x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Make Math Happen

Make Math Happen (formerly known as PD for the SOUL) is the podcast for educators ready to move with intention and teach with impact. Hosted by math coach and equity-focused educator Laneshia Boone, each episode bridges practice and purpose to help you design instruction that centers students, builds capacity, and makes learning stick—especially for those pushed to the margins.Every week, you’ll get strategies that work in real classrooms, grounded reflections that challenge the status quo, and

education how to

All Episodes

11:32

Modeling Math: What is a Function

Make Math Happen ·

2026/03/01

Linear functions are major work in middle school mathematics, but before students can graph slope or write equations, they must understand what a function truly represents. In this episode, we trace the vertical development of functional thinking from 6th grade ratio reasoning to 7th grade proportional relationships and into 8th grade functions. You’ll hear how unit rates and the constant of proportionality evolve into slope, and why understanding how two quantities vary in tandem is the foun...

en-us

11:40

Connecting Math: Where Relationships Meet Functions

Make Math Happen ·

2026/02/22

How proportional reasoning prepares students for modeling Over the past three months, we’ve built something intentional. Geometry helped students see structure. Number systems helped them understand magnitude. Ratios helped them recognize relationships. In this episode, we bring it all together. Proportional reasoning is not the end goal. It’s the bridge. Before students ever graph a line or write an equation, they must see patterns in how quantities vary together. We explore how ratio thinki...

en-us

18:37

Connecting Math: Making Proportional Reasoning Visible

Make Math Happen ·

2026/02/15

Rates, Tables, Tape Diagrams, and the Coordinate Plane Ratios are relationships. But proportional reasoning is what happens when students learn to use those relationships to solve problems. In this episode, we move from identifying ratios to reasoning with them. You’ll explore how tape diagrams, ratio tables, double number lines, and the coordinate plane make proportional relationships visible before formulas ever appear. Geometry shows up through alignment, iteration, and scaling. Number sen...

en-us

14:53

Connecting Math: Comparing Quantities

Make Math Happen ·

2026/02/08

Before students can work flexibly with ratios, they must be able to answer a more fundamental question: What exactly are we comparing, and why? In this episode, we zoom in on the core comparison structures that sit beneath ratios, proportions, geometry, and algebra: part-to-part relationships, part-to-whole relationships, and unit reasoning. You’ll hear how these ways of thinking develop over time, how they connect back to geometry through reference points, structure, and scale, and why the n...

en-us

14:54

Connecting Math: Understanding Ratios as...

Make Math Happen ·

2026/02/01

Why ratios are about how quantities move together This episode launches our Connecting Math series by reframing ratios as relationships rather than calculations. Instead of treating ratios as fractions or procedures to memorize, we explore how ratios describe how two quantities vary together and why that way of thinking must be developed over time. Building on December’s focus on Seeing Math and January’s work around Understanding Math, this episode connects geometric reasoning and number sen...

en-us

16:59

Understanding Math: Number Sense That Transfers

Make Math Happen ·

2026/01/25

How strong number reasoning prepares students for ratios and algebra Throughout January, we’ve explored rational numbers, negative numbers, distance, value, fractions, decimals, and division. On the surface, it may seem like this month was about numbers. But this work didn’t begin in January. In December, we focused on seeing math—using geometry to help students notice structure, reason about space, and make sense of relationships before symbols ever appeared. Those same ideas carried forward...

en-us

20:33

Understanding Math: Fractions, Decimals, and Meaning

Make Math Happen ·

2026/01/18

Building understanding instead of teaching tricks Many students reach middle school able to perform fraction and decimal procedures without truly understanding what those numbers represent. In this episode, we slow down and reconnect fractions, decimals, and division to meaning. We explore why fractions should be understood as division first, how the number line supports flexible movement between representations, and why spatial reasoning matters when students place, compare, and reason about...

en-us

17:37

Understanding Math: Negative Numbers, Distance, and...

Make Math Happen ·

2026/01/11

Strategies that clarify the number line for every learner Negative numbers are often taught through rules that don’t stick. In this episode, we return to meaning. We explore how students have been reasoning about space, direction, and position on the number line since the earliest grades, and why negative numbers are an extension of that work—not a new concept. By grounding integer operations in movement and distance, this episode shows how students can reason about direction, magnitude, and ...

en-us

11:45

Understanding Math: Making Sense of Rational Numbers

Make Math Happen ·

2026/01/04

When students struggle with fractions, decimals, and integers, it’s often assumed they’re missing skills. In reality, they’re missing understanding. This episode opens our Understanding Math series by focusing on how students make sense of rational numbers as quantities that have value, direction, and position—not just symbols to manipulate. We explore how early experiences with counting, comparing, and representing numbers develop over time, why the number line is such a powerful organizer o...

en-us

15:22

Seeing Math: Similarity and Scale

Make Math Happen ·

2025/12/28

This episode closes our geometry focus by showing how similarity and scale serve as the bridge into ratios, proportions, and later functions. We explore what makes figures similar, how scale factor represents a preserved relationship rather than a formula, and why students need visual experiences with enlargement and reduction before working with numbers. Along the way, we address real classroom challenges, including unfinished learning, limited instructional time, and the pressure to move st...

