Practical Access Podcast

S13 E1: Filling the Gap: Practical Coaching for Math and Science Educators

• Season 13 • Episode 1

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In this episode of Practical Access, Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines reunite to kick off a new season focused on filling important gaps in the field of education. They introduce their collaborative work on the FLITE STEM Coaching project, a national initiative designed to support math and science coaches working alongside special education teachers. The conversation emphasizes the need for practical tools, collaborative strategies, and innovative coaching methods to bridge the divide between general education and special education. This season promises to offer insights that help educators strengthen support systems and improve student outcomes. 

Key insights include:

Bridging Coaching and Special Education: Effective STEM coaching requires understanding the unique needs of special education teachers and students. Coaches should build relationships and communicate clearly across roles to better align goals.

Filling Practical Gaps: Many teachers are left without real classroom strategies to connect math and science content with student support needs. The FLITE STEM Coaching project is designed to fill this gap with tools and approaches that are both actionable and realistic.

Coaching as Collaboration: Coaching should be a two way conversation. The most successful outcomes happen when coaches and teachers learn from each other and adapt strategies together, rather than rely on one size fits all models.

Emphasizing the Why: STEM coaches are encouraged to focus not just on what to teach but why it matters. Helping teachers understand the reasoning behind instructional choices can improve student understanding and motivation.

Celebrating Teacher Strengths: Instead of correcting mistakes or prescribing fixes, coaches should highlight what teachers are doing well and build from there. This strength based approach promotes trust and growth.

We love to hear from our listeners! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We look forward to receiving your questions on our Twitter (@KUFLITECenter), Facebook (@Center for Flexible Learning through Innovations in Technology & education), or Instagram (@Practical_Access). 

Lisa Dieker:

Welcome to Practical Access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines:

And I'm Rebecca Hines and Lisa, it's good to be back together. I know we've been working on our own projects, some together, some apart, and I know you're especially excited about this season.

Lisa Dieker:

I know. So we're really excited what we're trying to be as, I think, a gap filler, which is kind of fun in the field. We have a big national project that we've been working on together called FLITE STEM Coaching, which helps math and science coaches work with special-ed teachers. And this season is about filling in places that we didn't find a lot of resources in the math and science areas to help teachers work with kids with disabilities. So it's not focused on how to teach math and science. It's focused on how to help kids with disabilities that might be in a math and science classroom. So do you want to say anything more about FLITE STEM Coaching? I know you've done a lot of work with the coaching part too.

Rebecca Hines:

No, I just I love the model, and I think those of you who look into it when it becomes available will like it too, because it does provide opportunities for teachers to really focus on specific strategies and specific practices to get the results that you want. And part of our

Lisa Dieker:

you want to lead with your first suggestion? mission is to help you start with some of these strategies as you think about your STEM classes today. So Lisa, give us give us a strategy. Becky, and then I'll kind of go from there.

Rebecca Hines:

I will go by the simple principle of, you know, how are we going to group them in the first place? And you know, there's all kind of random picker online tools to randomly put people in group. But there's other times that we want to be strategic in in how we decide who's who's working where. So I think the obvious one that most teachers kind of rely on sometimes is by by readiness and by what students understand what they don't understand. Do we pair someone who is a an emerging learner with an expert so that they can see it? Or is it better to push each other by having experts with experts and really lean into a challenge? There are times for both, in my opinion. But readiness isn't the only thing to consider. You know, a lot of times, and this isn't necessarily true as true in math, unless we're strategic about what the assignment is. But you know, grouping students by interest is a good way to let them explore and be excited about topics with other people who are excited about the same topics. So my first challenge to teachers is to think about whether it's having students work on different problems to solve, instead of everybody working on the same problem or project. And even in math, if we're asking students to to have dialog and talk about math. What are they purposefully doing with it? So I recommend that teachers think about how we can have groups that are working on the same standard, but might have a different topic, and we let them group by interest.

