Episode 504: Mathematics Storytelling: Connecting Math to Students' Lives

Unlock understanding in mathematics with the power of storytelling! Join us in conversation with Jabal Moss of the Richmond County School System to learn how.

TRANSCRIPT

Ashley Mengwasser: Educators, hello. Welcome to Classroom Conversations season five. I'm your host, Ashley Mengwasser. Our Enjoyable Teacher Talk podcast series is a joint production of the Georgia DOE and GPB, Georgia Public Broadcasting. I have a story for you. It's a math story. Once upon a time, a man on a mission to teach found his way to a school in a city where golf is the hot ticket event of the year. The time was only about four years ago. The school is Richmond Hill, K8 school. The city? You guessed it, Augusta. The man, though. Our lead character is an expert, constantly solving for X, he has his limits as all math educators must. He divides effortlessly while also multiplying mathematics proficiency in his classroom. He is eighth grade math teacher, Jabal Moss. Let me tell you about Moss Math. Mr. Moss practices a successful technique in his classroom and it's grounded in standards based tools. Jabal uses storytelling to teach mathematics. This is unexpected and makes this English major's heart swoon. Think about the benefits to this. Storytelling aids recall and relevance. Students can recall mathematics concepts by tying them to something relatable. You'll hear soon exactly how this works. Without adding to your wait, allow me to introduce an adoptive father, self-proclaimed mama's boy, top tier mac and cheese maker math teacher, Jabal Moss. Hey, Jabal.

Jabal Moss: Thank you so much for that warm introduction. Thank you so much.

Ashley Mengwasser: You are welcome. Sir, did I capture you accurately, your essence?

Jabal Moss: I think you did. I don't think I could do it better.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm glad to hear it, sir. Let's talk math for a second. What math courses do you teach, Jabal?

Jabal Moss: Currently I teach math eight. I have three sections of math eight and one section of our new enhanced algebra concepts and connections course, which aligns with our new math standards here in Georgia.

Ashley Mengwasser: And we're going to talk about those. Did you mean to become a math teacher or did you just fall into a math textbook or however it happened?

Jabal Moss: Oh wow. So I think I have told this story so many times about how I went to college as a middle grades education major, but I went as an English and history concentration. However, I grew a love for math my first year in college because students started asking me in my algebra class, "Can you tutor me? You seem to be getting all the questions right." And I was like, "I don't know if I'll be the best tutor, but I'll try." And so I ended up switching my concentration to history and math. And then I decided to go a different route my junior year of college. I ended up dropping education altogether and I became just a history major. And my senior year, my advisor at the time said, "I really think that you would have a really great career in higher education student affairs." He said, "You should probably apply to grad school to work at the college level." And I did. I ended up going to Georgia Southern, getting a master's in higher education with the concentration of student affairs leadership. And I did higher ed for six years from 2015 to... 2013, excuse me, to 2020, roughly six years rather, because they don't really count our GA assistantship as two years.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's rude.

Jabal Moss: Yeah, they tell us to only count it as one. And then I just got an amazing opportunity from my high school math teacher named to Takiwi Milton. She was the coordinator for mathematics in Richmond County School System at the time. She reached out to me and she said, "Hey, have you thought about becoming a teacher for K12?" I said, "That was my original plan." And she said, I think we have an amazing opportunity for you here in Augusta for you to come home and impact our community. Dr. Cordero Middleton is a new principal, he's a young principal and he really wants to build a pipeline of male educators and I think you would fit perfectly into his vision." She said, "Give me 20 minutes, let me give him a call and shoot him your name and let's see where it goes." He emailed me about an hour later asking me to for an interview. That was that Friday, April 20th. I interviewed with him at 12:55. At one 30 he had emailed me back saying I got the job.

Ashley Mengwasser: Are you a detective? Look at these details. I love the storytelling. You're definitely telling stories of math. So you got the job really quickly.

Jabal Moss: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: You were a shoe in.

