The MCIULearns Podcast

Rethinking Math Pathways: Beyond the Calculus Express with Josh Recio

• Montgomery County Intermediate Unit • Season 6 • Episode 17

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Josh Recio from the UT Charles A. Dana Center challenges the mathematical status quo by advocating for quantitative reasoning courses as equally valuable to the traditional calculus pathway. His work with the Dana Center's Launch Years Initiative aims to provide students with math courses aligned to their future careers, emphasizing numeracy, mathematical modeling, and statistical reasoning skills needed in today's workplace.

• Students need quantitative reasoning skills for their civic, personal, and professional lives
• Traditional push toward calculus causes many students to miss developing crucial analytical skills
• QR courses focus on solving relevant, age-appropriate problems using mathematics as a tool
• Many QR courses are incorrectly viewed as "lesser than" or "low rigor" alternatives
• Changing perceptions requires legitimizing QR through higher standards and recognition from influential institutions

Check out our future episode where we'll dive deeper into the Launch Years Initiative, exploring how this approach is working to move these ideas into actual practice.


Speaker 1:

we very likely miss out on an opportunity to show them something that they would enjoy doing, that they would be very successful at, that they would have really strong abilities in doing. Until we can prioritize these other courses and legitimize them in a way that they're viewed at by career books or by higher education advisors or, excuse me, admissions officers, you know we're going to struggle.

Speaker 2:

Hello Montgomery County and welcome to the MCIU Learns podcast. My name is Brandon Langer and I'm the Director of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Norristown, pennsylvania, and this MCI Learns podcast is our conversation with ed leaders, thought leaders, those in the space of education looking to make a positive impact on where we're headed, with young people, with adult learners. And today we have another great conversation, queued up in our what has become a mini math series, with one of our project consultants, Kipra, and I'm going to hand it over to her to let her introduce herself and our guest for today.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, brandon, for having us on MCIU Podcast. I'm Kirpa Chohan, an educational consultant at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit. I'm pleased to introduce Josh Rizio, who works for Charles, a Dana Center at the University of Texas. At Austin, dana Center works to ensure all students, particularly those traditionally underserved, have access to excellent math and science education. Josh's leadership in the Dana Center's Launch Year Initiative specifically focuses on the transition from junior year of high school through the junior year of college. Through his work, he has advised many states in the implementation of math pathways as well as the modernization of Algebra 2. Thank you for joining us today, josh.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for having me, Okay so first I wanted to ask you what is your background and what led you to work in the field of quantitative reasoning and education.

Speaker 1:

So I started teaching high school math about 20 years ago and at the time I actually I wasn't sure that education was going to be my career. I had started a master's program and I was studying a statistics course and really kind of thought I was going to continue to pursue statistics and, you know, move toward a career in the field somewhere. But I learned pretty quickly that the education field was where I could have more impact and where I felt like I belonged. And so I continued to teach in high school and I started to teach statistics courses. And it was interesting because you know we're talking 18 years ago or so, where I was already sort of in a battle of what courses should our best math students be taking? And at the time, you know, in our high school calculus was seen as sort of that high level gold standard course that if you were going to pursue something in the STEM field or you were a strong math student, that that was the path you should take. And I was pushing for more students to enroll in statistics because I could see the relevance of what we were doing, maybe a little more so than I could see in the calculus course, although I love calculus, but I could just see the real world applications that students were learning in my statistics course, and so I kept pushing for more and more students to enroll in statistics.

Speaker 1:

And then, eventually, I took a job at the district where I was working a curriculum level job and continued to work with teachers and work with administrators and counselors on how they were enrolling students and why we were enrolling students in the courses that we were, and, you know, did that for about five years and then moved on to a position around 2017 at the Dana Center and found myself right back in that same battle of sort of a large project that we were beginning to work on that you mentioned called the Launch Years Initiative, and the idea of the Launch years initiative was that students should have access to pathways and math courses outside of that traditional path to calculus.

Speaker 1:

That path to calculus is extremely important, but there should be other options too and things that are more aligned to what students need for what their future careers are going to be or what their future studies are going to be, and so during that time, admittedly, I didn't know a lot about quantitative reasoning specifically, and so I started to study what these courses were.

Speaker 1:

It was a little bit inconsistent when you looked at QR courses around the country and between high school and higher education, courses around the country and between high school and higher education. But what I realized pretty quickly was this is the kind of math that students need. When I really dug into the standards for quantitative reasoning courses, I realized that the things that they were learning are the types of skills that are good for every single student. It doesn't matter if you've been traditionally the strongest math student or it's been a struggle for you. These are the skills that could be applicable to your life, and so now I just I continue that push toward opening up those opportunities for students to be able to take quantitative reasoning courses.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love what you said there about and we've had this conversation, as I said in some of these other math conversations, about how math can look different and why it probably needs to look different for different students and based on what it is they're hoping to accomplish in their career, based on what their skills are, based on what their level is. Kip has shared with me you know, a blog of yours, a case for quantitative reasoning, and you highlight the need for that, as you kind of just did. How does it differ from traditional math classes?

