♪♪ ♪♪ >> Leccese: One night a month, the parents can come and see the way that their children are approaching the math concept.

>> Cannici: It's really completing the triangle of the team we like to form between parents, kids, and our teachers.

>> Anderson: You have to make education fun.

You have to make it relevant to the student.

As an educator, it's extremely rewarding to feel that I am giving them the tools that they need to be more financially sound and prepared for life.

You got sued.

>> Vaccaro: All right, boys and girls, today we're gonna be working on lesson 9.4.

The whole point of having me on film and not pulling it from a teacher in wherever is that it's how I speak, it's how I act, it's how I deliver instruction in the classroom.

What's something that you remember you heard from the video last night?

>> Boy: Like, if you already know one angle, if you try to find the other one, you have to subtract.

>> Mitta: We have all kinds of activities to do with quilting and textiles, and we link math and art.

The kids are doing different projects like painting.

They're doing concentric shapes.

>> Boy: Concentric is -- is when we use the same shapes inside of each other, but we use different colors.

>> Narrator: On this episode of "Classroom Close-up, New Jersey," different ways to think about math.

This week will focus on innovative teaching methods for a subject that may not come easy to everyone.

We'll begin in Rochelle Park, where parents join their children to learn math together.

>> Blistan: Remember the days when there was only one way to solve a math problem, and mom or dad were able to help with homework?

Well, those days are gone, and parents are frustrated because, well, kids these days are solving math problems all different kinds of ways.

>> Leccese: One of the chief struggles from my students' parents is with the new way that math is being taught.

They have a hard time helping their children at home.

>> Reilly: Think you got it?

Oh.

Do they match?

Just a few weeks ago, my son came home and I was watching him do his homework, and I was like, "What are you doing?"

And when I showed him the way I did it, his response is, "Can I show you how the teacher taught me?"

And I was like, "Absolutely."

And when he showed me, I was like, "Oh, okay."

And it made complete sense, but it wasn't the way I learned it.

>> Blistan: Knowing this disconnect was an ongoing problem, Maria Leccese looked for help to try to solve it.

>> Leccese: We have created a Family Math Night series for our kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

>> Blistan: Family Math Night is a program developed by Math Unity, an organization designed to bridge the gap between schools and parents, and provides the materials needed for the event.

>> Leccese: One night a month, the parents can come and see the way that their children are approaching the math concepts.

>> Cannici: It's really completing the triangle of the team we like to form between parents, kids, and our teachers.

And they're all working together to solve problems and play games and have fun.

>> Blistan: The math series is called T.E.A.

(M) Squared.

>> Leccese: Together Everyone Achieves More in Math.

And because we really believe in the concept of the home-school connection.

>> Reilly: We're taught different games that we could play with them at home to help with their math skills.

It does help, because you're using a lot of manipulatives with the kids, and it's things that you can find in your own house.

And if it's not the things that they show us here at school, we could replace it with something at home that we have, whether it's pieces of pasta or pennies or, you know, just things that you find around your house, just to help the kids.

And at the same time, we're playing games, so they're having fun.

>> Leccese: All of the stations that you're going to see tonight are all geometry-based.

>> Man: How many pieces do you see there?

>> Boy: Uh, six.

>> Man: Six pieces, right?

So, we got two already covered.

>> Leccese: But one of the things we like about the way our event is structured is our activities are beginning, intermediate, and advanced.

So, we can incorporate all grade-levels -- so all six grade-levels -- and it's not overwhelming.

>> Barriento: Fold each one down to make a triangle.

We wanted to start doing Family Math Night, or just math in general with the kids, because we know that they struggle, and we really want to bridge the gap between here and home.

So, that's our main goal.

>> Blistan: The teachers at Midland School are achieving that goal with funding from an NJEA Hipp Grant.

>> Leccese: We received a $7,000 grant through the Hipp Foundation, and without them, we wouldn't have been able to do this.

We wouldn't have been able to purchase any of our materials.

>> Boy: Oh, we're doing a... >> Woman: Area.

>> Boy: Yeah, an area game.

First, you roll this dice, and, depending on what you get, it's the length and the width, and then you have to find the area of it, and then you draw the rectangles on the board.

>> Leccese: As a kid, I was petrified of math.

And to be able to share my experience with my students and to dispel that idea that math is this big, horrible, terrible thing that I should be fearful of, I'm hoping what these events bring to my students is that it's nothing to be afraid of.

You just have to be willing to put in the work and the effort behind it.

