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Gretchen Roe: 00:00:05.398
Welcome to the Demme Learning Show. Our mission here is to help families stay in the learning journey wherever it takes them. This bonus episode was previously recorded as a webinar and was not created with the audio listener in mind. We hope you will find value in today’s episode.
Gretchen Roe: 00:00:24.169

Welcome, everyone. My name is Gretchen Roe, and it’s my great pleasure to welcome you today to this really special conversation about math doodling. I know this can be something that drives parents totally crackers. And I was that parent, so I totally understand. I have the privilege today of being joined by a marvelous colleague who is going to share with you personal experience and tremendous insight. And I’m going to let her introduce herself.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:00:56.319
Yeah, of course. Thank you so much, Gretchen. So yeah, my name is Lainey Humphrey, and I am one of the content editors here at Demme Learning in Math-U-See. And basically what that means is I get the privilege of getting to edit and work on our products for our students. But I primarily work on our math products. So that’s kind of my focus, whether it’s fixing our current products or updating them as we see fit, or even creating brand-new products. So I get to do all that fun stuff. And my journey to get there is actually a pretty interesting one and very much related to what I do. And that’s because I was a homeschool student myself. So from preschool all the way till I graduated high school, I was homeschooled along with my two older siblings. So we were very much a homeschooled family. And we actually used Math-U-See as our primary math curriculum. So I got to experience it back even before our current Greek letter series in our classic curriculum and started in that and transitioned over and used it all the way through our pre-calculus when I was in high school.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:02:12.821
So I got to experience that and then I transitioned into college, which was a fun time as a homeschooler, of course, but it was a great experience. I actually went through a long struggle of not knowing what I wanted to do and went back and forth on several things, but finally ended up on English and history. So I went to the University of Central Florida and got my degrees in English and history. And that’s why I ended up as an editor here working on math textbooks, which you probably wouldn’t think. English, history, math, like how is there a correlation? But for me, there really is. I really have a– well, have developed over the years. It really took a long time, but developed a love for math and getting to work with it. So I’m really excited to talk to you guys today and hopefully talk about how we can help students to better bridge the gap, especially our creative students, to bridge the gap between math and artistic endeavors.

Gretchen Roe: 00:03:16.176
Terrific. And if I remember right, when we spoke last week, you said at one point in time, before you began college, you were actually looking at a mech engineering major. Is that correct?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:03:27.416
I was, yeah. I was actually really fascinated in the idea of mechanical engineering. I’m from central Florida, so theme park capital of the world. And I was fascinated by rides and roller coasters at all the theme parks. And I was really interested in that. And I think the creative side of me, I was like, “I want to design that kind of thing. That would be so cool.” And I found out that you can do that if you get a degree in mechanical engineering. That’s a part of that. So I actually considered that for a long time as one of my options despite it being super math heavy, I was really excited to go into that. But then kind of gear shifted. I ended up dualing several– dual enrolling several college classes in high school. And one of those was my English comp course. And I had an English professor that just inspired me so much and really encouraged me to pursue that. So I kind of switched gears a little bit in high school and kind of went in another direction. But I’ll probably get into that a little more. I do think there was some math anxiety that was involved in that knowing how much math I would have to do with that kind of degree. Even though I was more comfortable with math than some of my fellow creative students, I still had a little bit of that math anxiety to deal with too.

Gretchen Roe: 00:04:47.146
So let’s talk a little bit about that. Tell me how that manifested for you. What did that look like internally? But then how did you let your parents or your family know that that was going on? Or maybe you didn’t. I don’t know.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:05:02.411
Yeah, of course. So I think for me, it kind of presented itself in different ways, depending on how old I was like what grade and what I was working on. Math for me, generally, in elementary school was pretty– I mean, I don’t want to say easy, but it was easy for me to understand, and it was easy for me to process and kind of do just the basic computations. I didn’t struggle too much with that, but I think that stemmed from the fact that I was really good at rote memorization. So I was really good at memorizing the steps to a process and memorizing information. So I could kind of just watch how something was done, memorize it, and then just repeat that. So it made it seem like I was really, really comfortable with math. But then as I moved into kind of algebra and more abstract concepts, it started to become a struggle because I couldn’t just memorize a process. I had to actually understand what was going on. And once I realized internally that I didn’t understand what was going on, I kind of freaked out a little bit. And that created a lot of stress, a lot of just that fight or flight resistance. And I was very much a fight kind of reaction. I kind of resisted it. And it was like, “Oh–” anything that gave me that kind of anxiety, I was like, “I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.” I was very hesitant to it.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:06:27.130
And so at first, I didn’t know what was going on. I thought there was all that kind of internalization of, “Well, I just must be stupid.” What’s going on in those kinds of negative thoughts that as students, we can kind of tell ourselves when we can’t figure something out. But then eventually, I realized like, “Okay, I need to explain to my mom that this isn’t easy for me anymore. I’m really struggling with this.” And so I probably didn’t communicate it in the healthiest ways at first. There was probably a few more fights that we had about me getting my math work done. But eventually, we got to the point where it was a conversation, and I was able really to communicate to her of like, “Hey, I just need a second. I’m having trouble processing this. Can we just take a break? I need a second to pause, and can we try this again and just reapproach something?” And so it went from being just an internal problem where I knew it was happening, but I tried not to show it, or maybe it showed itself in other ways that were nonverbal. But then it eventually became where I could really have a conversation with my mom. And she became really good at recognizing when I was struggling and when I was kind of faking that I understood something.