en-us

13:14

Seeing Math: Area, Surface Area, and Volume

Make Math Happen ·

2025/12/21

This episode continues our Season 4 focus on making connections across mathematical domains and across grade levels. My goal over the coming months is to spark deeper conversations about instruction, sequencing, and sense-making, and to support teachers in taking these ideas back to their professional learning communities. Area, surface area, and volume are often taught as a list of formulas, but students need a much richer story. In this episode, we explore how these concepts grow from simpl...

en-us

13:14

Seeing Math: Angles, Lines, and Movement

Make Math Happen ·

2025/12/14

Helping students make sense of transformations and symmetry Geometry becomes powerful when students can see how shapes move, change, and relate. In this episode, we explore angles, lines, and the three core transformations—translations, reflections, and rotations—and what students must understand long before they ever touch coordinate rules. You’ll hear how early geometry experiences lay the groundwork for middle school expectations, why angle relationships matter more than memorized steps, a...

en-us

14:40

Seeing Math: Why Geometry Should Start the Story

Make Math Happen ·

2025/12/07

Spatial reasoning is the heartbeat of middle school mathematics. In this episode, we explore how seeing patterns, shapes, movement, and structure primes students for success across every domain they’ll encounter this year. You’ll learn why geometry is far more than formulas and how it builds the visual foundation students need for ratios, functions, number lines, and equations. This episode opens the journey we’ll take all year. By the end, you’ll walk away with simple ways to strengthen visu...

en-us

7:15

Season Finale: Closing One Chapter, Opening Another

Make Math Happen ·

2025/11/23

This special episode closes out the month and reflects on the entire journey of this podcast. Four years ago, this show launched as PD for the Soul with a simple mission: to give teachers bite-sized, meaningful professional development they could listen to in the middle of real life. Whether it was on the way to work, during planning, or while cleaning the house, the goal was always the same… walk away with one idea you could use immediately. After a long break and a year that pulled me in ev...

en-us

13:02

The Closure: Bringing the Learning Full Circle

Make Math Happen ·

2025/11/16

The last five minutes of class might be the most powerful. In this final episode of the instructional framework series, Laneshia breaks down the Closure portion of the lesson: the moment where big ideas get consolidated, strategies are named, and learning comes full circle. You’ll hear how teachers can use this time to: Revisit strategies and construct anchor charts that capture the day’s thinkingInvite students to reflect on their progress toward the goal, individually or with a partnerUse e...

en-us

16:17

The Instruct: Building Thinkers, Not Answer-Getters

Make Math Happen ·

2025/11/09

Last week, we broke down the Instruct phase — how to plan lessons like a chef curating a recipe, balancing tasks, facilitation, and engagement to make learning stick. This week, I’m serving up the next course: what Instruct actually sounds like in action. I’m sharing a real lesson I planned, facilitated, and reflected on using the Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) — a “Build a Pizza” task that pushed students to reason about relationships, not race toward answers. You’ll hear how purp...

en-us

15:20

The Recipe for Instruction: Tasks, Facilitation, and...

Make Math Happen ·

2025/11/02

Every strong math lesson has a recipe — the right balance of tasks, facilitation, and engagement that brings learning to life. In this episode, Laneshia walks you through the Instruct portion of the lesson cycle like a master chef planning a meal. You’ll learn how to: Choose and sequence tasks that align with standards and build coherence across lessons.Facilitate learning through intentional routines that get students talking, reasoning, and doing the math — not just filling in boxes.Keep en...

en-us

10:10

Pre-Teaching: Zooming Out to Zoom In

Make Math Happen ·

2025/10/26

Before you ever step into a lesson, your planning determines how far students can go. In this episode, Laneshia breaks down what it means to zoom out to zoom in—strategically mapping upcoming units, identifying potential roadblocks, and pre-teaching (or accelerating) just enough to keep every learner in the fast lane. You’ll hear how Suzy Pepper Rollins’ concept of acceleration aligns with research by Burns (2004), Nelson (2022), and the What Works Clearinghouse (2021)—all pointing to one tru...

en-us

17:44

Activate the Lesson: Setting the Stage for High...

Make Math Happen ·

2025/10/19

Before students ever dive into a new concept, the Activate portion of your lesson determines whether they’re truly ready to think. In this episode, Laneshia models what an intentional Activate sounds like—from synthesizing a spiral warm-up to launching a new problem about dividing fractions with and without models. You’ll hear how she uses questioning, routines, and strategic sequencing to make sense-making visible and connect to the day’s learning goal. Then, she links classroom moves to the...

en-us

11:47

The Weight of our Beliefs

Make Math Happen ·

2025/10/05

Six weeks into the school year, the cracks start to show — the fatigue, the frustration, and the quiet slide into low expectations. In this episode of Make Math Happen, Laneshia gets real about the dangerous drift toward deficit thinking and the power of collective teacher efficacy to turn it around. Drawing from John Hattie’s Visible Learning research — where collective teacher efficacy ranks at an effect size of 1.57, the most influential factor on student achievement — this episode challen...

en-us

69 results

Similar Podcasts

Science Talk

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

五分钟心理学

柠檬心理

Daily Facts

Amalia Dupray and Montgomery Jones.

Les dents et dodo

BFMTV

Veterinary Clinical Podcasts

The Royal Veterinary College