Lisa Dieker:

Yeah, and you know, I love again, I'll go back to one of the most effective strategies in our literature that I just live by, which is cooperative grouping. And I think math sets itself up beautifully for jigsawing. So you send kids out to all do four different problems. They get with their friends that are doing the same problems, make sure, and then they go back and teach and and yet, I think we both agree this is a really important time to be thinking about kids with language-based needs that might have trouble talking, kids who might have communication devices, and kids who might struggle with dyscalculia, with ability to do the math. And so, you know, math is one, science is another. And I like your thoughts. You know, if you're doing biomes, like kids, pick their biomes, and choice is great, but I do think you have to be careful if you have a really diverse classroom. We know best practice normally for grouping is one high, one low, two in the middle, but again, that might be high behavior if you're in a lab, because now we have to worry about the social part of that, where it might be high academics and. It's really a hard academic task. So I think grouping is something that should be fluid, but if it's inquiry based, we really have to think about adding those layers for kids with any language challenges.

Rebecca Hines:

I'm going to push back on you just a little bit here, Lisa, I agree with everything you said, and I agree that the traditional wisdom is to have one, you know, one person who's higher, one person is lower, two people somewhere in the middle. There is also research that shows that when we use that, then people fall into predicted patterns. And so if I'm working with people who are at my own level, someone is rising to the top. So, you know, I think for me as a teacher, the goal is to figure out when I want to have these differentiated and when I want to have people working in a group so that they feel comfortable and confident, and we create some emerging leaders among the ones who may have been the middle, middle of the pack, you know, air quotes, or, you know, the less the more novice learner. So I do think that there's room for all of those. And then another, another grouping consideration is the idea, especially at the secondary levels, of having one a group of one, can I choose to work independently while other people work in groups? And I know that goes against the nature of some teachers, but sometimes, when we give choice, we get more buy in. We can identify who is it that's struggling to fit into a group, and we can scaffold that and coach them into choosing partners other times. But I do think that student choice is important, and I feel like there are times that we could offer students choice of partners, and I also think there's times that we can offer students choice to work independently or work with a partner.

Lisa Dieker:

It's funny too, because those of you don't know us on this podcast, we love to disagree with each other, favorite things to do. And what's funny is we hardly ever really disagree. We just disagree to agree. And so I'm going to start by agreeing with you that I definitely do think you want grouping, and I think that's why one of the things you and I both love is co teaching in these kind of settings where we can do enrichment and remediation and that same kids all the time. I know we've talked about the tap back strategy of tapping the kids who could be pushed and and what have you one other strategy. And then I want to talk about the single grouping, because I disagree a little bit there, but it's because a topic of inquiry, but, but with the grouping strategy, one I learned from an algebra teacher years ago, literally, I don't even know how long it is anymore, was to put kids in numbers, letters and shape groups, and I even do that in my college class. And so when there's a number up on the on the wall, you go to your number groups when it and that way I can think through grouping ahead of time. But what I learned from her is her shape groups, where she did her differentiated grouping, and she said to her students, hey, when you get in your shapes, now you're going to be doing different tasks. And that's where she could purposely think about the kid who needs to be enriched with, you know, a two grade level above versus who needs some remediation time with her. And so I think, you know, that's the kind of stuff you want to think about, so that it isn't, oh, crumb, who am I grouping with? Because that can be really stressful for some kids. And then, as far as a group of one, I don't have a problem with that. I do struggle a little bit with it in inquiry based, but I know we talked about, you know, could be the teacher talking with the student. It even could be an AI agent talking with the student. But if we're really talking about STEM and inquiry, there's a rule I call the 90/10 rule, 90% of what the teacher talks about, kids forget, and 90% of what they talk about they remember, and so I would want that student to have some way of either writing or talking or using a communication device to share their thinking, even if they're going to be by themselves, which I completely respect, and has to happen.