Gretchen Roe: 00:07:45.884
How old were you when you began algebra one?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:07:48.589
I was around 14 years old.

Gretchen Roe: 00:07:51.242
Okay. So that prefrontal cortex was kind of sort of developed, but this is something that parents encounter all the time, that they go through our Greek series or they’re in another math program and their kids are doing fine. And then they hit that pre-algebra, algebra one, where now you have to synthesize all those component pieces and adapt your thinking and it all of a sudden becomes very hard. And we often have parents who say, “Oh, I think my child has developed a math disability.” And it’s not, really. It’s more that anxiety of as parents, we say, “Well, just do your best.” But if you’re not sure which end of the stick to pick up, it’s hard to figure out how to do your best.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:08:42.010
Right, right. And if you don’t even know what you’re best at, that’s kind of hard when you don’t know that and you’re just, you feel at a loss as a student because it’s like, “Well, maybe at this point in time, this does feel like my best,” but it also feels like it may not be good enough because I’m still struggling and I’m still having issues or getting problems wrong or that sort of thing. So, and I definitely think there’s a component, too, that it really happens as students move into kind of the middle school, high school levels, is that we have to think about the fact that it’s not just the math that gets harder, it’s kind of all of their coursework and other subjects as well that becomes more challenging. And I think even that within itself can cause math to seem harder than it is because they have 10 other things that they’re trying to remember and learn and work on. And so it’s really good to just keep that in mind. If your students, I think, start struggling in math, especially at that kind of age group, is that it might not just be the math itself. It could be they’re just a little overwhelmed with everything.

Gretchen Roe: 00:09:51.994
Which brings a good point, and you’re actually in kind of a unique situation to help us understand how could I, as a parent, facilitate that conversation with my student to say, “Hey, tell me what’s going on in your head so that I know what to expect here.” How could I do that?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:10:18.467
Yeah. Honestly, I think one of the best ways to approach that is to create a very low-stakes environment. Show to your student that no matter what they say, no matter what they tell you, that that’s a safe space, it’s a correct answer. It’s okay even for them to say, “I’m not really sure what’s going on.” But just to start the conversation and start it in a way that they feel like they can be honest with you about it. Because I think a lot of times students hesitate to tell their parents because they want to make their parents proud. I haven’t met a lot of students that screw up just on purpose. A lot of times there’s something else going on. And so I think it’s just getting to the bottom of that, asking them questions, asking them, “Do you enjoy math or is there a part of it that you don’t? Are there parts of it that maybe you do like, but it’s just this one thing that’s tripping you up or that you’re frustrated with or is causing that anxiety?” And really dive in and ask them and give them the space to be honest with you about it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:30.984
So that brings us around to the real purpose of this conversation today, which is the doodle part of the equation. And I think those of us who are parents who have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid kind of see the doodling as sort of an annoyance. So can you talk about why doodling might be present and what might be happening with a student? And I know we’ve talked about a couple of different scenarios. So I’m just going to let you lump all of those together and [crosstalk].

Alayna Humphrey: 00:12:02.678
Yeah. Absolutely. Wherever we want to go with it. So yeah, I definitely think there’s a couple of different reasons why students might doodle. And they’re kind of related but slightly different in many ways. One of those is if your student actually maybe has understood a subject or a concept really well and it comes really easy to them, sometimes the doodling happens because they’re bored, right? So they feel like they know it. “Why should I have to do like 20 more problems of the same thing to prove that I know it, I understand this. So I’m maybe trying to stay engaged on my work. I’m trying to pay attention to what’s being taught, but I get it. I got it 10 minutes ago. So I’m just going to kind of keep my hands busy to you know make it seem like I’m not distracted, and that I’m actually engaged.” The other reason is what I think is because sometimes students don’t know what’s going on, but they also have this sense that, “I need to be doing something and I need to show that I’m doing my work or make it seem like I’m doing my work.”

Alayna Humphrey: 00:13:17.022
And so there’s this kind of doodling to keep your hands busy, that doodling to, I mean, “I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m supposed to be doing my math work. I don’t understand this concept. I don’t understand this problem. But I know if my mom sees me standing up and walking away from the table, there’s going to be a conversation. So I think I’m just going to draw some pictures on a page.” And then a related thing that I think is maybe not a complete third reason, but related is that sometimes students just– maybe they do understand what they’re doing. They’re not you know bored necessarily. But the level of math that they’re having to do is so brain intensive and fatiguing that maybe they just solved a really hard problem and they need like two minutes to just come off of that and just give their brain a chance to process. And that doodling is a way to kind of lower that intensity, to kind of calm the brain down so that they can move on and focus on that next problem.

