We can assign a lot of verbs to AI. It drafts, generates, suggests, sorts, organizes, reformats, and summarizes. That’s a real and useful list. I use those features myself every week. Why does this matter so much? Because the research is pretty sobering. A study of preservice teachers working with ChatGPT generated problems found they did great verifying problems that were already correct. They struggled a lot more when it came to catching and fixing the errors (Kim et al., 2025). That’s the exact skill we need most. Another team studying AI and preservice teachers lesson planning concluded that "While AI tools served as scaffolds, the importance of teacher agency, pedagogical knowledge, and content alignment remained vital ( Alreiahi et al., 2025)." These results highlight the potential of AI support in teacher training programs, while also recognizing that it does not replace essential skills such as critical thinking and professional judgment. So my takeaway for coaches and leaders: don’t just train teachers to prompt. Train them to judge. The more important the instructional decision, the more human judgment matters. #MathEducation #AIinEducation #TeacherLeadership #ProfessionalDevelopment

Kids don’t catch up by sitting in remediation forever. They catch up when grade level teaching and tutoring actually talk to each other.

THIS is number sense. 👏🏾 Not: “What is 3 + 2?” But: How many different ways can you MAKE 5? When children compose and decompose numbers, they begin to understand numbers as flexible quantities instead of fixed symbols. That flexibility becomes the foundation for: ✅ addition ✅ subtraction ✅ make-10 strategies ✅ derived facts ✅ mental math Fluency grows from relationships. #NumberSense #FactFluency #MathTalk #EarlyMath #ElementaryMath #MathIsThinking #HappyMathing

Your best math manipulative this year costs zero dollars and is already sitting on the carpet. It is the kids. Count eyes by 2s. Ears by 2s. Hands by 2s. Fingers by 5s and 10s. Shoes. Pockets. Buttons. Teeth (good luck). Same standard. Same skip counting. Way more sticky. Why it sticks: 4- to 6-year-olds recall objects better when those objects were paired with a photo of themselves instead of another child (Cunningham et al., 2014, Child Development). Self-relevance changes encoding. And the body matters. Students who physically handled a spinning wheel outperformed students who only watched, with sensorimotor brain regions lighting up later during reasoning (Kontra, Lyons, Fischer & Beilock, 2015, Psychological Science). So, make the anchor chart out of THEIR faces. Skip count THEIR eyes. Graph THEIR shoes. Math stops being a worksheet about strangers and becomes a story about them. #mtbos #iteachhmath #mathchat

We have to do a lot of work with teaching how to ask great questions in general. You also teach students how to ask great questions so they don't just give each other answers but ask questions. This whole process of working with the cards is done in a group with the teacher in the beginning and for a while.

Coaching is one of the few school improvement strategies with strong causal evidence behind it. Kraft, Blazar & Hogan (2018) pulled together 60 causal studies of teacher coaching and ran the meta analysis. The pooled effects: .49 SD on instructional practice, .18 SD on student achievement. In education research those numbers are large. So if your school is doing Math Workshop, put this book in the hands of your admin team and your coaches.

Goal setting is more than motivation. It helps students become active participants in their own learning. Research on formative assessment shows that when students know the goal, track progress, and identify a next step, learning becomes visible. This Addition Tracker helps young mathematicians say: Here’s what I know. Here’s what I’m practicing. Here’s where I’m going next.Small steps. Clear goals. Growing confidence. Big math thinking. #MathFluency #GoalSetting #FormativeAssessment #ElementaryMath

Remainders are not just the leftover number. 👀 22 ÷ 5 = 4 R 2. But what is the 2? 🏀 Teams: drop it. 🚌 Buses: round up. 🍪 Cookies: keep it. 🎀 Ribbon: split it. Same division. Four answers. 70% of students divide correctly. 23% answer the question (NAEP). Context is the lesson.

Every school has a fluency story. Most didn't choose theirs — it was inherited from old workbooks, old apps, "the way it's always been." As a leader, that's the one thing you can rewrite. What's the first move? #InstructionalLeadership #MathEd #FactFluencyUnlocked

Fluency Should Feel Like Confidence, Not Pressure linkedin.com/pulse/fluency-s…

A great book can spark change. Great professional learning helps that change take root. Explore Dr. Nicki Newton’s books, workshops, webinars, book studies, and customized professional development. Read it. Learn it. Use it. Transform practice.

📚 All three books in my AI in the Math Classroom series are officially available! Whether you teach PreK–2, Grades 3–5, or Grades 6–8, discover 25 practical ways to make AI work for YOU—and strengthen math teaching and learning. Book studies available, too! Contact me to bring one to your school or district.#AIinEducation #MathEducation #EdTech #MathTeachers #TeacherPD

The myth: fluency = speed. Fast kids know their facts. Slow kids don't. Drill them until they're fast. The end.