#328 – The Psychology of Math Anxiety and Strategies for Overcoming It, with Dr. Aditya Nagrath

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 0:00
Almost half of first and second graders already report having mathematics anxiety. Well, empowerment is kind of overcoming that anxiety. It boils down to believing in the student and saying to them out loud that you believe in the student. The second part of the strategy is you have to meet them at their level of understanding.

Paul Beckermann 0:18
The topic for today’s podcast is The Psychology of Math Anxiety and Strategies for Overcoming It, with Dr. Aditya Nagrath. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:39
Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:51
I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:52
And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:56
And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music 1:00
Education is our passport to the future.

Paul Beckermann 1:05
Our quote for today is from our guest’s book, “Treating Mathematics Anxiety: Inclusive Strategies for Working with Students Exhibiting Mathematics Anxiety.” And in the dedication section of the book, Dr. Aditya Negrath writes, “Remember, the universe speaks in the language of mathematics; it is a language we can all learn.”

Rena Clark 1:26
I love the idea of thinking about math as a language. We all engage in language acquisition throughout our lives, spoken language, written communication, body language. which we’re constantly learning. So I like the idea of positioning math as just another type of language. It can be learned and understood with practice. And it’s really a tool. And with many tools, you know, we have to use them and practice them to get better at them. And when we normalize that, I feel like, especially with math, kind of debunk that whole “math is hard.” I think that could help us with our anxiety, but I’m I’m really looking forward to our conversation to learn more about this entire topic, especially as I have some kiddos at home that have some math anxiety. So this will be great.

Paul Beckermann 2:15
Yeah, I love that idea of it being a language, as well. And it’s kind of a universal language, in a sense, because it seems to transcend societies, cultures, ages. I mean, no matter where you go in the world, there’s mathematics. I think, like any language, perhaps the younger we learn it, the better. So I’m interested in hearing about this conversation, as well. And with that, our guest for today is the author of the quote that we mentioned earlier, Dr. Aditya Nagrath. Aditya has a PhD in mathematics and computer science, and is the founder and CEO of Elephant Learning. He’s also the author of the book that we mentioned earlier,Ttreating Mathematics Anxiety. So, welcome, Aditya.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 2:56
Hi. Thank you for having me.

Paul Beckermann 2:58
We’re glad to have you here today, and we’re wondering if you could just take a minute and tell us a little bit more about yourself, maybe than what I had in that short little blurb at the beginning.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 3:07
Sure. Like you said, I got a PhD in math and computer science, but I spent maybe 30-40, years as a software engineer. So I’ve done software projects for companies like Lucent, Pearson, Verizon, Oracle, JD Edwards, just kind of all over the place, all sorts of different backgrounds, including atomic clocks, iOS apps, Android apps, websites, backend systems, etc, etc, etc. So kind of a engineering and math background.

Paul Beckermann 3:42
Cool.

Rena Clark 3:43
So I’m really excited to talk to you more about this idea of empowering children with mathematics, and I know you write about that and that being a mission in your book. So can you talk a little bit about why is that so important to you, and why did you think about writing about that?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 4:01
Well, so like, the mission of Elephant Learning, when we found it, it was to empower children with mathematics, and the idea was if the student is able to understand the language of mathematics, then that is empowerment. So like for multiplication, it would be, I’m able to see a problem in the real world or a word problem, and I’m able to identify multiplication as the solution, and I’m able to identify the numbers that I’m supposed to multiply in order to get the solution. So like if they are using mathematics as a language, they’re using it as a tool, which itself is empowering. But on top of that, almost half of first and second graders already report having mathematics anxiety, which is because of this lack of understanding. Wherever there is a lack of understanding, there’s some sort of anxiety lurking. And so, like the second half of it became empowerment is kind of overcoming that anxiety. And so like half of it is, “Can we give you that understanding?” But the other half of it is, “Can we motivate you to understand?”