Gretchen Roe: 00:14:25.355
So it sounds to me like in all three instances that you’ve given us, the way that we figure out why the doodling is occurring – and I’m using “we” here as the parent – is to be an ardent observer of our student.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:14:43.541
Absolutely. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:14:45.553
It helped when you were doodling because for that second reason, “Okay. I got to look busy here and I’m not sure what’s going on.” Would it have helped if your mother had said, “Tell me about the doodling and why it’s happening,” or– I don’t want to put words in your mouth. How would it have helped for your mother to say, “It looks like you’re just trying to stay busy.”

Alayna Humphrey: 00:15:12.801
Right. Yeah. Because I will say, while I did doodle, it was usually when my mom wasn’t close by enough to realize that I was doing it, of course. But there wasn’t really a conversation about it because I’d eventually get to the point where I’d be like, “Okay, this has to get done.” But I think it would have helped because it would have given me a chance to take a step back and be like, “Oh, wait, why am I doodling?” Because I think sometimes as students, we do that, and we don’t even know why we’re doing it. It’s just a subconscious thing that just happens where, “Okay. I need to keep my hands busy, but this is my only option right now.” So I think it would have helped in that sense to say, “Okay. “Hey, I see this going on.” What’s what’s that about? Tell me why did you do this on this page or this particular lesson? Or even I’ve noticed this pattern that you’ve been doing this a lot more. What’s up with that? Are you just trying to be creative? What’s going on? And it’s a good opportunity for your student to be like, “Okay, yeah, I actually– I’m not sure what I’m doing here, and I could really use some guidance on how I should approach this.”

Alayna Humphrey: 00:16:26.590
And I think even that, even pointing out the doodling and asking your student and trying to dig into, “Okay, why is it that they’re doing it?” because a lot of times I think the perspective is just, “Oh, they must be unfocused. They don’t want to do math. They’re unfocused.” And maybe there’s a level of lack of focus there, but I don’t really think a lot of that is a purposeful lack of focus. I think it’s their brain subconsciously trying to communicate that, “Hey, there’s a lack here going on. There’s something that we need to address that I’m confused or I’m bored. And we need to kind of change directions and change our approach to this concept.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:17:06.906
And when you and I talked about this, I think it was really interesting because you had another reason for doodling as well.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:17:15.675
Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:17:16.749
And that was when you reached the geometry level to be able to sort of envision what was happening. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:17:26.343
Yeah. Absolutely.

Gretchen Roe: 00:17:27.739
Always being able to pull yourself into the process.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:17:31.647
Yeah. So I definitely think that– while pre-algebra and algebra kind of I started feeling that kind of struggle, it was really with geometry, which of course people generally say if you’re comfortable with algebra, you struggle with geometry. If you’re comfortable with geometry, you struggle with algebra. I don’t know why that is. I’m sure there’s lots of research into it. [laughter] But I was one of the students that really did struggle with geometry. Even though I was a very creative person, I had always struggled with just perspective and three-dimensional shapes and that sort of thing. So it was really hard for me to just transition to that subject and really visualize what was happening, especially with being in math. You see, that’s the first level where we don’t use our manipulatives anymore. It’s just all kind of on the page in front of you. So I really started noticing that I would doodle shapes and stuff. I would doodle the triangles and the circles and the things on the page that I was seeing.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:18:35.334
And I think it was– maybe I didn’t realize it at the time, but I really do think that it was a way for my brain to try and wrap around the symbols and the problems that I was seeing in my book because if you have a word problem that just tells you like, “I have a circle and X, Y, Z thing happens,” then you’re just like, “Okay, wait, what? What am I supposed to be doing here?” So it was a nice way for me to kind of just give myself a way to pause and really process and just draw something to represent what I was reading. And that was really helpful. And then that just kind of turned into me actually not just drawing to represent a problem, but just doodling for fun. And I really got into kind of repetitive doodling. And even as an adult, I still love as a relaxing activity to just sit and doodle shapes and repeat patterns and those kinds of things. And I think that shows that as adults, we do that. That’s a very common thing. It shows that a lot of times I think that’s what our students are trying to do too. They’re trying to calm their brains down in a lot of ways so they can actually focus on the math.