Rebecca Hines:

Sure and I agree with you, there still has to be an expectation of sharing the information and asking questions. But for those kids who are either communication averse, let's just say kids who do not want to talk. And we know there are kids, you know, all levels of abilities, who fall into that category. I look at this as almost a scaffold so that I can find information. The expectation is I'm still sharing it after I've found it. And I think that you build in the inquiry piece by designing the lessons so that here's the assignment, if you choose to work independently, you must have three questions to ask the teacher as you're working because you still need that expert feedback. So I'm not trying to discourage communication or inquiry, but I do think kids need very specific scaffolds, and I think sometimes when we just put them in groups with no choice, some don't ever fully engage. Even they don't, they don't even try. So I'm always willing to try anything and try to try to get people working at whatever way we need to.

Lisa Dieker:

Yeah, and I do think the future is you're going to be working more and more with AI agents. So getting comfortable to that to some level. Well, I have two more things I I'm going to ask you one, but then I would like to talk a little bit about assessment. But I do think when you mentioned it already, when kids are in inquiry, inquiry groups, you really do have to be assessing because I think sometimes kids can get in groups and talk, but we know, we know who would talk in my group. It'd be me. So again, how do we give kids differentiated roles in those groups to hold them accountable, not only to assess their learning, but to really give them a structure and clear expectation, so is one drawing. It is quite often my class, one drawing with the whiteboard. One's using wikki sticks to show it. The other is running the lab material or doing the math problems and the calculator, and one is getting ready to talk with the group. But I do think that if we don't have structure and expectations, it's a struggle. And that is your bailiwick. So what would you say to me, I'm a new teacher, and I'm about to put kids in lab for the first time, and it involves breakable things, and kids who like to break things. What would you tell me?

Rebecca Hines:

Well, I think, I think the the word that I like to use now is evidence, and I use that in my pre-service teacher classrooms, I use it when I'm training teachers. I'm using when I'm in a school and working with kids, I ask them to show me the evidence of what you've done. Show me the evidence of what you've learned, if it's the lab, show me the evidence that you understand the protocol here. And we have to be patient and willing to not only ask, but to watch and listen to ensure that a student can perform that skill. And I think that's what's missing in a lot of classrooms anyway, honestly. So this idea of evidence, maybe it's photo evidence, maybe it's something you've designed with the wikki sticks, but show me evidence. I teach master's level courses, and I say, show me evidence that you read this. So I don't need a summary from you, because that's not evidence anymore. So either meet with me and tell me, or show me visually somehow that you have actually done this. So I think we rely on that very specific word, and then we design a structure where we're asking for oral evidence or asking for physical evidence of every single thing we expect kids to master, whether it's rules or whether it's content.

Lisa Dieker:

Yeah, and I'll just share that. My last thought would be, is to maybe think about, if you're kind of lost in how to get structure in those roles or assessment ideas, I would go out and use some type of generative AI model, whether it's Copilot, Google Gemini, and ask questions like that. I've been doing that with teachers all the time. My favorite prompt now is explain, E-L-I, ELI, explain like I'm five, and you could have that student who is a 10 year old but struggling say, hey, why don't you be the person who gets us ready to tear if we were going to tell a kindergarten class my second favorite prompt is humanizer. So I was just doing this with the black hole, and I said, make the black hole humanize. And said, the black hole is like a trampoline. What goes in, it can go through, or it can bounce out, depending on, you know. I was like, wow, that's like a vacuum cleaner that it sucks things in. I was like, oh, both of those are really helpful to me as a teacher. The same true for structures, but I really think our big assessment, it should be more performance based and oral or picture based, and, you know, filling out a worksheet and and writing the lab steps down. That was great before AI could do it all for you that can be produced in three seconds. So keep asking yourself, what could kids do differently? Last thoughts from you, Becky?

Rebecca Hines:

Nope, on that we wholeheartedly agree. We know from writing about AI, working with AI, we've been using it for a long time. I encourage us to really look for better and deeper understanding of our content. And I do think that happens through orally having to explain it so everybody is doing kids a service when we start asking them to say what they know, it's also increasing their communication skills.

Lisa Dieker:

All right, well, thank you for joining us, and if you have questions, you can tweet us at Access Practical or post a question on our Facebook page. Thanks.