Paul Beckermann 5:06
And you mentioned when you were talking about that Elephant Learning. So let’s talk a little bit about that. What is Elephant Learning? I understand it’s a platform that you created. Could you just tell us some more about that?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 5:18
Yeah, sure. So Elephant Learning is a math academy for children. The way the curriculum is delivered is via gamification. So to the student, it feels like a puzzle game, but in actuality, what the students are receiving are the activities that the early age education researchers have already found to be effective at teaching these ideas as a language. And basically, we combine that with adaptive algorithms in order to basically help students understand because what we found out was that four out of five students start kindergarten unprepared for the kindergarten curriculum. And that gap actually exacerbates over time, so it becomes worse. And so like, in certain neighborhoods across the country, you have children that are three years behind their funded peers, meaning that they could be in third grade learning how to multiply, but their understanding of numbers rivals a kindergartner, and so that’s an impossible situation for both the teacher and the student, and the goal was was, could we just fill the language gap? We might not be able to give them all the curriculum, but if we could get that student to just participate in the third grade classroom, well then, in some sense, they’re recovered.

Paul Beckermann 6:30
So, I’m curious. If a student sits down at Elephant Learning, what are they experiencing? What does that look like to them on the screen? How are they interacting with this?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 6:40
So they choose a character, and then, basically, initially there’s a placement exam. So it starts really easy, and it gets harder, so it feels, again, like a puzzle game. The way to think about is like Angry Birds, right? We’re not trying to trick them with “Oh yeah, you got to do the magic trick, and you got to answer the math question quickly to win.” What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to make mathematics itself the game. So they might be receiving a puzzle for addition that looks like, give me five things. Give me four more things. How many things do I have? Which is like some parents play with their children in the grocery store. We combine that with the adaptive algorithm so that we’re always kind of progressing them along. So there’s “Give Me More,” there’s “Takeaway,” there’s “We Do It on the Line.” We might throw in some algebra by saying, “I’m thinking of a number. Call it x. If you add three to x, you get seven. What was my number?” So they’re looking at it from different angles. They’re trying it from different ways. It’s just these hoops that they have to jump through to get to the next strategy, which they’re discovering on their own. So now, when they get to the classroom and the teacher’s talking about a certain topic, whether it be common core, whether it be Singapore math, or whether it be Montessori, the student’s going to have experience, hands-on experience, with the problem that they were speaking about in the past. And if the teacher is using it in the classroom, they actually have a common language, right? Because when you see five plus four on the board, give me five things, give me four more things. How many do I have now? That’s what’s happening.

Rena Clark 8:15
So it sounds like maybe building some different representations and understanding. I’d be curious, just like with mathematics, we want to build both their conceptual understanding and their procedural understanding. And sometimes, as you said earlier, we might have some gap there happening in the grade levels. How are we filling in maybe some of those concepts, or those on-ramping of language so they can have access to that grade level mathematics, because I think that can lead to anxiety. Having worked a lot with mathematics, knowing kids come in at fifth grade and they feel like they can’t do a problem because they don’t have that background information, so how do we provide them access into that math that their teacher is doing. So I’m curious. I think that might be one of the reasons that kids have a little bit of math anxiety. But I’d be curious about what you think might cause some of the math anxiety that you talk about.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 9:14
So like, what we talk about in the book is we’re trying to add meaning to the events in our life. And so for mathematics or like any endeavors, like if they’re trying to learn basketball, if they’re trying to do public speaking, whatever it is, what we find is that the meaning underneath that the student is assigning is either “I can do it” or “I can’t do it.” But they’re not going to express that aloud. Everything they express aloud after that is some sort of a justification for why they can or they cannot. And so, the real challenge when it comes to mathematics or reading is that, yeah, you need to do that in order to be a functional human being, whereas with basketball or say, piano, I could choose a different thing, right? Like, maybe you’re into violin or you’re into soccer. I don’t know, but here they kind of got to do it. So, it becomes really important that the coach keep them on the “I can” side of the of the spectrum. And there’s a lot of strategies that we talk about in our book on how to do that.