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:50.488
So that brings me to a question that a couple of parents ask, which is, “Is doodling a behavior I should discourage? Or do I correct my student when they doodle, what would be the most advantageous way for me to make that an affirmation not a punishment?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:20:12.848
Yeah. I mean, one of the big ways is just offering it as an option to your student to do, but not offering it as you must do this, right? I think anytime there’s an anxiety going on when we put really hard structure around it, when there’s already that fight or flight response, it can kind of push that fight a little more. So if your student isn’t the type that already doodles, I wouldn’t recommend that you really try and force them to do it as this kind of like, “Hail Mary, this is our last chance to get you to like math,” kind of a thing. But I think it’s a great thing to offer them the space to be able to do that and say, “Hey, would you like to try this out? Maybe it will help you? Would you enjoy doodling on the page? Could you maybe try drawing the problems in a way and representing them?” I think that’s a good way to kind of transition from the very abstract into that more concrete, is just giving them the opportunity to go from like, “Okay, here’s what’s on the page. How would you draw that in a picture?” Right? Especially if your student’s not like a crazy doodler, if they don’t consider themselves super artistic, it actually can be really helpful for them too, just to go, maybe they don’t have any ideas of, I don’t know what to draw.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:37.815
And I think that also brings us into that conversation that we had about the manipulatives are a form of doodle.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:21:46.944
Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:48.126
And we often have parents who say, oh, my kids don’t want to use the manipulatives, or the subtext there is, as a parent, I don’t understand how my children should use the manipulative so I don’t encourage their use. So can you talk about as a Math-U-See student, how were those manipulatives helpful to you?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:22:10.358
Well, I think it was just helpful because one, if you have a student that does get easily distracted if their hands aren’t busy, it gives them something to do with their hands. You’re physically building the math. But more than that, it’s that visual representation. So it’s connecting those kind of abstract concepts back to the concrete. And I think that’s as you move in the lower levels using the manipulatives to the abstract, there’s not really that kind of in-between. But we see that any of our users who use our AIM program know that fading is one of the techniques we use where we actually have the students draw the blocks. And so that’s like a drawing and using a pen or pencil or markers or whatever you want to use to draw either the blocks or a visual representation is a great way to transition, especially with the upper level math, your algebra, geometry, all that stuff. It’s a great way to get students to transition into those concepts and get them to kind of use their creativity in a different kind of part of their brain that they may not be using.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:23:22.569
I know that was super helpful because the blocks always felt like a release. It was like, okay, this is the fun part, right? I get to build something, I get to try things out. And I’m really, really blessed that I had a mom who really encouraged exploration with the manipulatives and really encouraged me not to just imitate what was being done, but if I was questioning something, she’d be like, “Well, try it out. See what happens when you do that. What’s the result? What do you get?” So really giving me that space and that time for exploration and to really connect that concrete thing to what I was seeing on the page.

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:04.975
Which leads me to– you said something that I thought was so valuable when we collaborated toward this event. Can you talk a little bit about how math was structured in your household as an exploration with the end goal of understanding?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:24:23.190
Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, I really just have my mom to thank for all of this because the way she really structured it is that we would have our kind of lesson day, which was we’re going to learn a new concept. And she would sit down with me. We’d watch the video together. But then as we were watching the video, she would have me practice some of the problems and that sort of thing, using the blocks like as we went along, whenever possible. But then after that, she would really take the time with me as we were going through that kind of first page of problems, and she’d do them together with me. She’d walk me through it. She’d make sure that I was understanding. And then once she felt that I was at a place where, “Okay, she’s starting to get it. She’s got this.” She’d be like, “Okay, I want you to pretend like I wasn’t just sitting with you for this entire thing and that I have no idea about this concept. How would you teach this to me if I were the student and you were the teacher?” So explain to me basically what you just learned. And I was given that opportunity to go from, okay, I’m going through the motions of solving, and now I have to take these concepts in my brain and go, oh, how would I explain this? Okay, do I understand this?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:25:41.809
And that was the moment that would always reveal any misconceptions that I had or any parts where it was like, okay, I don’t actually understand this. And she could tell as the wheels were turning in my head as I would try to explain it to her. And if I was really confident in something, it was really easy. It was like, okay, yeah, this is how you do this. And this is how I explain everything out. But then it was a great opportunity for her to be able to pinpoint where those trouble spots were because she would always have me do that. She’d be like, pretend I’m the teacher or pretend you’re the teacher. Teach it back to me. I know nothing about this concept. How would you do that?

