Episode 206 - 1% Better - The 4-Minute Daily Math Difference
What if transforming your math teaching only required 4 minutes a day? In this episode, Christina breaks down the powerful concept of getting 1% better daily and shows how just 4 minutes of intentional change in your classroom adds up to 12 hours of enhanced math learning over the school year. Perfect for busy educators who want to make a real impact without overwhelming themselves. Get your free guide with 30+ quick math activities to get you started at BuildMathMinds.com/1%
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Episode 205 - Stop Coaching Everyone: Use the 80/20 Rule to Transform Your Elementary Math Coaching
As an elementary math coach, do you feel like you're trying to be everywhere at once with never enough time to make the impact you want? In this episode, discover how to use the 80/20 principle to transform your coaching approach and actually increase your impact while saving time. Learn how to strategically apply the 80/20 rule in two key ways: Which Teachers to Prioritize: How to identify the 20% of teachers who will create the biggest ripple effect across your school (hint: it's not just about who needs the most help) What to Coach On: The foundational instructional moves that will serve teachers for years versus the "trivial many" that keep you busy but don't create lasting change Stop spreading yourself thin and start coaching smarter. By the end of this video, you'll have a clear framework for focusing your energy on what truly matters - and you'll walk away with two concrete action steps to implement immediately. Perfect for elementary math coaches, instructional coaches, and math specialists looking to maximize their impact with limited time. What You'll Get: ✅ Understanding of the 80/20 principle and how it applies to coaching ✅ Specific strategies for identifying high-impact teachers to prioritize ✅ Clear criteria for choosing coaching topics that create lasting change ✅ Two actionable lists to create after watching
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Episode 204 -Timed Math Activities…Good or Bad?
Are timed math activities helping or harming our elementary students? This controversial topic divides educators, but the research tells a clear story when we dig deeper. In this episode, we explore evidence-based strategies for using timed activities to build math fluency without creating anxiety or trauma. Drawing from the What Works Clearinghouse's analysis of 27 studies involving over 4,300 students, we discover that the problem isn't timed activities themselves—it's how they've been implemented. You'll learn the five essential steps for effective timed math practice: identifying already-learned topics, choosing engaging activities, ensuring students have efficient strategies, tracking meaningful progress, and providing immediate feedback. We move beyond traditional worksheets and timers to explore alternatives like number talks, mental math relays, and "beat your own score" games. This episode directly addresses real teacher questions about timed facts assessments and students who struggle with computation speed on standardized tests. We tackle the balance between building number sense and developing computational fluency, offering practical solutions for both classroom instruction and assessment preparation. Whether you're a classroom teacher questioning your current math fluency practices or a math coach supporting teachers through this debate, this episode provides research-backed strategies you can implement immediately. WWC/IES Practice Guide for Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics
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Episode 203 - Number Sense with Christina Tondevold and Mona Iehl
In this cross-posted episode from Math Chat, host Mona Iehl interviews Christina Tondevold about developing number sense in elementary students. Christina shares her journey from a "procedural" math student to becoming a math coach and founder of Build Math Minds. The conversation explores the eight components of number sense: four early numeracy concepts (subitizing, verbal counting, object counting, and cardinality) and four number relationships (spatial relationships, one/two more or less, benchmarks of 5 and 10, and part-part-whole). Christina explains how these concepts help move students beyond counting to more efficient math strategies. Practical classroom strategies discussed include using sticky notes to assess students' visual number understanding, implementing subitizing activities, and strategically choosing numbers in word problems to reinforce key number relationships. Both educators emphasize the importance of allowing students to solve problems in ways that make sense to them, rather than forcing procedural approaches. This episode provides valuable insights for teachers looking to build true mathematical understanding rather than just procedural knowledge in their students. Check out Mona’s podcast Math Chat Enroll in The Flexibility Formula Course
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Episode 202 - Going Beyond the Task When Building Thinking Classrooms with the Special Guests in Our Book Study
In Episode 202: Going Beyond the Task When Building Thinking Classrooms, we reveal the exciting lineup of special guests for our summer book study on 'Mathematics Tasks for the Thinking Classroom Grades K-5' by Peter Liljedahl and Maegan Giroux. Starting July 14th, each week will feature a video with reading prompts followed by live Q&A sessions with experts including first-grade teacher Tammy McMorrow, co-author of the book Maegan Giroux, and Official BTC Consultant Kim Rimbey. Join now at BuildMathMinds.com/bookstudy25 to receive a 20% discount code plus free shipping within the US, and participate in these valuable learning opportunities with educators who are transforming mathematics classrooms.
The Build Math Minds podcast is for my fellow Recovering Traditionalists out there. If you don’t know whether or not you are a Recovering Traditionalist, here’s how I define us. We are math educators who used to teach math the traditional way. Flip lesson by lesson in the textbook, directly teaching step-by-step how to solve math problems. But now, we are working to change that to a style of teaching math that is fun and meets our students where they are at, not just teaching what comes next in the textbook. We want to encourage our students to be thinkers, problem solvers, and lovers of mathematics..we are wanting to build our students math minds and not just create calculators. If that is you, then this podcast is for you.
Ireland