Jabal Moss: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Now were you born and raised in Augusta?

Jabal Moss: Yes, I am an Augusta native.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, tell me some history.

Jabal Moss: Augusta is home to the Masters, which is an annual event that kicks off our springtime in Augusta. It brings in so much money to our economy and it helps us stabilize our economy for the year. In addition to that, we're home to Hulk Hogan.

Ashley Mengwasser: Hulk Hogan?

Jabal Moss: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: I did not know that one.

Jabal Moss: Hulk Hogan was born in Augusta, Georgia. As well as we have the Woodrow Wilson Museum because his childhood home, he spent his childhood in Augusta. You all know we are definitely home to James Brown. We can never go anywhere and not talk about the godfather of Soul.

Ashley Mengwasser: James Brown. That statue is marvelous in downtown August.

Jabal Moss: Yes, and it was made in his image with his exact height in mind and everything. So when people come they're like, "Why is it so short?" It's actually his exact height.

Ashley Mengwasser: He was a shorter man. People don't know.

Jabal Moss: So, it's amazing to hear that and I love telling the story about us having the Augusta Canal there, which is a manmade canal that helped us propel into the industrial revolution. I love all of that about Augusta and we were the only city not burned down during the Civil War. Come take a look at our historic nature.

Ashley Mengwasser: Only city not burned down. There's definitely something magical about Augusta. I need to go visit with some new eyes.

Jabal Moss: Come on.

Ashley Mengwasser: When you're not in the classroom, Jabal, whatever do you do? What's life outside school hours?

Jabal Moss: Life outside. I am a self-proclaimed mom's boy. I wouldn't say I'm self-proclaimed. My siblings would probably say they say-

Ashley Mengwasser: They all proclaim it too.

Jabal Moss: Yes. They would be like, "He's mom's favorite. Nobody can do anything to him because he's mom's favorite." But I spend a lot of time with my family. We have monthly get togethers. There's nine of us and I'm the ninth child and they would always call me, since I was a little, mama's favorite because mom would not let anything happen to me. Just got blessed in that arena. I also have a 14-year-old that I have had with me for the last three years. Joy to have. Definitely going through teenage stuff, I'm like, "I don't get it."

Ashley Mengwasser: It's rough out there.

Jabal Moss: Yeah, he only talks when he wants something. Other than that, I don't exist.

Ashley Mengwasser: I love when you call him the 14-year-old.

Jabal Moss: The 14-year-old, the 14-year-old.

Ashley Mengwasser: That says everything.

Jabal Moss: I used to say the kid, but now since he's 14 and becoming a teenager or is a teenager and becoming himself, I have to just refer to him as the 14-year-old.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. Okay. That's a busy schedule. You want to move into our math conversation? I know, I certainly do.

Jabal Moss: Sure. I'm always excited.

Ashley Mengwasser: First thing I want you to know, Jabal is I'm a good tipper, but I want to know how should we be using math every day in our everyday lives?

Jabal Moss: Math is used every day.

Ashley Mengwasser: Good point. We don't always know, right?

Jabal Moss: We don't always know. When you're thinking about whether or not you should make that turn when a car is coming, that's math because you're talking about seconds, you're talking about distance. How far is that car away from me for me to make this turn? When we're talking about going to the grocery store and we're on a budget, we know that we have this much money in our account. How much can I spend to make me stay within my budget for the week? Math is everyday life and Dr. Snell always says that math is the language of the universe. It truly is. Now that I'm a math teacher and I'm teaching math and I'm answering the question from students, "When am I ever going to use this in life?" And I have to give them real life scenarios to help them see it from a different perspective.

Ashley Mengwasser: I love when Dr. Snell from DOE says that it is the language of the universe. It's the language we use, like you said, when you're driving, when you're cooking, when you're gardening, it's all around us. Do you have a favorite number?

Jabal Moss: My favorite number would be three.

Ashley Mengwasser: I wonder why?

Jabal Moss: I put everything in threes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Really?