Rena Clark 10:16
So could you just maybe give us a few of those strategies that maybe our listeners could take or maybe learn more about?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 10:24
Yeah. So the overarching strategy is like, kind of what the other strategies are dependent on. One, it boils down to believing in the student and saying to them out loud that you believe in the student. Because if you can do that, then two things happen. First, you’ve made a commitment to them. But second, they’ve also kind of implicitly made a commitment to you, because as long as they’re staying with you, they’re buying into this context that they can do it. The second part of the strategy is you have to meet them at their level of understanding because if you meet them above their level of understanding, then you’re just giving them more evidence that you can’t do it, even though you’re saying out loud, I believe you can do it. So, basically, these two overarching strategies are kind of the main thing. The rest of the strategies were kind of built to bake into that, meaning that if you’re not running those two strategies, and you run one of these tactics, maybe it doesn’t turn out right. It’s not within these contexts.

Rena Clark 11:21
I agree with you. It’s that belief. And then, I can’t say I believe in you, but then how do I provide those on-ramps and opportunities so that I can show you that you are going to be successful and able to engage. That is very helpful.

Paul Beckermann 11:39
I’m curious about something else that you wrote in your book. You talk about the Drama Triangle, or Deconstructing the Drama Triangle. That’s such an intriguing title for a topic. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 11:39
Yeah, so the Drama Triangle is basically like what you find in literature class, but in coaching and therapy communities, they’re going to talk about it, because what ends up happening is that whenever you have three human beings, it’s two against one in some way. And so, when this two against one thing happens, there’s like some ownership of emotions that ends up happening. So typically what it is is a victim is somehow antagonizing a villain. And that antagonization causes some sort of a reaction, which then the hero looks at and says, “Yeah, no, you’re a bad guy. Why are you doing this?” So, there’s this alienation that happens. And the problem is, is that, like, sometimes this occurs when there’s not a human being in the villain position. Sometimes it occurs when there’s an idea in the villain’s position. So for example, you might be on Facebook and some guy is like, well, capitalism is the problem. And it’s like, okay, if you’re not moving, then what are you gonna do? This is the reality you live in. But so long as this thing is the villain, that person is not able to see what it is that they can change to alter their situation. Now, the way this applies to mathematics anxiety is if math is sitting there in some way, if math is the bad guy, well, there’s no one to stand up for it. And so then you kind of got a cohort that’s against math, and sometimes it’s subtle and it’s effective because the student is learning. But it might sound like, “Hey, we both hate math, but we’re going to work on this together.” But in a sense, we’re villainizing math, and so, this kind of contributes to the belief system that’s causing the anxiety. So

Paul Beckermann 12:06
So, how do you flip that? How do you how do you make math so it’s not the villain, so you don’t have this drama triangle going on?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 13:42
So that takes the coach to realize this thing is forming. The most common scenario is if you’re a teacher or you’re a parent, and you’re trying to coach the student with mathematics, you’re going to try to end up in the hero position, because the student’s most commonly going to be the victim. And basically, you have to use the main strategy, which is to believe in the students. You say, I believe that you can do this. I believe that math is not the bad guy. And I don’t believe that you’re going to be the victim in this scenario. So, this belief thing, it ends up kind of working to destroy the Drama Triangle, even in all the positions. So, the book talks about, in each position, what could you be doing to not be in Drama Triangle?

Paul Beckermann 14:30
So it’s like if you believe in the student, it’s like the kryptonite. It’s like the superhero secret formula to kind of break down that drama, huh?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 14:41
That’s what it is, yeah.

Rena Clark 14:43
So I’ve heard so many parents are like, “I believe you can do it, but I’m I’m bad at math, too.” It’s like they kind of villainize. So I’m just curious if there are any particular strategies to get out of this triangle that parents might use to help, even with their own children or with students, to help with math anxiety?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 15:06
Yeah, mainly believing So, like each position, it becomes belief. So in hero position, if you believe both in the villain and victim, then they have to go work it out. And if you’re in the villain position, you have to believe in the victim. You have to say, Hey, I believe they can do it. Because, guess what? The hero is going to align with you at this point, because they can’t be the hero and say, well, I don’t believe they can do it. Then they’re not the good guy anymore. So they come over to your side. In the victim position, it’s a little bit different, because you have to realize where you have power, right? You have to get to a place where you have choice, you have power. And so it becomes a recognizing of that, but it becomes a believing in yourself. I believe in: “I can do something in this situation. I’m not necessarily a victim.”

