Amanda VanDerHeyden
@amandavande1
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Founder, Spring Math. Author, Speaker, Data-Driven Ed Policy & Leadership, Change-Maker in Schools. Hiker, Foodie, Yogi, Wanderer.
Fairhope, AL
Joined August 2015
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I have no idea who built this, but it’s genius. If anyone knows the source, I’d love to know it.
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How in the world did math instruction get so lost as to believe that we should let children wrestle around with problems that they have not been taught how to solve & somehow let them discover solutions? It runs counter to all the evidence I know about effective instruction.
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There is a very dangerous culture in education whereby adults imagine what instruction should look like according to romantic notions rather than function (I.e., what works). There is no question this culture privileges “instruction-proof” kids & is at the heart of inequity.
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I will never understand the bias against explicit instruction. It closes opportunity gaps. It accelerates learning trajectories for all students. There's actual experimental evidence across independent research groups over decades showing this effect.
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Pedagogy without evidence is just a fancy word for your opinion.
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3-yr old guest at Thanksgiving just told me 10+10 = 20 so naturally I asked if she could figure out 20+20 & she said, “it’s 40 because that’s four tens” & my Thanksgiving is complete.
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Happy to announce is live now. Join us. Let's improve full access to highly effective instruction for all students in math.
@4ScienceofMath
@EBethMH
@burnsmk1
@sarahpowellphd
@Dr_Jenny_Root
@CoreyJPeltier
@JustAskJared
@NMckevett
@BreeAnnJimenez
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It seems like a useful time to repeat that diminished returns for the screening investment are rapidly reached. Weighing a cow doesn't make it fatter. Most systems are over-assessing and under-intervening. It is also impossible to assess your way to closing opportunity gaps.
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I have some news. I’m not moving & nothing is changing professionally for me, but I have the new honor of being affiliated with Boston University. It’s consistent w my general professional approach of working w & among people you like & admire.
@DavidJChard
@springmathk8
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Is There a ‘Science of Math’ Too?
@HKorbey
makes an excellent case for why science-informed instruction for students is what students deserve.
@sarahpowellphd
@NumCog
Bravo!
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My daughter is making cookies w allulose (instead of sugar) & just said, “I think we should only change 1 variable at a time” & this might be my proudest parent moment.
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MTSS is like baking a cake. You can't pick the ingredients you like, leave others out, and expect the cake to come out right. It doesn't work that way. paraphrasing
@kimgibbons1
. Living this
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...some teachers do not understand exactly what explicit instruction is =>highly engaged learning volleys between the content, teacher, and student that set the stage for successful skill acquisition and mastery, which in turn, enables creative expression and curious exploration.
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PSA: academics refer to things as "sexy" that nearly all the rest of the world would never describe that way.
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Public school teachers, if you are not using evidence-based practice, you are engaged in unconsented experimentation w children using public dollars. It’s kind of a big deal.
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A nurse held the phone to my 94 year old great aunt's ear so I could tell her I love her yesterday. That nurse saved my number & called me back today to do it again as I'm rushing to fly to her bedside. Just a nurse, doing angel's work. I'm so grateful.
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"Fads (e.g., discovery, problem-based, and inquiry-based teaching; flipped classrooms; whole language and the 3-cuing strategy) are quick to arrive and slow to remove, even when they are shown to be ineffective (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006)." (Kovaleski, me, Runge, Zirkel).
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Do yourself a favor. Read this old but EXCELLENT treatment of instructional design in core instruction (McKee & Witt, 1990). You will love it.
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Recorded the first of a series of webinars today for
@nasponline
to equip SPs to modify screening practices this fall, use classwide intervention, & harvest data for referral & eligibility decision making.
@burnsmk1
& Drs. Tim Runge & Joe Kovaleski.
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Academic friends, it's rejection season. In case you need the reminder, 80% of what we do gets rejected the first time. Sometimes reviewers get it right, sometimes they don't. Let your curiosity save you. Do the work anyway. You are worthy and your work is worthwhile. Keep going.
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"For a logical enterprise like math, it is remarkable how romanticized notions of learning have emerged, focused on outcomes like creativity and collaboration, which are prized over mastery of the skills needed to create and collaborate effectively." me &
@CoreyJPeltier
, in press
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Cheers to new beginnings. I built Spring Math & wrote 8 books in this office.
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Words & phrases I never want to hear again: “unprecedented” and “new normal.”