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:23.369
And so in that adaptation of being able to synthesize what you learned, did it make it more relevant to you? Was it easier then to move on to the next concept, or?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:26:38.955
Yeah, I think it did. I think it kind of made it more real. That’s the best way I can say it. But it went from being where I’m just memorizing steps to where it’s ingraining an understanding. It makes it more real. And like I have an actual knowledge of what’s happening. It’s not just there’s some numbers moving around on the page. I understand the logic behind it. And in a way, too, I think it really was the start of me learning how to problem-solve, which is, I think, a huge skill, not just for math, but in any subject. But it was a way for us to identify, “Okay, what do I not understand? What questions do I have?” But then she’d do this thing where she’d say, “Okay, how can you find that out?” Instead of just giving me the answer, she’d be like, “Let’s see if we can figure this out together. Let’s look at the example and with this problem that you’re having and explaining this and see if we can work this out together.” And it was a great way of her teaching me how to problem-solve, how to use resources, how to not just go, okay, I don’t understand this and I don’t know, but how to go, okay, I don’t understand this and I don’t know but I’m going to figure it out.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:28:03.429
That was the important part. I’m going to figure out what the answer is. So that was a great way for math to really become not just where my mom was, “Okay, I’m teaching you math and this is it. And it’s black and white and here’s what it is.” But for her to go, “Let’s have a conversation about math. Let’s create a dynamic between us where we’re comfortable talking about this and you can be upfront with me about what you don’t know and what you don’t understand, and we’re going to figure it out together.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:28:30.315
I think that makes a tremendously valuable experience because it’s not just math that you’re learning in that process but you’re learning how to learn.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:28:42.047
Exactly. And that’s a huge part of being homeschooled, too. When you’re homeschooled, you don’t have necessarily your fellow peers and classmates as an example. It’s your parents who become your model. And so I feel so blessed for having parents that were willing to show me that and show me that like, “Hey, you’re not going to be able to solve every problem first try. You’re not going to have all the answers right away. But there’s ways that you can figure it out and find out and learn from it.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:29:15.837
I love that. You’re not going to be able to figure it out the first time every time. And being able to learn how to adapt and develop that stick intuitiveness is huge. Laynee, we talked about helping the artistic student translate their success to math. And I know that that is in a lot of ways a definition for you. You knit, you sing, you play music, you play musical instruments. I know you do art. I’ve seen some of your art. So help a parent frame how to make that happen for their student because you’re not that far from being the student.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:30:00.175
I’m not. No. No. It’s still close enough that I remember a lot of it. So that’s always a useful thing. But yeah, I think anytime I have a parent and the parents that I’ve talked to come to me and say, “I have a really creative student, an artistic student but they just struggle with math. They just don’t get it.” And my first response is always, “Well, I think it’s a good thing to kind of take a step back and take a look at why is it that your student likes art? Why is it that they are creative?” And I think one of the reasons is that at least the parents that I know very rarely put a lot of boundaries on art and creativity. Right? It’s a low-stress thing. It’s a low-stakes activity. When you present your student with an art project or whatever they’re working on, that’s creative, it’s usually a, “Here’s all your materials, have fun.” Right? It’s that kind of exploratory–

Gretchen Roe: 00:31:01.746
You don’t have to color in the lines.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:31:03.956
Right. You don’t have to color in the lines. It’s an exploratory process. It’s low stakes. There’s usually not a grade involved. It’s just a you did it or you didn’t kind of thing. And so of course students are going to enjoy that because that’s an enjoyable thing. It’s relaxing. But if someone came to me– when I was in school, my mom sat me down and said, “Okay, I have this painting for you and I want you to stare at it for a certain amount of time. And I want you to memorize it completely. And then I’m going to take the painting away. And then you have a certain amount of time to recreate that painting from memory exactly. And it has to be exact. And you can’t deviate in any way from the original painting. And you only have these set colors you can use and this set technique. And then I’m going to tell you how well you did based on how much it matches.” I would probably start crying. That would be terrifying.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:32:04.800
And yet, if we think about how we present math to students all the time, that is how it can feel to them sometimes. I’m presenting you with this breadth of information. It’s so much that they have to take in and learn. They’re trying to memorize it, trying to process it. And then we say, “Well, there’s this one way that you can do it, and that’s it. And if you get it wrong, then you get it wrong, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” That is going to cause anxiety. That causes anxiety. That’s a high-stress thing. So I think one of the first things you can do is take a step back and kind of look at it from that perspective and kind of say, “Is there a way that I can kind of reduce the stakes of my student’s math education and create a more exploratory process, giving them space to explore?” Now, of course, there are always going to be times when they’re just going to need to do their worksheets, they’re going to need to do the problems, but is there a way that you can fit in time and give them the space to explore art within math? Is there a way that you can combine it and kind of lower the stakes a little bit and make it a little less daunting for them where they don’t feel so stressed out? Because it could be that the reason that they love art and don’t like math is because art’s really relaxing and fun and math is really stressful, but it might just be the way that you’re setting up their math education and their time for studying math to be.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:33:35.788
Look for ways that you can kind of flex that a little bit. And of course, we always say here trust parents. So as a parent, you know your kid, so you’re going to know, obviously, there may be some parameters that you want to set around that. But if you can just find little things like, “Okay, maybe I’m not going to write their grade on the top of their page, and instead we’re going to just see what they got wrong and see if they understand why.” And then I as a parent know what their grade is or how much they missed, but maybe I’m not showing that directly to them. But also, I would say one big thing I noticed is that there’s this tendency, and I don’t know if parents always notice when they do it, but once you realize that your student is really good at creative things, at art, at all this different stuff, and they struggle with math, it’s very easy to label them as an artsy kid, as a creative kid, and then say, “Oh, they’re not a math kid. They just don’t like math.” And I encourage parents to be very careful of the language they use around their kids. Are you actively in front of your students saying, “Oh, they’re just super creative, they’re not a math kid”? If my parent is in front of me and saying I’m not a math kid, that’s ingraining that into my brain, that this is going to be a challenge, even if it isn’t going to be.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:34:55.452
So I just encourage you to really look into more kind of growth mindset and the idea that no one is born just already excellent at math. No one is born a mathematician. It has to be learned and it’s a process. And to approach it like that with your student and saying, “Hey, maybe you don’t understand this now, but we’re going to explore this together and we’re going to figure out what works for you so that you can understand it.” And there’s that opportunity for growth.

