really work for the kids in from it. And, you know, in a city like Brooklyn, you get kids coming from all sorts of backgrounds. I think Brooklyn would be the third biggest city in the United States if it was its own city. So you just, like, you sort of walk into a school and you don't know what you're going to get and what's in front to get and what's in front of you, and I was just blown away by the expertise of the teachers to really be there for the kids in front of them, especially because so many of these teachers are lone wolfs, and they're kind of, you know, they get the coaching calls and the mentoring from us, but it's really valuable to be able to, you know, work with colleagues on this, which can be challenging for a lot of these teachers. So again, just to be able to walk in these rooms and see modern classrooms shining is a testament to these educators, because you know, they're really going for it, like you said Tony rose, they might not feel like it's always an A plus home run day, but yeah, they really, I think, exceeded expectations based on their circumstances. So yeah, shout out to all the teachers that we saw in New York for sure. Yeah.

Toni Rose Deanon  13:24  
And I want to say to the lone wolves like these are teachers who are being assertive, advocating for their needs as well, right? And having those hard, challenging, difficult, you know, questionable conversations with admin. I mean, there were so many schools that we walked into and those, those teachers, were really the only ones, but to be greeted by admin and be like, Oh, y'all are modern classrooms project. Y'all are here. What do you mean? You're here. And we're also like, Thank you for being here. So I know for my experience when I went into classrooms and when I went into schools, there was always that greeting of like, Oh my gosh. We're excited that you're here, like you actually exist, like you're here to support a teacher, and that's still really dope for our community, right? And so we've got, we've gotten a lot, we've gotten a good amount of interest for that too, because of these lone wolves who are implementing, who are being assertive, being advocates for, like, creating a more student centered learning, right? So now, Lauren, again, you're also brand new. And we were like, Here you go. Now. You get to have New York City. What has what has been your What has your experience been like

Lauren Lutz-Coleman  14:28  
that greeting that you just described coming from the admins was a complete surprise and absolute delight for me. I went into these site visits expecting that there were going to be strong, lone wolf implementers that we were going to be celebrating, but perhaps not a lot of real attention or awareness to them, kind of on the radar of like the larger school level. So I was ready to go in and have to introduce myself, introduce MCP, to an admin who may have been arm's length or fairly separate from this. I was ready to start pitching. And giving background context, and I didn't have to do it once all these kind of, you know, talk tracks, I had prepared completely unnecessary, because the real appetite was already there. And this was so fulfilling, because oftentimes these admins were prepared and ready to co walk classrooms with us and see things in action, or just ready to have conversations afterwards where the main question was basically, what's next? They know that there's a lone wolf here that's demonstrating some traction. They're seeing good things out of this classroom, and they're just eager to figure out, like, hey, if there's another group of teachers over here that I'm aiming to support, can I do something if I have student outcomes that look like this, can this model also support here. So lots of use cases are popping up in conversation, lots of discussions around the second half of the year coming up or next year. So just really excited by the fact that, without much effort on our part in advance of this site visit to draw attention to ourselves, the impact is speaking for itself.

Toni Rose Deanon  15:59  
And then such a great point, too, Lauren, I y'all shout out to admin who supports teachers. I mean, you know, we can't say that enough, and the fact that, like, the admin are very well versed enough, or maybe just like, know enough, that like, hey, this teacher is trying something new. And instead of me saying, You cannot do that, I'm gonna see how it plays out. I'm going to have all the questions, I'm going to have all of the ideas and the concerns that I may have, but I want to see how it plays out first. And so really shout out to admin, to who continue to support educators who are trying new things. And so y'all, we're trying this new thing. Also, speaking of trying new things, we wanted to have podcast episodes that are a little bit shorter, right? And so it's a little bit more bite, sizeable and scaffolded. And so this is an opening question for anyone who wants to answer is that, is there anything else that you all want to share with the group, a group about with their listeners, about New York City educators and admin? Any supports, any advice, words of advice, or anything that you're just like, you know what think about this moving forward, right? And anyone can start, 

Lauren Lutz-Coleman  17:06  
I can kick us off by just kind of talking about the importance of community. You know, our MCP team is always here, and especially in New York, where it is an opt in basis. We're working with a lot of teachers who are islands in their building in terms of implementation. But just know that our MCP team is here to make sure that if you're feeling like you are the trendsetter or the individual person you're building, trying out something new when it gets scrappy or uncomfortable, the team is here. Kim is one of the most phenomenal coaches, who's ready to give feedback, having seen so many classrooms, to make those connections, our webinars bring people together, even as our team, like you know, we didn't debrief on the ground together, because we were visiting more than 40 schools across boroughs. Y'all, there was a lot of time spent in Ubers on the subway, just kind of riding around, like a lot of time getting where we needed to be to be able to see everybody in action at least once. And those touch points were individual, which was phenomenal to be able to be there one on one, but like, the community building is the part that we take on next. 

Kimberley Nichols  18:05  
I would agree

Toni Rose Deanon  18:06  
Kim, hold on, before you say I wanted to give you a shout out, Kim, because you don't play about your mentees. Okay, like Kim, if you have Kim as a mentor, you gonna hear from Kim, regardless of whether you want to or not. So as far as far as community is engaged, like we're talking about community, Kim is so good at pulling the teachers in, right? Because, again, Kim share with us some of the conversations that you've had with your teachers, and then, as well as, like, what you were going to say before I interrupted you, 

Kimberley Nichols  18:32  
oh, you're all right. No, no, no, it's already I have had three New York teachers call today, three calls this morning from people that we saw who are pouring through the feedback and so grateful. One of them tears is one that you and I saw together, and that turned into a 45 minute tears and such gratitude so that I do agree the community is huge, and yes, New York teachers, you will hear from me and keep calling. I think I have 19 calls this week just from teachers who want us to hear more. They want to see what they can do next. They want to be ready for January. So it's so exciting, just so exciting.