Everyone is capable of being a mathematician.

I believe that every one of my students is a mathematician, just in their own unique way.

And so, I hope, through my struggles as a child, I can convey to my students that it can be overcome.

It just takes time, and it takes work and effort.

>> Boy: Like, two pieces can make a square.

>> Cannici: The fact that she's pulling from her childhood experiences to make this even more successful is a terrific strategy.

>> Leccese: All right.

Have fun, my love.

I love being a math teacher now, because one of my goals as an educator is to not have my students experience what I experienced.

I struggled, and I don't want my students to struggle.

I want them to feel empowered, and this is just another way to help them feel empowered, because they can actually talk to their parents and say, "Well, I'm thinking about it this way," and open up that line of communication.

>> Cannici: The more the parents are involved, the better the student's gonna perform.

So, to have an event like this, where they are able to come out and not just help their kids learn, but also have fun doing it -- it's huge.

>> Leccese: I am hoping that, by the end of tonight, parents will feel empowered to help their children at home.

I hope the kids come and have fun and realize that fun and school go hand-in-hand.

And I hope to hear them talking about it tomorrow and it ignites their desire to continue learning in class.

>> Reilly: Good job, dude.

>> Narrator: Family Math Night ensures that there will be support beyond the classroom while motivating young learners.

Another surefire motivator?

When learning is a game.

>> Anderson: You know how to spin it to land on yellow, don't you?

See?

♪♪ Hurricane -- Scott.

>> Scott: Yes.

>> Anderson: Did you pay your renter's insurance?

>> Scott: I think so.

>> Anderson: Oh, you better go double-check.

>> Scott: Yeah.

>> Anderson: Aha.

My students' mentality toward financial literacy and just financing in general pretty much transforms on day one.

I'm not gonna, you know, sugarcoat things.

This is real.

Dealing with money is a real thing.

I'll call you up individually to provide you with this number right here -- your account balance according to the bank.

The bank is...me.

I used to be a banker at Wachovia Bank.

At that time, I realized by dealing with clients on an everyday basis handling their finances, that a lot of adults just lack simple, basic financial skills and tools that I thought were essential just to manage your day-to-day finances.

So I realized at that point that was my opportunity to get to the root of the problem, which I believe was financial education, and that financial education needs to be addressed in the high-school and middle-school levels so that when they get to be adults, they're well equipped with the financial tools they need to be successful.

>> Justin: This class is financial literacy.

Basically what we learn is the finances that you're gonna need for when you mature in life.

>> Anderson: Five years ago is when the state of New Jersey mandated that financial literacy be a graduation requirement.

>> Justin: When I first saw the class on my schedule, I thought it was gonna be a boring class, but the wealth effect game -- it's interesting because it's kind of like you're living your life, but you're doing it as a game right now, so it's not all serious.

>> Anderson: The wealth effect was created to kind of simulate real world to a freshman in high school.

Because you know as a freshman in high school at 14, money is kind of just given to you, and it doesn't really have value to you.

So I've tried to make the wealth effect as real as possible.

They're living on their own, they're out of high school, their parents finally kicked them out of the house, and here you are.

So, their paycheck is actually based upon their academic performance in my class.

>> Justin: We got our first paychecks, and our paychecks were based on our grades.

So, I had a 98, so I got $980, but then we have taxes and stuff taken out and deductions.

>> Anderson: I reassess grades periodically throughout the semester to give those kids who may not have had a lot of money coming in at the beginning the opportunity to raise your grade, to then raise your pay.

>> Johnathan: Every month, we have expenses depending on which scenario, place you chose to live in -- suburbs, rural, or city.

I chose suburbs.

I don't know why.

Should've chose rural like everyone else because it's less expensive.

Heat or water's not necessarily a fixed expense, so sometimes we'll get equations to find out what the expense for this week or the next week's gonna be.

>> Anderson: And then I'll take that check when you're ready to go.

>> Meghan: This is my check register, and we put in the check number, the date that we paid it, what we paid, and then you balance it.

>> Sean: Aw.

>> Anderson: Hit by a car.

Stop Jay walking, Sean.

Inflation.

Ouch.

So, again, 10% higher than everyone else's.

>> Meghan: I landed on fire, and because of that, I got -- I had to pay $400.

>> Anderson: The uncertainty in life.

You always have to be prepared.

Two of my students came to me and said, "You should create some sort of random wheel."

So I took that advice to heart by creating what's called the wheel of misfortune.