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As back-to-school decisions are made, I hope we all remain aware of the fact that children cannot vote & they do not pay union dues. There is no perfectly safe or cost-free option, so I hope we seek to do the greatest good & least harm for children.
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“much of the current damage is being done by well-meaning educators who care deeply about social justice. They’ve just been misled by their training.” Phonics & word study are viewed as oppressive, when, in fact, they are liberatory.
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Yesterday my first-born learned he got a perfect score on the math section of the PSAT (he grew up on Spring Math). Today, I learn
@springmathk8
won best of show in tech & learning at ISTE 2020. I might just shed real happiness tears.
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Helping Ysseldyke write the 15th ed. of his assessment text & writing this is giving me joy this morning: Because learning is the most predictable outcome of highly effective instruction, when instruction does not produce learning, we must ask what is wrong with the instruction.
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It is almost as asinine as having children guess at words rather than learned to actually read them. Here is a concrete example of an effective way to teach procedural & conceptual understanding in concert.
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1 of 4/We need to dispel this myth that conceptual understanding has to be established before procedural knowledge building in math. It's simply incorrect.
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Do you wonder what explicit instruction looks like in math? Or what interleaving really means? Here's a 2-min video calling out some specific features of evidence-based instruction in math. This is all antecedent & driven by the science of instruction.
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I see everyone posting their BP chapters :) Here's the one that I wrote with
@CoreyJPeltier
on the Science of Math (right next to an excellent chapter on the Science of Reading written by
@DrNathanClemens
&
@burnsmk1
. I kinda love this chapter, Corey.
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You can have allegiance to your beliefs & you can have allegiance to evidence, but when these two are not in alignment, you will have to prioritize one over the other. If you prioritize evidence over dogma, you'll be more effective & a better steward of resources.
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For those of you making scheduling decisions: Daily shorter math instruction produces a + 2/3 of a year equiv in math achievement compared to block scheduling (less frequent, longer duration). Same investment in min/wk. (Zelkowski, 2010)
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Headed to PA where SpringMath is widely used & we are showing longitudinal cumulative protective benefit to students K-4. We are seeing year-end scores go UP while everyone else is worried about loss. We hear everyday about math being a joy & confidence. It's my why.
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When I work w mathematicians who are not K-12 teachers, they emphasize procedural skill fluency & the necessity of laws & algorithms in their work. When mathematicians question K-12 assertions about math proficiency (what it means& how to build it), math ed needs to pay attention
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Differentiation is really hard and can't be your entire plan for Tier 2 intervention. Why? Because it won't be effective (Cordray et al., 2012). Differentiation is overplayed as an intervention tactic.
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Today I am presenting classwide intervention w
@burnsmk1
. We’ve been doing this talk since 2005-ish. (Updated slides, of course)
#VTschoolpsycholgy
#MTSS
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Being sorted into a remedial track at grade 7 or 8 when lagging performance could have been addressed and prevented in grades 1 to 5 is a serious miscarriage of justice that causes many children to unfairly miss out on the lifetime economic benefit of mathematical proficiency.
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Assessment doesn't close opportunity gaps. Instruction does. All kids deserve instruction that builds their proficiency & success. These effects are from one of our RCTs. We have hundreds of real-life examples.
@mckennagene
@MrT_Koenig
@MrZachG
@GaleMorrisonEd
@sharemath
@greg_ashman
@cheesemonkeysf
@MrsHare
@MrDanielBuck
@amandavande1
@FightFuzzyMath
@john_seelke
@lukmanR
@ddmeyer
Yes I’ve seen it. Amazing what can be accomplished when the right people are in charge.
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Standard CBM directions typically finish w, “Do you have any questions?” This is a bad idea w kindergarten. Hands go up all around. Asking, “Does anyone have a real question?” yields little improvement. They have no questions. It’s a total rabbit hole. Trust me.
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Most common cause of intervention failure? Poor implementation. Our new checklist and action plan guide for optimal enabling implementation of SpringMath (or math MTSS generally) with resources to troubleshoot & improve use. &
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Deciding graduation week is not the week to finalize a really cool revise & resubmit. Everything can wait. I’m just gonna reflect on how fast matchbox car afternoons turned into little league turned into where we are now. Being a mom is the best work I’ve ever done.
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Take an hour and update your MTSS practices: smarter assessment, classwide intervention, & how to intensify instruction based on research.
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Today is the day each year when I cook my grandmother’s recipes, written in her own shaky hand, & fill up my house w the smells of my childhood and just quietly give thanks to the two beautiful, strong women who made me feel so loved & treasured. How I miss them.
