EE math specialist discusses new "Eureka Math-Squared" program on national podcast

Elbridge Elementary’s math specialist Bev Karsteter shared her perspective on the “Eureka Math-Squared” curriculum on a recent episode of the podcast “Centering the Pendulum” with Bill Davidson. The podcast focuses on education, educators, and teaching practices.

“It is a great resource for teachers, so I receive Bill’s emails, but I didn’t think he would actually interview me,” said Karsteter, about her surprise that she was chosen to be on the show.

Eureka Math-Squared is the newest version of a math curriculum that EE teachers were already using. The difference, Karsteter explained, is that in the new version being implemented this year, everything is simplified. The math prompts are student-friendly, with more readable fonts, better age-appropriate questions, and a lot of visuals. Plus, there's an online portal that lays out all available lesson plans.

“You can see every single lesson from every single grade level online, so I can click into any grade level lesson so easily, and when a teacher says, ‘I need help with this lesson’ I can jump right in,” said Karsteter.

This also helps teachers more easily collaborate between classrooms. The way math lessons are presented with “Eureka Math-Squared,” Karsteter said the questions are also more accessible, and less language-based. The way questions are presented to students helps them to
understand that everyone thinks and learns in a different way.

“Some lessons come with videos, and I like to ask kids, ‘What do you notice, and what do you wonder?’ so they start thinking about what topic that prompt is going for,” added Karsteter.

If you’d like to learn more about “Eureka Math-Squared” and how it has been implemented at EE, you can listen to Karsteter’s conversation with Bill Davidson by following this link.