Jabal Moss: Ever since I was little, I always put things in threes and if it wasn't in a three, it bothered me, so I had to go find something to make it balance out.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's so divine of you. Do you have a least favorite number?

Jabal Moss: It's just so odd, 11. Like, "Where did it come from?"

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, I love 11. I was going to say that's one of my lucky ones. It's a lucky one. It's a lucky one and it mirrors repeating ones. It's pretty to look at.

Jabal Moss: But it's just so awkward.

Ashley Mengwasser: I suppose you like threes and it's not divisible by three. You want it to be a 12.

Jabal Moss: Has to be a 12. That might be exactly right. I never looked at it that way. I just know I didn't like it.

Ashley Mengwasser: I know. Thanks for sharing all that, Jabal. What do you feel is going well with the new Georgia's K12 mathematics standards?

Jabal Moss: When I talk to teachers across my district, I think the best thing that's happening with our standards and our learning plans, which I'm a user of the learning plans, is the fact that we become facilitators of knowledge instead of the antiquated standing at the board modeling procedure. We grew up in a time where math teachers stood at the board, you wrote down everything they said, and you'd be quiet.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's right.

Jabal Moss: And you better have those notes in order exactly how they told you to do, or it was wrong. It's based on a standard based approach of engage, explore, apply, and reflect and then bring that evidence of student success in the formative assessment and the summative assessments that we're able to give our students every day. And so when I look at our learning plans and it puts the students in control of their education, that's a powerful move because they are so used to people giving them the information and not tapping into their bank of knowledge that they already have to pull the new information and connect it to something that they already know.

Ashley Mengwasser: Giving them space to solve the problems. You're making them autonomous agents.

Jabal Moss: Exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser: That is so cool. And I think this is why the storytelling thing works. So let's get into that a bit. Storytelling creates an opportunity for students to make meaning out of math through making connections. Tell us how you connect storytelling with the new K through 12 math standards.

Jabal Moss: All right, so when I think about storytelling, I remember when I first started teaching, and I say this because I was hired to teach social studies and my principal two weeks before the start of school year said, "Hey Mr. Moss, I'm moving you to math." And I was looking at him like, "Me, of all people?" "Last one hired, you go where I need you." "Okay, I'll go wherever you tell me to go, long as you provide me some supports." And so I remember just studying about mathematics in Edutopia that I read a lot, I get information from, and they had released a story about storytelling in mathematics and they said storytelling in mathematics really allows students to grasp concepts. And I said, "How does it work?" So I continued to read the article and it was like, "Take your students' personal stories that they talk to you about and create mathematics with them."

And I said, "Okay, this is interesting." And of course at the time I taught sixth grade and one of the powerful things about teaching sixth grade is that they are still elementary age, but they still are trying to become those teenagers. And you can still mold them, but they still want you to love on them and hug on them and all of that. And so that year my students would just come talk to me, they would hug and be like, "Mr. Moss, can we talk to you?" And I'm like, "We got a lot of math to do. I don't have time to talk. We have a lot to do before the Georgia milestones." "No, I need you for about five minutes. Mr. Moss, please just talk to me." And they would just tell me things and I would take what they told me and use it into our daily standards of talking about division, long division, or how does proportional relationship work?

Ashley Mengwasser: Wow. So what are some of the advantages of telling stories? It feels like your students already have a great relationship with you, so they're open to telling you about their lives and their interests. Does it benefit them to be able to talk about their lives a little bit more centrally with math?

Jabal Moss: I think it does because, again, as I stated earlier, when our kids are asking, "When am I going to use this? I don't understand this. This doesn't make sense." And then you're able to take what they tell you and give it to them in real life. For example, earlier this year we were talking about slope and slope is a transitional standard because it's moved from eighth grade to seventh grade.

Ashley Mengwasser: Really?