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My friend
@ScottMethe
shared this some time back on fb & I keep coming back to this. I love the simple, powerful message.
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I don’t care if someone makes $5000 per minute, just don’t pedal junk science & change instruction in ways that every substantive scholar will tell you will HARM learning & widen opportunity gaps. Her thought leadership is not benign.
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2020-2021: when you’re asked to speak in really cool places while staying in your home office. I cannot wait to get back out there live, on long flights, under all the conditions I used to complain about. Perspective=gratitude
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On my way to
@nasponline
. Job
#1
of the schools is helping all children succeed academically. There is no equity in any other result. There is no sidestepping the role of instructional science in that outcome.
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Ed Shapiro saw new possibilities & moved the field in that direction to the benefit of US school children. Ed had empathy, but was merciless about doing what worked. Today I’m speaking about some of our work together. Here’s to you, Ed. I miss you dearly.
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At 5 pm sharp, my daughter appeared in my doorway & said it was time for me to stop working. Gonna be a long summer with this tiny, tyrannical life coach in my house. 😂
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Outrageous. Her ego is overstepping her logic & losing sight of the whole enterprise: literacy for all students. It’s beyond arrogance. It’s educational malpractice. As I recall, Goodman remained blinded by his own hubris, too, all his life. What a terrible legacy.
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Took my mom for her annual exam yesterday. Watched her fail item after item on the cognitive screening. With each item, the nurse said, "Excellent" or "Perfect." At the end, my mom was like, "In your face. I've still got it" to me & I just admire her moxy. She does still have it.
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A little secret about me: sometimes people in my field use acronyms that I have to Google.
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Welcome Dr. Tim Runge to Twitter. I’m following him for all things MTSS, writing CBM, etc. And check out this gem that just came out!
@runge64_timothy
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So I built Spring Math over 10 years because I knew teachers needed it & I couldn’t get a big publisher to do it. Today, I get to teach the how-to’s of Spring Math w educators from Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, & Laos.
@springmathk8
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The RTI Approach to Evaluating Learning Disabilities, Second Edition (The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series): 9781462550449: Kovaleski, Joseph F., VanDerHeyden, Amanda M., Runge, Timothy J., Zirkel, Perry A., Shapiro, Edward S.: Books
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Since when did skill proficiency become the enemy of creativity? That was a bold PR move on the part of those who embrace philosophy over empiricism. But why oh why does such nonsense resonate w reasonable adults?
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Want to be a great leader in education? Here’s the only rule you need to follow: If it’s not good for students, don’t do it. Too many decisions in schools are about what’s better for adults and often those decisions carry a measurable cost in your outcomes that count.
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What an AMAZING day. Stooped
@Tulane
on the way back from Seattle. Presented to faculty & students & my own Green Wave Kid showed up.
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Been asked for this a few times lately. Here you are. Use interactions that work. There is greater than 50% overlap in measured cognitive characteristics of students w SLD v. students without. Cog assessment does not benefit intervention. Direct skill assessment does.
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Here’s an idea— If you don’t answer the question, cut the mic & give his time to the opponent.
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What is happening in CA is tragic. It seems a high pain:benefit ratio for outsiders who can see the train wreck that the revised mathematics framework will bring to CA. If you care about improved math proficiency as an economic gateway for all children, please ask these leaders:
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Both little birds are out of our nest. Gonna comfort myself w work (that’s my self-care).
#tulane2026
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Another excellent piece by
@HKorbey
. We can do better in math if we follow the science of instruction and how children learn. This is our stewardship responsibility to students, families, teachers/schools, and communities.
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I care about THIS way more than I care about theory, philosophy, belief. Whereas we don’t have experimental control here so we can’t really infer causation, to double-down on the systems that got you here is bad decision-making & reckless malpractice.
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I'm kind of proud of this new slide, my effort to connect the ever-evolving effort to improve evidence-based instruction & to pay homage to the efforts of the Science of Reading community of which I am a big fan. My deepest hope is we get a Science of Math movement.
@ehanford
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I am excited to serve on a panel for
@GaabLab
's students tomorrow at Harvard. These students have asked excellent questions about LD identification.
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If you’re looking for me today, I’m on top of the world, chasing this one downhill.
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Foundation skill fluency is a vaccination against academic failure. All complex behaviors can be defined as a combination of foundation skills. When you build fluency, you enable creativity, reflection, generalization (think novel repertoires). How can anyone oppose this?