Toni Rose Deanon  19:26  
And y'all, that sounds like a lot, but I promise you that is Kim's favorite piece, I think, is having conversations with educators. And a lot of the times to Kim says, like she always has to talk people off the ledge, like, no, no, you actually got this. I promise you got this. Here's a small thing that you could implement right away so that you feel a little bit better about implementing the model. So again, like, like, what Lauren says, reach out to the community. The community is here, if you are having, you know, if there's tension between you and admin as well. Of like, I don't know how to I don't know how to communicate this. We have so many opportunities for leaders to get in. Involved as well, so that we can take that on, and you don't have to, and you can continue focusing on serving your your kids. Paul Tony, what about y'all?

Paul O'Donoghue  20:08  
I was just gonna say it was great. I mean, these teachers are signing up to be observed, and so they are, like, craving feedback and coaching, I mean, to piggyback on what Kim said, and it's really exciting. I mean, when I was teaching, you know, observations and evaluations. It was, it was stressful. It was nerve rocking, nerve wracking. Administrators don't often have the time to just walk around in the classrooms and make it, you know, to normalize it. And so for me, observations always felt like I got to be on my A game. I hope my kids are on their A game. And so it's nice that I think we get to do these classroom visits and just normalize, like walking into a room chatting with kids, and like I said, the teachers are really craving coaching and feedback, and they're excited to get the feedback, and they know that they're not perfect, and they know that, like, we can wonder things and have great conversations about, you know, next steps, and like Kim said, what they can do in January. So I love that about the New York trip, and I would just encourage teachers. You know, none of us are finished products, especially in teaching, there's always something more to learn from from new people, from articles, from videos, from, you know, from coaches. So I love that. It was a great experience, especially for me, like not being New York City's coach. Like these mentees, they're meeting me for the first time, and so kudos to them for having this random guy walk into their room and provide some feedback. And they were all for it. It was, it was really, really cool.

Toni Rose Deanon  21:28  
That is such, that is a fact, Paul, that is a fact, like complete strangers walking in providing feedback, and you are open and receptive to it. So we again, thank you all teachers for being so receptive. And then, of course, as Paul and Kim knows, like you two both implemented the model. You know, every year, every semester, it's a change. Honestly, sometimes it could be every month that there's a change. So it's not a finished product all the time, right? And I think that's a lot of the reasons why people stick with teaching is because it does change so much, and it's never boring. Tony, what about you?

Tony Xiao  22:00  
Yeah, piggybacking off of all what you were sharing and what we're talking about in terms of building community, I think something that could be really valuable, especially for just the cohort of New York City teachers, is to help build and share expertise among one another. I think especially if you're alone, like what you can do is you can go on a website. You can find examples, you can find a lot of different templates, like, you can find a lot of resources, but it's different if you can talk to somebody who, you know, teaches in this, you know, in the same district as you right, somebody who is familiar with, like, what is going on in your schools, and so what, however, we are able to, I think, connect folks together. You know, talking about the feedback, right? Oftentimes, the feedback that I'm able to give to teachers are things that I've seen other modern classroom teachers do. And I just, I just kind of log it in my brain. I'm like, that's an amazing way to do something. And when the right time comes and a teacher is in a similar situation, you're struggling with something, I can provide this as as a tip, or as like, Hey, I've seen this before. Have you considered that? I think it'd be really powerful if we can get, like, New York City teachers together and have them share that knowledge among one another. I think the way that starts is, you know, from the lone wolves that we're talking about, like, doing these really amazing things, and their admin get interested, and then the department gets interested, and then we just kind of build momentum from there, so I think that is something we definitely look forward to just kind of building as we continue to support all of these mentees in New York City, we have new ones as well in the future.

Toni Rose Deanon  23:32  
Thank you so much for that. Tony. Kim Paul, I know y'all got to jump to another call. So thank you all for being here. Thank you for debriefing this with me and sharing with our listeners as well a little bit about the work that we're doing here at modern classroom and how we support educators. So again, thank you all. I appreciate you, and we'll continue to have conversations. Thanks everyone.

Zach Diamond  23:55  
Thank you so much for listening. Listeners, remember, you can always email us at podcast at modern classrooms.org and you can find the links to topics and tools we discussed, as well as more info on this week's announcements and events in the show notes for this episode at podcast.modernclassrooms.org We'll have this episode's recap and transcript uploaded to the modern classrooms blog on Friday, so be sure to check there or check back in the show notes for this episode if you'd like to access those. And if you enjoy our podcast, then it's been helpful in supporting you to create a blended, self paced, mastery based learning environment. We would love if you could leave a review that does help other folks find our podcast. And of course, you can always learn the essentials of our model if you want to go beyond the podcast through our free course at Learn.modernclassrooms.org and you can follow us on social media at modern class. Proj, that's P, R, O, J, we are so appreciative of all the hard work you do for students and schools. Have a great week. And we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast. You.

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