Jabal Moss: Yes, ma'am. But they didn't get it last year, so I needed to make sure we taught it to our eighth graders this year. And Jeremiah is one of my homeroom first period students. And every day Jeremiah has a story for Mr. Moss every morning. He will not walk in the class unless he's able to tell me something. So he plays for AAU basketball and he could not understand slope and he was just like, "Mr. Moss, this just doesn't make sense. You talking about Y1, Y2, I don't know what any of that means." So I took his story of playing basketball. I said, "Remember the other day you told me that you were at the free throw line and you could not get your free throws in?" I said, "Let's talk about that."

Ashley Mengwasser: It's a slope problem.

Jabal Moss: I said, "We can take you standing at the free throw line as one point on a coordinate plane and the goal is another point on a coordinate plane. We can develop those ordered pairs from that. We can take it and do Y2 minus Y1 divided by X2 minus X1 and you can find the slope and that will possibly even get you to get the free throw in." He said, "Huh, how does that work?" So we ended up going getting some graph paper and drawing it out and connecting it to his situation. He took off with being able to do slope after that conversation.

Ashley Mengwasser: It was grounded in his reality.

Jabal Moss: Exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser: Gosh, I bet that was a major aha moment for your students. Nothing but net, as he would say.

Jabal Moss: Nothing but net, yes. He said, "I was on fire last night, Mr. Moss." As he would say, "I was on fire."

Ashley Mengwasser: He was thinking about his slope. Can storytelling like that teach something more complex? Have you seen it been able to do that?

Jabal Moss: Yes. So right now my students and I are wrapping up systems of equations. And system of equations is just two or more equations where you have to find a solution. There's three different ways or three different main strategies that we use in mathematics to talk about systems of equations. We talk about them through graphing. We talk about them through substitution and we talk about it through elimination. Right? And students are introduced to elimination in eighth grade. They know substitution because we're substituting back into the problem to make sure that the variable is correct and making sure the equation is balanced. And so I told them a story about AirPods and cell phones the other day that was connected to the learning plan. And I said, "Mr. Moss has to go buy new cell phones, right?" As a matter of fact, this was yesterday. Everybody was in an uproar about AT&T network being down. And I told them yesterday, I said, "It looks like Mr. Moss needs to go get a new phone and a new phone carrier because AT&T is down." I said, "So I currently have five people on my phone plan." I said, "I need to buy five iPhones and three AirPods, which is going to be a total of... "

Ashley Mengwasser: One million dollars.

Jabal Moss: It will feel like that. $1,300 was the advertisement I came up with or something like that. And I said, "In addition to that, I currently have five cell phones and four AirPods and it cost me $1,100. In that scenario, in that story of me telling you this, can you create two equations that will create a system of equation?" And so their brains were like, "What does this mean? What does this mean? How are we going to do this? What are we going to do?" And I said, "Think back to what we talked about in unit two. What's one of the main ways that we can write equations?" And they started talking slope intercept, point slope, standard form." I said, "Ding, ding. How do we write standard form?" And they were like, "AX plus BY equals C." I said, "Okay, now I'm going to write what I just told you on the board from my perspective of telling a story and you're going to have to write that system of equation based on that information." They were able to do that.

Ashley Mengwasser: They could identify what the variables were.

Jabal Moss: X and Y, the number of cell phones. X is the number of cell phones. Y being the number of AirPods.

Ashley Mengwasser: Look at that. So it can work.

Jabal Moss: It can.

Ashley Mengwasser: Storytelling can teach complex mathematical concepts. I'm wondering about the value of this in addressing common challenges or misconceptions that students have about math. Can you use storytelling to address that? Maybe their hangups around math or?

Jabal Moss: Yeah. One of the things that we do at my school that I really love is that we take the first 30 minutes to do intervention block. And so that intervention block is to close that what we call learning loss since COVID and only just because of COVID, but to really identify ways for us to educate our students with things they may have missed from those lower grades. And one of the things that my students have struggled with in their misconceptions is the moving from the arithmetic to algebra. So in elementary school it's, "Blank plus seven equals 12." How do we transition that to x plus seven equals 12? You've been doing this your whole life, you just didn't know-

Ashley Mengwasser: They're relatable.