Students spin it periodically, and there are certain fines or fees that are assessed based upon what the student lands upon.

That's blue.

You got sued.

I'd love the opportunity to have this program evolve even further into perhaps an app which I'm having my information-technology students work collectively and collaborate with me together so we can create an app that can then service those students all over the country where teachers can utilize the same things that I'm doing in my classroom in their classrooms.

>> Ryan: You get to see some of the stuff before it gets put in front of you.

Like the credit card, in real life, it keeps stacking up and stacking up, and your interest rates just kill you.

>> Joe: I think having financial literacy as a class is a very good thing because it teaches you all about different finance things.

I never knew how to actually write checks or anything before this course, so I learned all that kind of stuff.

>> Stefano: I just got approved for a credit card, and I've got my own debit card, so I'm seeing my life get kind of the way he's teaching it here.

>> Anderson: Well, if you pay it off in full at the end of the month, you never pay any interest.

So, I'll let you think about that.

You have to make education fun.

You have to make it relevant to the student.

As an educator, looking back, it's extremely rewarding to feel that I am giving them the tools that they need to be more financially sound and prepared for life.

...66, you reference that cell, because then if this cell... >> Narrator: Coming up, students are flipping over math.

But first, we're looking back at how the education community face the challenges of learning during the COVID pandemic.

It's our latest installment of "Making the Grade."

>> Encarnacion: In my virtual classroom, I try to model it after my regular classroom.

We laugh because A13 is always hustling and bustling and busy.

I've tried to maintain that as much as possible while keeping it simple enough for the kids to be able to follow along.

So everybody's doing okay?

Doing all right with the home learning?

The use of the agenda is really beneficial because they're able to click live links and see what to expect.

I've used a lot of read-alouds, which is something that you see in my classroom as well.

How did it work out?

With listening to my voice reading it?

I thought that might make you feel a little more comfortable since where you're used to me reading it, right?

And my inflection and things like that.

What you guys think?

I think that that really is our job as educators, is to be consistent for these kids.

There's so much unknown right now in the world that they're dealing with, that, giving them that little tiny piece of consistency -- like, "I know that my English teacher is going to tell me the order of things," is important.

One of the things that is such a struggle with distance learning is that the kids are cooped up at home.

So we were able to take a virtual field trip.

In the first pages of "Dracula," the protagonist is going to a museum, the Museum of the World in London.

And so I gave my students the opportunity to get into Jonathan Harper's shoes and experience the museums.

J.C., what did you think about the virtual field trip?

>> J.C.: Oh, I liked it.

That was fun.

>> Young woman: I liked it because, like, it showed, like, the past and stuff, and I would have never, like, searched it on my own and stuff.

>> Encarnacion: My sophomores are working on their research paper.

How's the research process going for everybody?

>> Young woman: I only used three sources.

Is that okay?

>> Encarnacion: So today, I met with them individually in research conferences so that the kids are able to ask me questions.

What are your big concerns about the research-paper process so far?

>> Young woman: Definitely citations and transitions.

>> Encarnacion: Kids are going through a difficult time, and I want to make sure that they remember that their teachers are the ones who are still here for them.

Even though, you know, it feels like the world is shutting down, we're still here.

That tie has not been severed.

>> Vaccaro: Good morning, boys and girls.

Last night, you watched lesson 9.4, and it was on understanding and measuring angles.

The children watch a video that I film the night before to kind of expose them to the concepts that we're going to be working with the next day in class.

What's something that you remember you heard from the video last night?

>> Boy: If you already know one angle.

If you try and find the other one, you have to subtract.

>> Vaccaro: There's a lot of elements to the flipped classroom in order for it to work smoothly.

The filming alone takes a great deal of time because the way that I do it is that I use my textbook content.

So I go onto their site, and I kind of cut and paste into a SMART Notebook file that allows it to be interactive.

And then, once that file is created, then I need to find time to get into the classroom to actually film it.

So filming can take, depending on how many takes I need to articulate my concept to my liking, it takes some time.

At this time, boys and girls, you've been flipped.

We'll see you tomorrow.

>> Mitchell: One of the features of doing a flipped model that I really welcome is that it brings me into the children's homes.

That helps the parents see exactly how we are learning math as fifth-graders.

After you finish the video, what did you then do?

Aditya?

>> Aditya: Apply what you learned to the work.

>> Mitchell: Okay.