Speaker 1:

Well, the top sort of priority of a quantitative reasoning course is that the skills that students are building are those skills that are meaningful to you know their future professional lives, civic lives, their personal lives.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of the math focus tends to land around things like numeracy or math modeling, a good amount of statistical reasoning built into a good QR course.

Speaker 1:

And then one of the things that we have to think about with a quantitative reasoning course is the age level of the student.

Speaker 1:

So what I mean is you could be teaching a quantitative reasoning course, let's say, in the 10th grade of high school or at an upper grade in college, and the math that students are doing may not be all that different. They may be using some of the same, those same kind of numeracy and modeling and statistical reasoning skills that I talked about, but they're doing so to solve problems that are relevant and meaningful to them at their grade level or age level, and so the types of problems they solve might be very different, but the math that they're using and the skills that they're building to do those, to be able to solve those problems, is very similar, and so, really, when I look at really impactful quantitative reasoning courses that I've seen. It's based on those sort of those life skills that are useful for every single person, but they're done so to solve problems that are either very relevant to that group of students or that are at least very interesting to that group of students.

Speaker 3:

And you talked about how there is a push for calculus right and the streamlining of students to the calculus course and not having the other choice of statistics and things. Why do you think that it is important to have QR courses and how does it impact their readiness? What are you seeing that the push of calculus is doing for their impact to tackle real world problems?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's interesting the way that we've done this, that sort of push to calculus which you know, just as a side note. I think calculus is amazing and I think we need to continue to have students you know get access to calculus. In fact, one of the problems right now is that when you look around the nation at schools who primarily serve students who have been underserved, we see a lack of access to calculus, and that should change also. So, as I'm talking about things like quantitative reasoning and statistics, I want to be clear that the path to calculus is also very important and it needs to be accessible to all students. Important and it needs to be accessible to all students.

Speaker 1:

However, what most people need, in terms of what they need for their civic lives and for their personal lives, are the skills that are taught more in a quantitative reasoning course, and the problem with the push to calculus what we've told many of our students is, if you are a high achiever, or you're perceived to be a high achiever, or you have goals related to STEM careers, then you should avoid the quantitative reasoning course and move straight along that path to calculus, and the problem with that is those students miss out on an opportunity to learn a lot of the things and to apply a lot of their skills that they've built through their high achieving math performance to solve problems and to understand how things work.

Speaker 1:

You know that would of skills. When you talk to workforce leaders about what are the kinds of things that we want to see from our employees. What are the skills that employees should come to us with? It's typically not, you know, calculus related skills. It's typically things like problem solving, understanding some data analysis, those types of things that are taught in QR analysis, those types of things that are taught in QR. And it's sort of unfortunate that we've looked at a group of students and said, because you are high achieving or because you have the ability to be successful in something like calculus, you should just avoid that and we're missing out on an opportunity to build really important skills within all of our students.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you just mentioned one that comes to mind there with the idea about data, and we see data in so many conversations right now out in the field about its importance in education but also other fields and you just mentioned there we might be taking some people that might be some of our best data people and bypassing them on an opportunity to not just grow that skill set and apply it, but also maybe find passion in helping solve problems through data analysis and through. I mean, it just plays such an important part in so many decisions that are going to be made moving forward. I'm curious from your perspective, how do we repitch that? How do we help young people and also teachers and counselors and people to understand that, hey, this person's actually gifted in this arena. They might find this just as interesting as this. They might find these other pathways in terms of applying these skills as interesting as calculus.

Speaker 1:

I would be willing to bet that many of them would find those other courses, the data analysis and those things, much more interesting. It's just this, it's this legitimization of the courses that we've we've decided, and you know the structure of the way high school math is built. This is it's a very old structure. You know it was designed a long time ago and with very little changes. You know it was designed a long time ago and with very little changes. And so, until we can, until we can legitimize a course like QR or like statistics, as being just, as you know, just as important as a course like calculus, we're going to struggle and so, you know, that's why we do the work that we do, which is getting the messaging out.

Speaker 1:

It's why I, you know, wrote that blog post was, hopefully that, you know, people begin to see these things and we, you know, spread this message that the skills that we have, the ability or the availability to teach students can really, you know, impact how they think about what math is, even those best students who go through calculus and are, you know, successful and move on to, maybe, a STEM major in higher education. You know what you said, brandon, is exactly right. We very likely miss out on an opportunity to show them something that they would enjoy doing, that they would be very successful at that they would have really strong abilities in doing. Prioritize these other courses and legitimize them in a way that they're viewed by career folks or by higher education advisors or, excuse me, admissions officers, things like that. We're going to struggle.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we do the same thing in other fields too. I think about how often we push gosh gifted athletes to try and be NFL stars and we push gifted musicians to want to play in the Philharmonic and the reality is some of those people are going to find perfectly legitimate, sustainable and happy lives as teachers, educators, coaches in the community. You know, in ways that their skills and talents where you know, we've sometimes looked at very hyper-talented people and said, oh, it was a waste, they didn't pursue that. It's like no, it wasn't there. They're applying it and passing that on to thousands of people over the course of their lifetime.