Jabal Moss: ... that they're relatable. And so telling a story to them to really get them to understand how these two connect really has changed the perspective of a lot of my students. I had a student at the beginning of the year who did not know that multiplication was repeated addition until I told him a story in the intervention group. And I just remember telling him about how if you continue to add to your bank account because money always gets them, when you talk about money, they're all in.

Ashley Mengwasser: Of course they're listening.

Jabal Moss: And I told him, I said, "You want to be an entrepreneur, you have an entrepreneurial spirit." I said, "So you're going to have to have a business account when you become an adult to funnel your funds for your entrepreneurship that you're going to be taking part of." I said, "Because I already see it in you, you're already now selling Takis and things outside of your book bag every morning and in the afternoon. So you have an entrepreneurial spirit. Your bank account, you're going to have to keep adding to it. And if you're adding the same amount every day based on selling your Takis, for example, you can use that addition to just multiply. If you're saying you're selling 10 bags of Takis at a dollar a piece, take that and multiply it." And he wrote it out. He said, "So nobody ever told me that multiplication was just repeated addition?" I said, "They probably told you. You probably just didn't care at the moment because it wasn't something you was interested in."

Ashley Mengwasser: It didn't click because it wasn't presented to you with a storytelling lens that made sense in your world.

Jabal Moss: Exactly. So was stunned the whole day. He was just like, "Mr. Moss, you're really the best math teacher I've ever had." I said, "No, you've had some really great math teachers. I think they just didn't present it in a way where you felt connected to the math."

Ashley Mengwasser: Or and you made him feel the best about math, which is really the goal because making this accessible to your students. Let's go then to the moral of the story when incorporating storytelling in math lessons, it's all about the learning success, that is the objective. How do you gauge success with this method? Is there a way to measure it?

Jabal Moss: I think we measure mathematics the same way we could measure any other subject. And so the biggest part of me is always looking at those formative assessments, both informal. When I'm walking around my classroom after I have given a story based on my mini lesson because how I break up my class is after they do the engage in the explore, if I walk around the classroom and I see that they're really struggling with the explore portion of our lesson from our learning plan, my mini lesson is to automatically give them a short story about how to connect it. And when I'm walking around and I can see them, then begin to have those discussions. "Well, okay, Mr. Moss just said this. How do we connect it to what's here on the paper?" And they get very excited about it. I remember about three weeks ago, my AP, Mr. Hoffman came into my room just to check in. And my students were literally arguing about how to graph the system of equation based on me just telling them a story. And they were on the Desmos calculator like, "Bro, you did not put this in right. That is not how it goes." And my AP looked at me and he said, "I just can't believe you have students in here actually arguing about math."

Ashley Mengwasser: This is a high level of engagement.

Jabal Moss: He was like, "I've never seen this before." I said, "I just told them a story about how they need to work well with one another in mathematics to overcome their struggles." I said, "They took that as 'Mr. Moss is telling us that if we don't know how to do collaborative groups by now, he's going to yell at us tomorrow.'" But they took that and ran with it in a way that was phenomenal. My AP was like, "This is really good. We need to be talking about this and what you're doing to get them really engaged with mathematics." And so when we're gauging success, I look at it as are they having conversations about math based on the conversation that Dr. Snell says that math is the language of the universe? They know every time that I ask them a question about mathematics, they have to give me a claim, they have to justify, they have to explain.

I had a student in my enhanced algebra class one day, she raised her hand to answer one of the questions and then she says, "You know, I'm going to put my hand down because I know Mr. Moss is going to make me justify my answer, and I just don't have a claim right now." I'm looking for them to be able to explain. If I give you a story in class that goes with the concept that we're talking about, my goal is for you to be able to take that story and turn it into a conversation about what's being presented to you at your desk. And if you can justify it and explain your reasoning, then I think we've hit the mark.