>> Padma: It makes it very much easier for us to explain it to them at home, if they're doing it, and they always have the option of coming back to the teacher and asking.

So I think the transparency also is a big advantage in the flipped classroom.

>> Musarra: This has been going on for several years here.

Our two teachers have been pioneering the efforts and really taking it and modifying and adjusting it year after year, but they've seen quite success with it.

>> Vaccaro: You will need your protractor for this activity.

>> Kimberly: My oldest daughter was in the first year that Mrs. Vaccaro flipped her classroom, and so we really used the videos a lot that year.

And then now this is my second child going through it.

So we've really loved it since she started this process.

>> Yasser: With these videos, I found them amazing because it's her own teacher saying exactly the lesson, and she's following it.

She's stopping it.

She's taking notes.

She's rewinding it, so it's great.

>> Girl: If you don't understand what the lesson is about, then you could replay the video, and you can't replay what your teacher says in real life.

You don't have a "Play" button on your teacher.

You have that on the computer.

>> Vaccaro: The whole point of having me on film and not pulling it from a teacher in wherever, having their teacher in their home with them, is that it is me.

It's how I speak.

It's how I act.

It's how I deliver instruction in the classroom.

So we're going to be reinforcing our skills from today that we watched last night, along with what we've been doing, using the protractor to draw.

>> Aditya: Ms. Mitchell records the video, and she does it just as if we were actually in the classroom, so it's like classroom at home.

We do our homework, and then we rate ourselves, 1 to 4, seeing how good we did.

>> Girl: One is when you don't get the subject at all.

Two is when you're like, "I don't get it.

I really need help."

Three is like, "I understand it, but I think I need a little bit of help."

Four is like, "I'm, like, really good with it.

I understand the topic."

>> Vaccaro: Did anything, in going over this -- did it change your rating at all?

Did it make it stronger if it was lower?

>> Girls: Yes.

>> Vaccaro: It does put a little bit of responsibility and ownership on them to be cognizant of their own learning.

>> Girl: I had to replay the video because I did forget the steps, but only because I wasn't sure if I had to, like, do every single part of it since it was a rectangle.

>> Vaccaro: I can differentiate and really meet their needs instead of kind of giving it to everyone when some children already understand it.

>> Mitchell: Last night, this tripped up a few of us.

Some angles were vertical.

Once the children watch the video, apply their understanding, and evaluate their understanding, they come to me in the morning with the fruits of their labor.

And I then look at that, and I'm able to group the children and differentiate the instruction, so I can give each grouping what they need.

So if you're staying up front with me, where are you in your learning?

Are you at the surface, are you deeper, or are you at the transfer level?

Where are you, Shaviksha?

>> Vaccaro: The flipped classroom, by no means, is easier than the traditional teaching model because I am, at my choosing, on call after the school day ends.

Tonight, you're gonna watch a video that is going to kind of review all the skills that we learned.

When they go home, whenever that is that they start it, I'm connected to them.

If they have questions about the material, they'll ask me.

And since this is my idea, what I chose to do for them, I feel it's my responsibility to respond to them.

>> Kimberly: It really takes a lot of dedication on the part of the teacher in order to make the flipped classroom work, and ultimately, I think it's really beneficial to the students.

>> Yasser: Now she's more confident going to the class, discussing ideas, because before, if she did not get the subject during class, she would be intimidated or shy, not raising her, you know, her hand and ask a question, and she would just be quiet in her class.

But now she knows the topic.

She knows the subject, and she's better prepared.

>> Vaccaro: I have seen a great deal of improvement in my students, not just mathematically, with their own personal confidence in the area of math.

To change a dislike for math to really feeling that this is something that they can overcome and accomplish and actually be good at and enjoy... isn't that why we're here?

That's because of the flipped classroom.

>> Girl: I love flipped.

>> Narrator: The flipped classroom can be a portal to a more dynamic education environment, expanding the capacity for learning.

Now imagine exploring math by pairing it with art.

>> Mitta: We're using concentric shapes.

One inside the other.

Then we're patterning.

Then we're using geometric shapes.

And then we measured -- we measured our paper for...

The goal for this program is that our students will learn art and math at the same time.

>> Narrator: This after-school program, created by math teacher Joanne Barrett and art teacher Irene Mitta, was made possible through an NJEA Hipp Grant.

>> Mitta: I was so lucky to work with Ms. Barrett to get this grant.

And basically, we have all kinds of activities to do with quilting and textiles.

And we link math and art.

