Joyful math teaching with Kanchan Kant
This season on the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, we follow the theme “joyful math” and uncover its meaning. In this episode, Kanchan Kant joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss the key, early investment she makes at the start of the school year to ensure her math teaching will be joyful for herself and for her students for the rest of the year.
Meet our guest(s):
Kanchan Kant
As a math and computer science teacher at Newton North High School, Newton, MA, Kanchan has been sharing her love for math with her students for the past four years. Kanchan is instrumental in setting the culture and ethos of the mathematics department at her school in her role as the Assistant Department Head. Kanchan also leads the Math Department Grading Team and has been instrumental in making grading policies which are more equitable and bias resistant. In her new role as a Transformative Leaders of Massachusetts Fellow in collaboration with Springpoint and Barr Foundation, Kanchan looks forward to making equity and joy of learning the foundation of many more classrooms.
Meet our hosts: Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer
Bethany Lockhart Johnson is an elementary school educator and author. Prior to serving as a multiple-subject teacher, she taught theater and dance, and now loves incorporating movement and creative play into her classroom. Bethany is committed to helping students find joy in discovering their identities as mathematicians. In addition to her role as a full-time classroom teacher, Bethany is a Student Achievement Partners California Core Advocate and is active in national and local mathematics organizations. Bethany is a member of the Illustrative Mathematics Elementary Curriculum Steering Committee and serves as a consultant, creating materials to support families during distance learning.
Dan Meyer taught high school math to students who didn’t like high school math. He has advocated for better math instruction on CNN, Good Morning America, Everyday With Rachel Ray, and TED.com. He earned his doctorate from Stanford University in math education and is currently the Dean of Research at Desmos, where he explores the future of math, technology, and learning. Dan has worked with teachers internationally and in all 50 United States and was named one of Tech & Learning’s 30 Leaders of the Future.