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An expression in mountain biking-- "the bike goes where the eyes go." Learning loss is real. Avoid paralysis by analysis. Take your new baseline & give all attention to intensifying the quality & dose of instruction. You will grow your students. The bike goes where the eyes go.
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writing the tech manual for SpringMath has been on my to-do list for 2 yrs. It's turned into the book on math MTSS I really wanted to write, but didn't think I had the steam for this year. Somehow it just happened. I'm thinking of titling it "The book amanda didn't mean to write"
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I needed to write a technical manual for SpringMath. Instead, Paul & I wrote the more general MTSS mathematics book I actually wanted to write that also works as our manual. My favorites are Chapter 1 and Chapter 7 (implementation science). Free download:
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I rarely write book chapters because they inevitably reduce journal submissions (for me at least). However, I am super excited to write a chapter on Academic Assessment with Drs.
@jeremymiciak1
&
@rfarmer27
for Axelrod & Hupp's book, Investigating School Psychology Pseudoscience
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This is really a thing in PA. You order a salad & it comes w fries on top. Maybe it’s a reason to persist w salads in the cold? Or sheer brilliance? I can’t tell.
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14th edition of Ysseldyke & Algozzine's seminal text in special education & school psychology. So much has changed over the years. This book will be out this fall and faculty members can have a production copy now. Table of Contents in next tweet.
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Please read. This grossly irresponsible professional behavior creates real harm to children through unhelpful policy like the CMF. I’m so grateful people are calling this out. Thank you,
@minilek
. It really is educational malpractice wielded by people w undue influence.
Many know of Brian Conrad's claims of 'citation misrepresentation' in the CA Math Framework (CMF) but don't know details. In this thread I'll describe just 1 example amongst his 31 pgs of comment (, and some of ). It's egregious. 🧵
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Research tweeps, I had forgotten how fun single subject studies are. IMO, they are more difficult to run than group studies, including RCTs. But they are more fun because each day is like opening a present and asking where do we go next?
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Data are rarely unequivocal, interpretations rarely absolute, implementation of data-informed actions even messier. But I believe we can make progress & benefit students. Kindness is always appropriate, especially when conditions are stressful.
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@saraannhart
I was going to say true of all sub specialties focusing on children. Pediatricians are lowest paid specialty for example. Childcare workers, teachers, etc.
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Me to grad student yesterday: don’t get overly hung up on your dissertation topic. A perfect dissertation is a finished dissertation. Grad student: so your dissertation was not a major study?
Me: no, I’ve made my whole career off my dissertation but I don’t think that’s the norm
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"The student is always right. He is not asleep, not unmotivated, not sick, and he can learn a great deal if we provide the right contingencies of reinforcement." Fred Keller, 1968. If I had a dollar for every time Joe Witt said this to me in the 90’s....
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We don’t do what we do for the awards, but they don’t hurt my feelings. It’s nice when awards land on tools that are helping teachers teach math better. Proud of you
#SpringMath
team.
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A teacher said yesterday that
@springmathk8
wasn't working. We said, "tell us more." She said no students had been recommended for individual intervention-- that's because ALL of her students are responding successfully to classwide intervention. I love it when that happens. :)
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Parents, teachers, math friends-- this is a easy simple fun FREE way to add practice. I just played myself to check it out. Easy to play on phone while waiting for sibling to get out of soccer practice or hundreds of other opps like that. Takes 1 min.
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Looking at gains in 2nd grade for 19-20 v. 20-21 so far & if there is a silver lining for teachers it's this: when children come in w less mastery, the gains are remarkable given high-quality instruction. Just give good instruction.
@springmathk8
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One can be a thought leader, even be considered an expert, & advance good ideas. But that does not make those people researchers. Their advice is not evidence. Opinions are not evidence. Research uses methods sufficient to advance understanding & appears in reputable journals.
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slightly off my usual topic, but those of you raising toddlers, someday the babysitters of your toddlers will like the post that you share when your grown child is admitted to college and it will move you. That someday comes fast.
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Thanks
@nasponline
for the shout-out to my article with
@burnsmk1
. Will be a career highlight for me to speak alongside two of my professional heroes: Jim Ysseldyke & Dan Reschly. I've seen their slides. Will be inspiring. Thurs. 11 am. Intl Tower, Intl Ballroom North
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Also shout out to
@EBethMH
& Robin Codding who co-authored.
@4ScienceofMath
is doing a series for the Communique. Next issue: why you need mastery measurement for MTSS decisions in math.
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