Gretchen Roe: 00:35:26.091
Kimberly has made a great comment here. She says, “My son draws history and geography to learn it.” So I think doodling math could really cement the learning. And I think that was– that kept coming up in our conversation when we talked about preparation for this is how can you use this instead of a negative, “Stop doodling, get to the math,” but use it as an on-ramp to getting to the math and its understanding. And I think that makes a tremendous amount of difference. You said something really important. So I want to circle back around to that

Alayna Humphrey: 00:36:01.505
yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:36:02.168
And that is, as parents, we’re framing expectations for our students, and then we expect them to live up to them. And it might be something that we’re saying inadvertently that then they attach themselves to. And the day that we talked about this, one of the things that we talked about is when you are ready to do math independently. So I wonder if you could– because I know that you have this conversation as a curriculum specialist all the time. So let’s pull that out a little bit and talk about what should a parent be looking for in their student that says they’re ready to do math independently?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:36:52.761
I think one of the huge things that I think you should look for is the ability to identify mistakes and correct them. And not just the ability, but the desire to. That was a huge part of me being able to move from where my mom was my main instructor to I was doing it more on my own, which kind of it was a slow, gradual process. And I think that’s important, too, is to make sure that you’re ingraining your student with these things well before you want them to kind of take on more independence. But I think look for those problem-solving skills. Are they giving up right away on everything and just saying, “I don’t know it. Throw my hands up. I have no idea what to do or what’s going on.” Are they saying, “Hmm, I don’t think I did that right? Let me try again. Let me see if I can reattempt. Let me fix this. Let me go back.” Oh, are you just handing them back their worksheet and they see what they got wrong and then they toss it in a drawer somewhere? Or are they looking at it and going, “Huh, what did I do wrong here? Why did I get this wrong?” Are you offering them the solution manual and saying, “Hey, look at this and see if you can identify where you made your mistake,” and that sort of thing.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:38:15.611
And if they’re willing to do that, I think that’s– willing and able to do that. I think that’s a really– a good indicator because that was really the process for me. It was when my mom could trust me that I wouldn’t just go through the motions of doing the math, but I would really take the time to go, “Okay, I don’t know what’s going on. Let me see if I can figure it out.” And whether that meant going to the instructor manual, looking at a solution, looking at more examples, trying a problem over and over again, or even going to my mom and saying, “Hey, I’m at a loss here. I don’t know what’s happening.” It was the ability to admit when I didn’t understand something because then she could trust that I wasn’t just going to fly through and continue to practice problems incorrectly because I think that’s a big thing for students is that once they start practicing a problem incorrectly, if they continue to do that over and over again, that is what’s going to get ingrained instead of the correct way of doing it. So you need to make sure your student is able to identify when they don’t understand something and is willing to admit that and tell you and come to you and be like, “Hey, I need help with this,” before that incorrect way gets ingrained.

Gretchen Roe: 00:39:30.360
So that brings to mind a question. And we talked about this in our planning session about mathematics being a language that has to be developed. How old were you when you were able to do that? Or maybe I should maybe more accurately say at what level in Math-U-See were you able to do that?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:39:55.183
So for me, of course, the process really started before this happened. But when I was officially able to kind of take charge and do things on my own was Algebra 1 for me, which like I said, was around 13, 14 years old for me. But I really lucked out. And I think I saw someone in chat mention, “How do you foster that?” But for me, it was my mom, up until that point, all through elementary and middle school and my math education, was modeling that for me. She was modeling the way to do that. And even if she knew the answer to one of my questions, a lot of times she would alongside me go, “Well, what do you think? Can you figure it out? Can you look at the instruction and the example and see? Can we find a video online or use a different resource and see if we can find the answer?” She wouldn’t just spoon-feed things to me. She really instilled in me that idea of researching and using your resources and knowing what those resources are. And I think that was a huge part of it because I had that as a model for me.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:41:13.950
And I know a lot of times I’ve heard parents say, “Well, even if I do that, my student’s not going to do it themselves.” But I really think it may not be instant. It’s not an overnight thing. This was really years of my mom really ingraining it in me and encouraging it in me. And I think that’s a big thing. It’s not just saying, “Hey, do this.” But treating it as a kind of an opportunity. It’s not just, “Oh, gosh, we don’t understand something. Let’s look it up.” It’s, “Oh, we get to look this up. This is an exciting thing.” It was an encouragement to do that, not just say, “Oh, well, I can’t figure this out. Let’s just, I guess, look it up.” It wasn’t like that. It was really a positive experience. It was this idea of growth and learning. And learning isn’t just memorizing the information and being able to regurgitate it and repeat it on a worksheet. It’s being able to say, “I don’t know. I don’t understand.” And, “Hey, I get to look it up, and I get to try again, and I get to learn from that process.” And so that was really good.