Ashley Mengwasser: The enthusiasm that you have cultivated for this is so contagious. I just want to jar it and there are some teachers who will want to start doing this. So if we have educators out there who are looking for ways to start telling stories in their mathematics instruction, how would you advise them to get started? Where can they call these wonderful stories and tidbits from their students?

Jabal Moss: The number one thing that I tell every teacher when whether they're first year teacher or veteran 30-year teacher, build those relationships with your students. Most of the stories that I develop in my class are based on me just listening to them talk and when they feel like their teacher takes a valued interest in them and uses them in ways throughout the classroom, they get really excited.

Ashley Mengwasser: I bet they're proud. It's a piece of their life.

Jabal Moss: And I always tell teachers when you use them examples, they're embarrassed at first, but then they're like, "That was really cool. Yeah, use me."

Ashley Mengwasser: That does relate.

Jabal Moss: Yeah. Build those relationships with your students. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I've made a lot of them in four years of teaching. I'm not perfect. Be your authentic self. Tell your students when you make a mistake and own it because they're human, they want to see you be human as well and have fun teaching math.

Ashley Mengwasser: Have fun teaching math.

Jabal Moss: Have fun teaching math. Math you can make mistakes and mistakes means learning is happening.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Moss. The beauty of this is that you're making mathematics interpretive, which gives a lot of room for creativity and for students to take the reins. Will you please leave our educators some leads to resources or tools that you recommend to explore and implement mathematics storytelling in their classrooms?

Jabal Moss: Of course, our biggest tool that we can use is our inspire.gadoe.org. That has an amazing framework for mathematical teaching in the state of Georgia. From our curriculum maps, our course overviews, they have our mathematical mindsets, mathematical modeling, statistical reasoning, all of those things that we can put in place in our classroom.

Ashley Mengwasser: Inspire.

Jabal Moss: Yes, inspiring to inspire our educators to be great teachers, specifically around storytelling, using manipulatives, as well as if you want to specifically talk about storytelling and other practices, they have a lot of information there on Inspire. Also, you can look at Edutopia that has a column about storytelling and mathematics.

Ashley Mengwasser: You mentioned that.

Jabal Moss: Yep. And then if you want to reach out to me, I'm here too on Twitter. So I'm always around, but definitely use GA DOE. Definitely use GA DOE. If you could look at my tabs on my iPad right now, you would laugh because-

Ashley Mengwasser: I can see that up.

Jabal Moss: ... about 30 of them are Inspire and learning plans.

Ashley Mengwasser: Georgia DOE.

Jabal Moss: Yes. I'm reading like, "How do we implement this plan today and how do we make sure that everything is together and making sure that it flows with what I do in my classroom?" Everything that we really need to be successful math educators is there. I'm not going to say I'm an expert, but I do not-

Ashley Mengwasser: I called you an expert. You solve for X.

Jabal Moss: But I will give you the blueprint of what I do in my classroom every day to help you be successful in yours.

Ashley Mengwasser: I really hope our listeners will watch the video companion piece of this podcast because your red coat is fabulous, Mr. Moss.

Jabal Moss: Thank you so much.

Ashley Mengwasser: You definitely command a presence. I really appreciate you being here and your penchant for storytelling, so thanks for sharing that. The only thing better than your mac and cheese is your teaching.

Jabal Moss: Yes, I can agree with that because my family would tell you otherwise. The macaroni and cheese would beat the teaching.

Ashley Mengwasser: I know your students would agree with me. Steven Moffitt, the Scottish television writer known for the series Dr. Who and also Sherlock said this, "We are all stories in the end." Let yours and your students stories spring forth in your mathematics instruction. You're a great teacher. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Next week we're onto something fresh as always, listen in. I'm Ashley Mengwasser, and like I always say goodbye for now. Funding for Classroom Conversations is made possible through the school Climate Transformation Grant.