Paul Beckermann 15:55
So, we have a lot of educators listening. I’m wondering what advice you would give to teachers out there who are working with students in math anxiety. You know, one or two things that you would just say, “Here. Consider this if you’re working with these students.”

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 16:11
Sure. So one of the main things that we talk about in the book is the basketball analogy. Basketball and mathematics are similar in the idea that anyone can look and see did the ball go in the hoop? But then, looking at where they’re the same and different actually becomes very useful from a coaching perspective. For example, the shot percentage. The percentage of making it is actually pretty low in basketball. To be a good player, if you’re doing 80%, you’re extremely good. Like, you’re really, really good, right? And, in the book, we have a chart. Here’s the percentage of making it in the NBA by distance. The idea is that if we were playing basketball and the ball didn’t go in the hoop, it’s not that big of a deal. But for some reason, when it comes to mathematics, we make it get a bigger deal. What it kind of boils down to is this idea of “wrong.” So, I answered “wrong.” One of the tactics we talk about, which you could see because of the basketball analogy, is this disambiguation. “Wrong” has this moral component to it that doesn’t really apply to mathematics, right? It also has this factual component to it, which does apply. And so instead of using the language of yeah, you answered that right or wrong, it’s “You answered that correct or incorrect,” because that “incorrect” doesn’t have that moral component. It’s the ball didn’t go in the hoop. It’s not that big of a deal. So this disambiguation can help separate this moral component, this wrongness that might be felt when you answer incorrectly. And then, at the same time, using this analogy, it becomes a way to realize that maybe the ball is not going to go in every time, but the good news is, is that when it comes to mathematics, every time the ball doesn’t go in the hoop, there’s a learning opportunity.

Rena Clark 18:12
I really appreciate you saying that. I love that idea of taking out the moral part of that, incorrect versus wrong. But I had the opportunity…As you all know, we had this little thing where some students were out for a little while learning because of COVID, and so when kids came back, there were some mindsets, but I had a few teachers saying, “My kids can’t do this because they’ve missed this.” So, there are some interesting things happening, and we don’t have to get into all that, but it was really interesting when we really had a deep discussion. At the root of this was the idea that in order for students to engage in the mathematics, they had to reach mastery of concepts. And that’s faulty. We kind of talked about things will spiral. They’ll come back to it. They’ll have multiple opportunities throughout the year, because their strengths, in some of what they are doing. Also the idea of what you said–it’s not just right or wrong. There’s correct and incorrect, but even in incorrect answers, and we analyze student work and data, there are strengths. Instead of looking at that, it’s like, what are they doing well, and what are they on the verge of doing? And how can we support them in that and help them so they can access things? And it really shifted mindsets. And then, when we looked at standards and looked at what did they actually need to be able to know and do so they can access these standards, there was a lot of a-has! because we realized students were way more capable than they were giving them credit to, and also knowing, even in their own experiences, they had learned math a different way than they were attempting to teach it. So there are so many layers of this idea of anxiety and talking with a lot of teachers, especially elementary, who maybe had anxiety themselves in mathematics growing up, and now they’re teaching mathematics.

Paul Beckermann 20:04
And there’s layers of that basketball analogy, too. Because, okay, the shot didn’t go in this time, but you dribbled the ball really well. You approached the basket really well. You just didn’t quite follow through at the end, you know, to get it into the hoop, and by breaking that down like that, I love that analogy, because then you can pinpoint the aspect that maybe we need to work on together, and then, because it is math, you can see statistically if you’re getting better or not. So that’s a good thing.

Rena Clark 20:34
Or maybe I can make the free throws, but I actually need to learn how to dribble so that I can dribble in a different situation. So it’s very interesting.

Paul Beckermann 20:42
All right, lots to chew on there. Let’s, let’s hop into our toolkit. Rena.