Gretchen Roe: 00:42:25.830
I know that you and I have talked in the past when we’ve had the opportunity to be together about anxiety and how anxiety can manifest itself in a variety of ways. And we have a terrific question here is, how do we foster the thinking for the ability for them to learn independently when anxiety and perfectionism are present? And I know you and I have also had a conversation about perfectionism. And it’s a good German girl, the only child ever sworn a tiny adult. So you will do it my way. Can we talk a little bit about how we help kids uncork perfectionism and make it less of an issue by celebrating their mistakes?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:43:16.930
Yes, absolutely. This is a huge thing for me. And even it took after even going through college and graduating, having my mom come back to me and be like, “Man, I really wish I had known more about growth mindset and that sort of thing because I wish I could have done more,” because she knows how much of a perfectionist I am and how frustrated I get when I didn’t understand something and when I would get problems wrong. But I think one of the best ways to kind of approach that, and I kind of talked about this earlier, is just what are the stakes of it? Being really open and honest with your student about what does success look like, right? And I think as parents, it’s easy to come up with your idea of what success looks like, and maybe your student’s idea of success is something completely different. I think it’s important to talk to them, communicate with them, ask them questions, figure out what does success for both of you look like, especially in math. Is it getting every problem right on every worksheet? And if it’s not, that right there can alleviate a lot of stress for your student and that perfectionist tendency and a lot of that anxiety. If they know that you’re not going to get mad or frustrated at them when they’re making those mistakes and that it’s okay, that right there can do a lot.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:44:39.161
But I think an even better thing is that when they do make mistakes, instead of just throwing their worksheet in a bin or in their portfolio or wherever you’re putting it, giving it back to them, but sitting down with them and saying, hey, can we, you got a few problems wrong here. That’s okay, that’s great. This is an opportunity for us to see where you need to review, where you need to practice a little more, where we can kind of uncover the issues that are going on. And I really encourage parents to do that, to really sit down and don’t approach it as a, well, you got these wrongs and we need to figure this out. It should be a celebratory thing. It’s an opportunity to learn. It’s an opportunity for growth and sit there with them and say, hey, can you work through this one more time? Can we look at the solution and can you identify where maybe you made a mistake? Because sometimes it’s just a really basic computational error. They understand the concept. They just made a small mistake. And so it’s really important for them to learn what kinds of mistakes are common for them to make, what things are they doing over and over again so they can be aware of it.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:45:55.913
I really like the analogy of thinking that we always want our students to be these great mathematicians, right? But no mathematician, no great mathematician in history ever became a great mathematician by just solving worksheets over and over again and getting all the problems right. The way you become a great mathematician is sometimes you have to do the same problem 500 times and do it wrong 500 times before you can figure out what the issue is, what’s going wrong, why it isn’t working. And I think it’s that perseverance and that ability to identify those errors that’s really important. And that right there, like I said, is a great way to relieve the anxiety, but also transition them into more independence, because it’s going to give them confidence. And I think that’s a big part of it, is giving them that confidence to say, I can make a mistake and I know how to fix it. I know how to move forward and do better and grow. And that I think is a big way to help the anxiety, but just creating that safe space for them that they can explore, that they don’t have to get every problem right every time, that there’s–

Gretchen Roe: 00:47:10.097
Lisa said last week, our colleague, Lisa Chimento, she was talking about this and she said, as parents, sometimes we often look and say, okay, 80% is good. That’s an adequate performance. But she said the challenge is that 20%, what they got wrong, if that’s consistently the same thing, it’s up to us to go in and examine what is wrong because if they have a misapprehension and understanding or they have created a mechanics, like you said, done the wrong process and ingrained that process. If we don’t fix that along the way, then it just becomes more anxiety-provoking down the road.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:48:00.824
Right. Exactly. And because and that’s the thing. The more your student doesn’t understand, the more things that they keep messing up, the more anxiety that it’s going to cause. And it’s going to end up building on itself. So if you early on– and if your student’s older and you don’t have that early on kind of thing, there’s no time like the present to start it. That’s what I always say. But as soon as you can, creating that dynamic of when you make a mistake, we’re going to correct it in the moment as much as we can, or we’re going to go back at our work and try it again and see how it is. And I mean, that’s one of the things. Especially as someone who has a degree in English, I know that when it comes to writing, when we’re teaching students how to write, there’s this kind of focus on the rough draft, right? It’s their sloppy copy. Don’t worry about the structure of it too much. Just get the first thing out there. Get the first draft out. And we give them that opportunity in other subjects. But we don’t really give our students those opportunities in math as much.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:49:10.133
It’s kind of looked at a lot of times as this, you just solve a problem and you move on to the next one, instead of encouraging students to develop this understanding of, “Oh, that didn’t feel right, right? Something’s not right here. I’m looking at my answer, and I’m looking at the problem. And I don’t think that makes sense.” But I think if you can get to that point where you’re communicating to your student like, “Hey, it’s okay if you solve a problem to go back and double-check it, to try again. That can just be your rough draft, right?” If we think of it from that kind of writing perspective– that’s your rough draft. That’s your first attempt, but it doesn’t mean that has to be your only attempt. If it doesn’t feel right, if you think it’s wrong, you can try again.