The kids are doing different projects like painting.

They're doing concentric shapes.

>> Boy: Concentric is -- is when we use the same shapes inside of each other, but we use different colors.

>> Narrator: Not only are these students combining art and math, but there's also a heritage component as well.

>> Mitta: Remember, we started out with Mexico.

And if you notice, we looked at these patterns and that's how we came up with this idea that we were going to make this, basically, a quilt out of paper.

We try to look at the students, where they're from.

And a lot of our students happen to be from Central America and Mexico.

So we thought, "Hey, patterning, math, art."

It just, kind of, all worked together.

Try to do your black outline or even a dark blue.

>> Barrett: We are talking about the patternings in the fabrics of the different cultures, the textile patterns.

So we're trying to mirror them.

In order for it to be a pattern, what does it have to do?

>> Boy: They -- they have to constantly repeat.

>> Barrett: They're going to eventually become a quilt made from the paintings that they're doing to mirror the textile patternings of the Central American countries.

>> Mitta: The quilt that we're gonna put all these together and we're matching our colors on either side.

>> Girl: All of these are gonna make one, big quilt.

>> Mitta: We have printing going on.

We have painting.

The collage is basically gluing shapes and then we're adding the art.

Warm and cool colors.

>> Girl: We get these squares and we cut them, and we glue it together.

And then these are warm col-- these are warm colors and these are cool colors.

We put glue on top so it could be smooth and it could shine.

>> Mitta: And then we're using concentric shapes and geometric patterns.

So then we're linking the math and the art, which is really what's the most important thing to us because we're trying to have the students, through art, learn math skills that they can use in life.

>> Barrett: We invited back some of our former graduates and the parents of some of the children have participated.

Any and all of them were welcome to come and participate with us.

>> Bellamy: When I was younger in school, math was a challenge.

And it was a challenge because of, I guess, the process of learning?

I think this is very good.

Very, very good.

Because they're learning, but they don't know they're learning because it's so much fun.

>> Mitta: The goal is always that they learn something deeply from the experience.

Whether it's maybe the words and the terminology, which is really important.

But also just deeply understanding what symmetry is.

>> Giselle: It's symmetrical because it's the same from all -- from both sides.

>> Barrett: It's the same on both sides.

Good.

>> Mitta: Deeply understanding what a concentric shape is.

And that's where we're really at.

Same thing with the art.

You know, the main focus is, "Do they know every term of print-making?"

Maybe not.

But they know how to print.

And that's their creativity that's what's really important to us.

>> Man: Right now, my daughter was teaching me on how to do it.

>> Girl: To print.

>> Man: How to print, so now I'm going to print my first print.

>> Barrett: It definitely relaxes everybody, including me.

And I think everyone who does art, you know, it reaches a deep place in people that brings them calm.

And especially when they're doing math, too.

They need to be calm.

You know, in order to think clearly, you really, really need to be calm.

And I think this works really well together with that goal.

>> Barrett: Somewhere else where we see math in our world.

Giselle.

>> Giselle: When people make houses, they have to use math, like inches, feet, yards to measure how long the -- how big the house is going to be.

>> Barrett: Good.

Okay.

Any time we have something geometric or tessellations or measurements, we kind of try and combine and co-teach together.

My children have art with Ms. Mitta.

If there's something that they're doing that relates to math, I will speak to her and I'll say, "What can we do together?"

>> Mitta: What you're doing when you're doing this kind of work or when you're doing tangrams when you're in here are using shapes to build images.

Personally, what I see in the art room is that they're really able to measure and they're really able to talk articulately using math terms, which I find really fabulous.

That's where I see the growth in this art room.

I definitely see them asking me for a ruler.

I see them measuring things.

And that makes me feel like they're really learning.

When it all clicks, it's exciting and, you know, I've always said over the years, "Any project I've ever done to show as an example, they out-do me 100 times and I throw it in the garbage."

Because they are the best artists ever, and they know how to put things together.

And when their brains start to work and put projects like this and put a quilt together, it's beautiful.

And their math skills, that's how they know they're the ones who place all these things together.

It's not me, it's not Ms. Barrett, you know?

They're the ones who really do the work, and that's what's great.

This is beautiful!

Both sides are the same.

>> Narrator: That's all for now.

We hope you enjoyed watching, and we invite you to discover more by visiting our Website, ClassroomCloseup.org and searching the video library.

We'll be back with another episode next week.

So please join us again on "Classroom Close-up, New Jersey."

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