Transition Music 20:46
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Rena Clark 20:57
All right, so it’s time to go into our toolkit, and actually, I’ll start us out today. There’s so many different ideas, and I appreciate this conversation. One of the tools I know that I find extraordinarily useful, whether you’re teaching, a parent, it’s just even looking at the coherence map. And it does depend what kind of standards you might be using in your state, but I do find, if you’re using Common Core, the Coherence Map. Map from Achieve the Core is really helpful because you can dig into whatever standard you’re looking at, and it will actually map it and connect it to standards from previous grades or previous standards and standards going forward. So, you can kind of see what might I need to know from before? Where might this go? So it can help me find those on ramps and access points. And I find it very helpful.

Paul Beckermann 21:47
Awesome.

Rena Clark 21:48
How about you?

Paul Beckermann 21:50
Well, I’m thinking about filling in those gaps in that basketball analogy. If we can find as many ways as possible to give our students assets that they can use to patch in some of those things, kind of to fight off that villain attitude, you know, maybe it’s Elephant Learning. Maybe it’s a Flip Video Collection. Maybe it’s Khan Academy, but something that you can use to differentiate to the need of the student, and not just a one-size-fits-all recipe. Aditya, do you have anything that you’d like to drop in our toolkit today?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 22:25
Yeah. To follow up on what you were saying about health and learning, one of the things that we do for teachers is that we offer the conceptual math training at the level of the student. So if you have the third grade teacher who’s working with the student, who’s at the kindergarten level, that teacher training is maybe something they wouldn’t normally get if they went out there looking for professional development, but we’re putting it in there so that we can help that student catch up. And so, I just wanted to add that in there.

Paul Beckermann 22:55
I’m curious. If somebody is interested in learning more about Elephant Learning, how do they get more information?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 23:02
Sure. If you just go to ElephantLearning.com, and if you’re a teacher, click on the classrooms link. From there, you’re gonna find out almost everything that you might ever want to know.

Rena Clark 23:13
All right.

Paul Beckermann 23:14
All right. Well, we’ll go from everything you ever wanted to know to our one thing.

Transition Music 23:18
It’s time for that one thing. One thing. One thing. Time for that one thing. It’s that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 23:31
All right, one thing time, Rena. What’s your final thought for the day?

Rena Clark 23:36
Let’s see. I really just like the shift in not just thinking about our words. Well, we started with language, we might as well end with language. So I think that simple shift of changing our language. I love the point, instead of right or wrong, correct, incorrect, and taking out that moral value, and that’s something we can just practice and ensure that we use.

Paul Beckermann 24:00
That’s really key, isn’t it, because I was a speech teacher, and you had to help the students understand that their performance on their speech was not the equivalent of their value as a person. It was a performance. Like, okay, if I get a B on the speech, I’m not a B. You know, that’s just where I am performance-wise. To me, that’s that moral piece a little bit. It’s like evaluating who they are as a person. But my one thing is that “I can” mindset. I really like that. I think it’s a simple strategy. It just encompasses everything else that we do. So, I would say if you need one takeaway from today’s episode, help students know that they can and then sincerely believe in them. All right, Aditya, what’s your one thing today? Your final thought?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 24:51
You stole my one thing. What happens is that, very subtly in the language, when you believe, the language is different. When you don’t believe, the language is different. I kind of see it happening, say, with my kid, and, maybe my mom, for example. She came over the other day and she’s saying something. It’s like, but you’re communicating that he can’t do it, even though he’s showing you that he’s doing it, which is why I’m just observing, figuring out where is the level where he actually needs help. It’s hard for someone to see when they’re in it, but if you’re kind of outside of it, looking at it, you can see that the language changes quite a bit when you believe the student can do it. So that’s why saying it aloud is very helpful because if I’m saying it aloud, I’m making that commitment. The one thing is believe, but say it out loud to your student, because once you’ve committed to it, then your language comes along for the ride.

Paul Beckermann 25:47
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being with us today, Aditya.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath 25:51
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys.

Rena Clark 25:54
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 25:57
We invite you to visit us at AvidOpenAccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 26:12
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 26:17
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 26:20
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 26:22
You make a difference.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai