Pam  00:01

Hey, fellow mathers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able! I'm Pam, a former... A former mimicker turned mather! I got it! I got it! 

Kim  00:15

And I'm Kim, a reasoner, who now knows how to share her thinking with others. At Math is Figure-Out-Able, we are on a mission to speak well and to improve my teaching. 

Pam  00:24

And I'm going to take a deep breath. We know that algorithms are amazing historic achievements, but they're not good teaching tools because mimicking step-by-step procedures can actually trap students into using less sophisticated reasoning, then the problems are intended to develop. I have take the biggest breath with that one.

Kim  00:46

In this podcast, we hope you teach mathing, building relationships with your students, and grappling with mathematical relationships.

Pam  00:54

We invite you to join us to make math more figure-out-able. In really long sentences that take a lot of breath.

Kim  01:00

You keep saying that! Just change it!

Pam  01:02

I mean, it's such a good sentence, though. I mentioned that to... Who did I mention that the other day, and they were like, "No, no, no, that sentence like capsulates the whole podcast. I was like, "Alright, fine. Here we go." Cool. 

Kim  01:12

Well, we're dead smack in the middle of summer for us, o you have freedom to stumble over words for a little bit. There's been a lot going on. 

Pam  01:21

I've been working out. It's not like I'm out of breath. Anyway.

Kim  01:23

(unclear). Okay, listen, I say on a regular basis that I'm super excited about we're going to talk about because I really do love the things that we talk about. We have all the words.

Pam  01:33

Which is why we're willing to do a podcast because we actually enjoy it, right? 

Kim  01:36

Yeah, for sure. It takes some time. So, I say that a lot. But, you know, I really, really think that teachers are going to love we're going to talk about today because you know, it is so helpful. Yeah, super helpful. If you have not heard of Sembl you are missing out. I'm going to share all about it today.

Pam  01:54

Yeah. Let's spell that S-E-M-B-L, Sembl. As in assemble. Yeah. 

Kim  02:01

Which is exactly what it does. Yeah.

Pam  02:02

That's exactly what it does. So, Kim, we know the creator, the CEO, the mastermind, the guy who's in charge, James. Myklebust-Hampshire. I probably just slaughtered his name.

Kim  02:15

I think you actually got it. Yeah. 

Pam  02:16

Okay. So, James. Got the James part right. 

Kim  02:19

Yeah. 

Pam  02:19

I think you met him first. I think you are the one who found James. Tell us about that.

Kim  02:23

Actually, I think he sent me a message. And I don't remember what platform. Probably Twitter. Anyway.

Pam  02:31

Pick a social media.

Kim  02:32

I do not mind sharing about this because he's kind of snarky and sarcastic, and fun. But he sent me a message, and it was really long. And, you know, we get a lot of questions. You get tons of questions, but occasionally I get some. But he asked some global questions at the time. And I, you know, gave some answers. He was asking about something that happened in his classroom and like a Problem String or something. And he asked some global questions, and I gave him some answers. And then, like almost immediately, he came right back and his questions were narrower, and deeper, and better. Like, they were so much more detailed. And I was like, "Huh."

Pam  03:12

Yeah.

Kim  03:13

"Okay. Alright."

Pam  03:14

And that intrigues you, right? (unclear).

Kim  03:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pam  03:16

Yeah, me either.

Kim  03:16

I just cocked my head to the side, like, "Okay." And so then I... You know, he was telling... I can't remember exactly what the detail was, but it was something maybe about a Problem String he had done. And what was noteworthy to me at the time was that I kind of made a tweak or a suggestion. And he was like, "Ah, of course." Like, "Yes, that's what I was missing." Like, "That hits home." And like he kind of heard what I was saying. And he like implemented. And anyway, so we just start going back and forth. And at some point, I think I said to you, like, "Hey, you should check out this James guy. I think he's really good." And I think at the time you're probably as busy as you always are. And you're like, "Okay, cool, whatever." And then I can't remember like where it went from there. (unclear). And, oh. And actually then at some point he was on leave. And so, anyway, we just kind of started to getting to know him and did some work with them. And

Pam  04:11

I remember getting on a Zoom with him and chatting with him. He has a delightful British accent. And he's super funny like you said. Snarky. I can't... Yeah, we went back and forth with some things. And then all of a sudden, we needed some help with a project. And you and I were talking, and I was like, "Huh! What about..." And I think at the same time, we both really like, "James." And so, we reached out to him, and he was able to help us with the project. It was amazing. We're super glad to have him involved. And then we've kind of gone from there. At one point, he contacted me and he said, "Hey, I have this idea." I was like, "Tell me about your idea." And he said, "I think... You know how there's like all these really good creators that have this free stuff out there." He said, "You've got Problem Strings, and As Close As It Gets, and Relational Thinking on your website that are free, anybody can download. Your MathStratChat problems are out there. You put them on there for free." He's like, "Other people have really good stuff that's out there, and as a teacher..." Because he's a teacher. He said, "As a teacher, I'm always gathering that stuff and trying to fit it together. And when would I use this? Which one doesn't belong? Or this Splat. Or this Math Flip?" Or, in fact, I think he said that he found Berkeley Everett and Math Flips. And that Berkeley...Thanks, Berkeley...turned him on to us. I think that's how he found Math is Figure-Out-Able. 

Kim  04:31

Yeah. Yeah. 

Pam  05:29

If I remember right. We love Berkeley. Nice guy. And fantastic stuff. Math Flips are amazing. And where was I? Oh, yeah. He said, so as a teacher, he's gathering all this stuff all the time. And he's like, "You know what, I wish there was a site that creators that are putting free stuff out there anyway could put their free stuff on, and so teachers could have access to all that stuff in one place. And we could just sort of assemble it together, and kind of keep track of it. And that way next year, I wouldn't have to like, where was that? And oh, the link is broken. And all this stuff. You know like, and what if it was all together? Pam, what if I created this site that could like... Would that work?" And I was like, "Dude, that sounds like an amazing idea! I think be absolutely." So, Kim, tell us what is Sembl?

Kim  06:20

I'm just going to take the words from his site, it says, "All in one place. Organized by grade level and topic, you'll be able to discover, launch, and save incredible tasks like never before. And I think he described it well. He... You know, teachers don't have near enough time to do everything they're asked to do. But, you know, we know a lot of really good teachers who see things all over the place. Like, we are bombarded with ideas. And they come from every part of social media. And friends want to share things. And you're constantly creating. And even if you're choosing really good warmups, and games, and fluency tasks, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you're kind of pulling from all over. And, you know, sometimes you'll grab one, and you're like, "Oh, is it good? I don't know. I got to try it. We'll see." And so, I think this is such a brilliant idea to assemble really good stuff. And when we say really good stuff, you know, kind of discerning about what we think is really good stuff. And I think he's made really purposeful choices. It's this is not the place where anything goes, you can find whatever you want, I think. You know, I have not explored every single thing that's out there. But I click on stuff, and I'm like, "Yep, I used that. Yep, I would use that." And I think you would say the same. And so, I think he has been quite discerning about what he wants to assemble in Sembl, and has gathered some really great people. And so, I think teachers can feel free to say, like, "I go to this place, and I can find something that fits with what I'm going to do." And we can talk later about how you do that. But you don't have to have like a full filter on. Like somebody has done some of that filtering for you. And so, I think it's fantastic. Yeah.

Pam  08:06

Yeah. So, a couple of just particulars about the site. You can get on there and see the different creators who have put on other things. Each of those, if you click on one of them, there are teacher notes. I think most of the time, there are explainer videos. I don't know that it's all the time. Kind of help you get a feel for what they are. If you join Sembl as a member... And he calls them Semblers.

Kim  08:31

Which is fun, yeah.

Pam  08:32

It's totally fun. Then they get access to what he calls a playlist hub, which is a collection of pre-made task sequences. So, Kim. 

Kim  08:40

Yeah.

Pam  08:41

If anyone's ever listened to the Math is Figure-Out-Able podcast, they know that I'm all about sequencing, Problem Strings, or sequences of problems. And then I like to sequence Problem Strings with Rich Tasks. And then sequence those into sequences of... You know like, I'm all about progressions. And that was one of the things that when he came to me, he's like, "You know, I find these things, but it was so cool if I could assemble them in a sequence, and then not have to redo that sequence." And literally not have to go, "Okay, I'm going to go to Wyborney's site today and pull up his thing. And then I'm going to go to Pam Harris's and pull up that thing. And then I'm going to go to Jenna Labs, Slow Reveal Graphs, and pull up that one." He's like, "What if we could put them all in one place where I can just run my lesson." You know, it's all right there in Sembl. And so, yeah. So, if you join, you get access to that playlist hub, which has a collection of premade task sequences, and the ability to create unlimited custom playlists, and you can also add your own own tasks. Because I'm sure someone out there is thinking right now, "Well, yeah, but I got my own stuff. And so, then, you know, I've got these things I'm I'm putting in Sembl, but then how do I put my..." Oh, you can like put your own in there, so that you have like a playlist. Like, literally it's kind of your lesson plan. You can open up that playlist, and bam, there's your lesson plan for the day. And you've assembled it in this this super cool place. 

Kim  09:56

Yeah.

Pam  09:57

One other technical thing. He also offers a Sembl schools.

Kim  10:02

Mmhm.

Pam  10:02

So, it's a collaborative space for teachers to share and organize the playlists that they have for their school, or their grade level, or their district, or whatever, and they can integrate them into whatever scope and sequence they already kind of have. 

Kim  10:15

Yeah.

Pam  10:15

So, I think that's also delightful opportunity. I think he's really on to something, and I think the only thing that really needs to happen now is for more people to hear about Sembl. I mean, ya'll, you can the free level and get a ton of access. You can join and get even more capabilities and stuff. I think if I was in a high school classroom today, I would definitely be trying to have the same kind of thing, so that I'm not... Because I am. I do like to reach for Robert Kaplinskis Open Middle, and I do like to reach, you know, for these creators really cool things and pull them together. Now, that I said that. I should say, "So far he's really got K-6 resources. But I'm sure that's only going to blow up as... I mean, he just started, and the more that this goes on. Hey, so, in fact, maybe I could just say if you are a creator, and you're saying to yourself, "Hey, how come my stuff's not on there?" It's just because he hasn't gotten to you yet. So, like by all means, reach out. I'm not even sure how to reach out. I'm sure there's a contact on the website. Yeah, so Sembl, sembl.app is where you can get to Semble. S-E-M-B,-L "dot" A-P-P. Contact him and say, "Hey, I'm a creator, and you know like, get your stuff on there. That be fantastic. I know he's looking to get... He really is all about giving teachers this opportunity to have... It's the free stuff that's out there anyway. It's just in one place. So, now you assemble it, make these playlists and stuff. And, Kim, he's got amazing creators already like (unclear).

Kim  11:47

Yeah, I was going to say tell us a few. Like, you know, we're talking about how like this is a great thing. 

Pam  11:53

Yeah.

Kim  11:53

And teachers listening, and they're like, "Okay... What's there for me?"

Pam  11:58

Exactly. Yeah. So, if you just look at the Creator list. I'll just mention a few folks that I know and I know their stuff. Robert Kaplinski's got things on their. Fawn Winn has stuff on their. Graham Fletcher. Makayla Epstein. If you're in the United States, and you haven't heard of Makayla Epstein, she's down under in Australia. Has some super cool tasks. I think she's got some really clever things. Jenna Lab and Slow Reveal Graphs. Chris Hogben. Hey, we talked about Chris Hogben last week with Number Hive. Chris Hogben on here has some of his Number Hive downloads if you wanted to have some of those. Here's a place where you can get some of his Number Hive downloads. That in itself would be worth you signing in for the free access to just be able to look at things like that. Yeah, and others. Yeah.

Kim  12:45

Well, and, Pam, I'm going to admit that there are some names on here that I'm either not familiar with at all or barely familiar with. And I'm excited about that because that means that James either knows their work or has worked with him in some way. And it opens up more for me that has already been filtered a little bit. You know like I said (unclear).

Pam  13:07

Thanks for doing the work, James. Yeah.

Kim  13:08

Yeah, for sure. Because, you know, there are so many things that we can use that I already know about. But I'm always looking for like a little bit of fresh, like a little bit of new, so that, you know, we can change things up in small ways. And so, I'm excited about some of the things that I'm seeing that I don't know as well.

Pam  13:25

And maybe I'll mention also if you don't join the paid version, you can still make favorites, and so there's still lots of great ways for you to be able to find the ones that you've already tagged. I'm super excited about the opportunity to make a playlist for me when I go into a workshop. I can have a playlist already ready to go for that particular workshop. For a different workshop, I can create playlists already ready with things like Math Flips from Berkeley Everett. So, where he's got the actual Math Flips in there. Steve Wyborney's got Splat examples in there. I'm trying to think what else I've... Yeah, go ahead.

Kim  14:01

I'm going to interrupt and say that I see a Pam Harris picture in here, and, you know, what's really cool is when you click on your Creator playlist, and you scroll down, there are... I don't know. Like 10 or so different Problem Strings that you can click on a particular Problem String, and there is a download that has a string, and questions, and facilitation notes, and the sample final display. So, people are like, "Hey, how do we get more of those?" In Sembl, there are...

Pam  14:33

Check out Sembl, yeah.

Kim  14:34

...(unclear) free things that you can access. And I also want to say, you know...

Pam  14:38

Before you leave that, let me mention. As soon as we can breathe, we're going to put some more Problem Strings So, that's coming with some more resources. Sorry, for interrupting. in Sembl.

Kim  14:44

Yeah. (unclear). No, that's okay. And, you know, listen, we we have done some episodes in the last couple months about things that we love. And, you know, I'll speak for myself. I don't actually know. I don't think you do. Like, we're sharing things that we love not because there's any kind of like kickback, or affiliation, or whatever. Like we...

Pam  15:04

Oh, yeah.

Kim  15:04

...love these things so much. And if we were in a day to day classroom, we would be using these things on a regular basis. And so, please don't hear this as like, you know, "Oh, you should go to them, like, because they asked us to, or we're friends them."

Pam  15:18

Yeah, they didn't. Yeah.

Kim  15:19

No, it's good stuff. (unclear).

Pam  15:20

In fact, when we were planning for today, Kim and I were like, "Hey, we probably should tell these guys that we're going to talk about their stuff." Like, a couple weeks ago, we did... What was the (unclear) Stick and Split, I think. And then we did Number Hive. And now we're...

Kim  15:35

Surprise!

Pam  15:38

I think that was a couple of months ago that we did those two games. And now we're doing Sembl. And so, yeah, you know, we'll probably tell them when we do it (unclear).

Kim  15:43

(unclear) high quality resources, and everybody needs to know about them. So, yeah. And what's really cool is, you know, I absolutely think that they're worth the purchase. And, you know, you can support somebody who's creating great stuff. But there are also some free things that they have, you know, to, access and get you in. And anyway (unclear).

Pam  16:05

And, teachers, tell your leaders, the Sembl school option is a fantastic. It's really affordable for a school to get in on it. And then you can have common playlists with your colleagues at your grade level. You can have common playlists between schools. There's lots of really nice collaborative opportunities available that I...

Kim  16:29

Yeah.

Pam  16:29

Man, if I was in a classroom right now, I would be really pushing for that school option, so that we could collaborate together and also kind of know what each other are doing. For example, if I'm doing a third grade thing, I might want fourth grade to know we did that this year, so they don't do the exact same one next year, right? This is a great opportunity for people to be able to collaborate across grade levels. But it's also... You might be like, "I'm a singleton here. Like, help me." It's also a great opportunity for a teacher, no matter where you are in the world, to have access to a lot of amazing things from these amazing creators out there all in one place where instead of trying to look out all over everybody's different website, bam, you can A, find their stuff here. Like, Kim said, find new people, things that you hadn't ever seen before. In fact, I'll just mention one new person. Kim, when we were looking at this, you mentioned that you looked at these "If, Then" tasks (unclear)

Kim  17:26

Oh, yeah Those are James's. Yeah. 

Pam  17:28

And there, James! And so, if you've never heard of James, then you can check out some of the tasks that he's created. Clever, guy. He's created some good stuff. So, yeah. We're going to recommend it for the sake of just helping everybody have a resource that is super helpful. 

Kim  17:42

Yeah, there you go. So, one place to get a ton of stuff from a lot of amazing creators. Thank you, James, for your contribution to bettering math education all over the world.

Pam  17:53

So, y'all check out sembl.app. And thank you for tuning in and teaching more and more real math. To find out more about the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement, visit mathisfigureoutable.com And keep spreading the word that Math is Figure-Out-Able!