Hot Takes on Important Math Topics

Room to Grow - a Math Podcast

In this episode of Room to Grow, Joanie and Curtis share a friendly debate about which math topic is the most important for students to learn.
There are many math topics that could be argued as the most important, and we’d love to hear your hot take, too!
Take a listen to Curtis explaining why the meaning of the equals sign is crucial and Joanie arguing that proportional relationships are especially important. Then reach out to agree with one of them, or share a different topic that you find most important.

We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode:

Resources related to the meaning of the equals sign:

• Texas Instruments Building Concepts activities around the equals sign and the meaning of equations
• Marilyn Burns’ take on The Equals Sign: What it Really Means
• If you are a research-y type, you might enjoy this research article Understanding the Equals Sign as a Gateway to Algebraic Thinking or this thesis paper Making Sense of the Equal Sign in Middle School Mathematics
• George Strait song All My Exes Live in Texas 😊

Resources related to proportional relationships:

• The progressions document on Ratios and Proportional Relationships from the University of Arizona supporting how proportional relationships develop in middle school standards
• The Coherence Map from Achieve the Core showing how the concept of proportional relationships is connected to many other important math concepts
• A blog post titled Proportionality Confusion which explains how common methods for teaching about proportion often loses the big idea of proportional relationships

Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [e-mail]. Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.