Gretchen Roe: 00:49:59.235
I think this is a great question as well. It says, what age and level do you recommend we start teaching them to double-check their work? Is there a time and place we should or shouldn’t double-check? Or is that just part of the routine to have them double-check their work? Especially as we prep them for tests in college, will we need to do that? What was your experience there?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:50:25.608
Yeah. I mean, I think double-checking my work when I was really young wasn’t a common thing, but it was something that my mom would do. And I would get to watch her do it, right? Like I said, she would model that for me, and she would bring the things that she was finding in my work to my attention, right? So we’d sit down–

Gretchen Roe: 00:50:50.959
I’m going to stop you there. I’m going to ask a question. How often? Was that at the end of the week or the end of the day?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:50:58.681
That was at the end of the day. It was as soon as she had graded a worksheet, she would come to me with those problems, especially if she saw a pattern, right? If there was a pattern of things going on, it wasn’t just a random error that I had made, even though there are things you can learn from that. But if there was a pattern going on, she’d bring those things to me, and she’d want me to teach back whatever that thing was, right? And so we’d go back to the drawing board, and she would confirm that understanding like, “Do you actually know this? Okay, I want to watch you rework this problem.” And she’d really dig into it. Now, I’d say it was probably around, I’d want to say, Epsilon, Zeta, pre-algebra in there where it kind of transitioned into me being able– she would encourage me to check my own work. Obviously, she would grade it, but then she’d give it to me, and we’d kind of sit down. And with her kind of over my shoulder watching, she’d have me look at the solutions manual, and I’d look at the answer, and I’d compare. And I’d see. Okay, where did I make the mistake? And then once I identified that, she’d take that away, and she’d be like, “Can you rework it for me now that you’ve seen it? Try it again,” that sort of thing.

Gretchen Roe: 00:52:10.457
And so I know you’re the youngest of three.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:52:14.962
I am, yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:52:15.914
Did she adapt that style to each of you, or was that her style for all of you?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:52:24.600
I think parts of that was for all of us. But I think she really identified in me that I was willing and able to do it. I kind of was a problem solver. And I think she identified the perfectionism in me. And she wanted to use that as a positive and not as a negative. And it was a very good way to do that. Whereas with my older siblings, my brother and my sister, for them a lot of times, it was kind of just like, “Whatever. We’re not planning on going into anything super math-related.” So I think a part of it was her knowing the three of us really well and understanding what our goals were, what success in math looked like for each of us. And it looked very, very different. There was still a chance at that point that I was going to go into a math field. And so she really wanted to make sure that I did have a solid understanding, whereas my siblings were like, “Oh, no way that’s going to happen.” So there was a little more leniency, but she still– I mean, she would definitely come to them with things that she was concerned with and would present those to them. I think with me, the difference was, is that we transitioned into me developing that on my own. It became an independent thing that I would do. Whereas with them, she was more bringing those things to them throughout their math journey.

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:48.363
Okay. So we’ve come to the top of the hour. I can’t believe our conversation has come to an end.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:53:55.268
I know.

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:56.356
You’ve had some amazing insights. We have to do this again.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:54:00.731
I know. I’d love to.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:01.467
We’re going to do an English. We’re going to have a conversation about creative writing sometimes.

Alayna Humphrey: 00:54:08.404
Yes. Absolutely. I’d love that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:10.018
You and I are going to– we’re going to get into that. I’d much rather talk about creative writing than math. What I want to say to the parents who have joined us today is thank you for trusting us with your time. Thank you for trusting us to be able to share some insights with you. I hope you have found this valuable. If you’ve heard anything that Laynee has said today, it’s that every child is an individual and we as parents need to be ardent observers of those children. Laynee, I’m going to leave the closing words to you. What would you like to tell our parents before we conclude today?

Alayna Humphrey: 00:54:45.852
Well, you might have just summed it up perfectly there. But yeah, just reiterating that is students, while they maybe seem like their brains are completely different, they are human beings. And I would just like to remind parents that if there’s anything that stresses you out, that gives you anxiety, there’s a good chance that it’s going to do that for your student as well. But it’s a great opportunity for you to start a conversation. You might think that your student’s not paying attention, but really if you ask them, they’re going to have a reason for why they’re doing what they’re doing. And it’s a great opportunity not just to learn about their learning experience, but just to learn about your kid and to identify those individual traits and quirks of your student. And it’s a great way to help them, not just in math, but to help them throughout their education journey. So I would just encourage you, ask your students questions, and give them the opportunity to explore as much as possible.

Gretchen Roe: 00:55:47.264
Great. Thanks so much for this time, Laynee. It’s been amazing. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. Thanks for joining us. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show or go on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, follow, or subscribe wherever you may be hearing this, especially if you really enjoyed it.

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