Speaker 2:

That's really powerful and I think this is just maybe another example of how you know. Maybe sometimes we look at certain kids because they show us skills and ideas in one area and then we might actually beat some of the love out of it by diverting them down a path that's just not what they're interested in doing and ultimately, we should be happy, you know, moving forward and as young, as young learners and adult learners on whatever path we're on. Kirpa, I don't know. I mean, you kind of brought Josh to us in terms of the conversation. I'm curious what stands out for you about this shift and how you see it playing out and why it matters to you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I'm agreeing that not a lot of people are going to go to the STEM and they're going to be taking calculus and never going to use it, while they can use math classes that are actually going to be helpful for them long term and have those knowledge, knowledge, ideas filled for them when they go to college, it's not a gap for them. And my concern is that a lot of high schools right now do offer quantitative reasoning or some sort of idea in that, but they see it as like the less rigorous, the alternative course. If you're not a math person and that that shift like Josh said, it's, it's a problem, it's a problem then we see these classes as the non-rigorous ones. And my question to you, josh, is how do we change that mindset? How do we change actually, first change that high school, high school's, offering this class, make it rigorous and have high standards for it, and then the second part of it how do we change that mindset that these math classes are equally important?

Speaker 1:

yeah, you know what you said is so important here, but that the um that we do see that these courses exist, like there are qr courses in many states and many districts and many high schools, but they just get deprioritized or devalued as you know, just like you said, sort of the low rigor course, and I think that actually goes back to what we were talking about before, that you know we miss out on an opportunity of showing our high achieving students or our calculus bound students the joy that they might be able to find in something like, you know, in evaluating data or you know the kinds of things that you would see in these other pathways. At the same time, when we deprioritize those courses that we do have, we don't teach them in a way that really builds up the skills and the excitement and the joy that it could be. You know, that view that a QR course is a lesser than course impacts the way, you know, teachers approach it. It impacts the way students are when they're enrolled in them. So not only are we missing out on giving those high achieving students the opportunity, those students that we are enrolling in these courses are not getting what they should get out of it in a lot of cases, and that's really unfortunate, because there are opportunities to see the relevance of math and to see the types of you know in the data analysis, the types of things that you can think about within your own communities, within you know in the data analysis, the types of things that you can think about within your own communities, within your own culture, and we just we it's just we miss out on on a chance to really do that, something that, at the Dana Center, we've been talking about a lot and trying to figure out how to do and need to get better at, which is reaching counselors and advisors. You know there's a, you can there, you can look at surveys of counselors who who help students decide what courses they're going to take and what the sort of wide view is that taking calculus is better for a student when it comes to their higher ed admissions, you know, to their opportunities when they leave high school, and that makes sense, because in a lot of cases, that's been true.

Speaker 1:

What we've also found, though, is that colleges aren't prioritizing calculus as much as maybe we perceive them to, and so if we could get that word out, and if we can let counselors and advisors and continue to let higher ed admissions officers understand you know the really important work of math pathways, then we can you know, we can start to maybe change how we advise students or how we, you know, help them select what they want to take, and then we can actually focus on.

Speaker 1:

You know what are your goals, what is it that you want to do, and let's find that course that's meaningful to you.

Speaker 1:

But one of the bigger issues with that is you still have things like AP courses and you know if the college board is going to, you know, prioritize pre-calculus and calculus.

Speaker 1:

You know obviously there's an AP statistics as well, but the calculus pathway is still viewed as really important within you know that AP track, and so I sort of have this dream of the college board at some point creating an AP quantitative reasoning course. And when those kind of things happen, when the high level, when the big schools like Harvard and Stanford, who have made slight adjustments to their admission statements over the last few years, if the college board looked at quantitative reasoning and said, yes, we value that as the type of skills that we think students can benefit from, we can change that reputation of the course itself, you know, and so right now it's sort of a large scale messaging campaign to help districts and schools and students and families understand that there are options that are meaningful, that are aligned to, are aligned to what their careers might actually look like, and it might still take some time, but that's what we're pushing for.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that that's a great thing to end on with this conversation, because I know that we're going to hop in and do a future episode with you looking at you know one way that you and the team are approaching this problem. You know specific population and that's the Launch your Initiative. So we'll be on the lookout for that as you listen to this podcast. A future episode is going to feature that, with Josh as we kind of look into what does this look like in actual practice? How do we actually move the needle? Because, as Josh said, it takes time to move these systems and move the focuses forward. Josh, thank you for joining us and thank you for really bringing this to the forefront. This is actually a topic that I haven't really dove into. I haven't really heard much about in the space, so I'll be looking forward to learning more with you and Josh moving forward. But Josh thanks for hopping on today and Kirpa thanks for getting us pulled together.

Speaker 1:

Thank, you so much. It's great to be here.

Speaker 2:

If this is your first time hearing us, we are the MCI Learns podcast. We do these very frequently at this point, usually biweekly, and might be moving to a weekly format here with how much Kirpa is bringing in the math space. So lots of other stuff to look back to in our feed. If you want to check us out on the MCIU Learns Network that is learnmciuorg, you can follow us at MCIU Learns across all the social media networks and we'll catch you on the next episode. You