080 | Recovering Traditionalist: Building Our Own Math Minds First with Christina Tondevold | October 14, 2026

<p>A straight-A math teacher who couldn&#39;t figure the tip, a phrase from a Boise State professor, and why the procedure will always be there to fall back on. Christina Tondevold of Build Math Minds joins Pam.</p><p><strong>Full description:</strong></p><p>Christina Tondevold, founder of Build Math Minds and the Virtual Math Summit, calls herself a recovering traditionalist. She got straight A&#39;s in math by following the rules, became a math teacher, and taught the way she was taught, until a master&#39;s program at Boise State opened her eyes to mathematics that actually makes sense. In this conversation, Christina and Pam talk about why traditional teaching can look like it&#39;s working in the moment, why sense-making and reasoning matter even more in the age of AI and calculators, how she built online PD for teachers, and why the procedure will always be there to fall back on, so it&#39;s worth trying something new first.</p><p><strong>Key takeaways:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Traditional teaching can create the illusion of learning: students reproduce answers in the moment and lose them months later.</p></li><li><p>We build our own math minds first, so we can build the math minds of our students.</p></li><li><p>Calculators and AI can follow steps. Students need sense-making and reasoning to know whether an answer is right.</p></li><li><p>The procedure will always be there as a fallback, so it&#39;s worth opening a problem up first and seeing what students do.</p></li><li><p>Strategies like make a ten are meant for students to make sense of, and they lose their power when taught as step-by-step algorithms.</p></li><li><p>Every teacher has something to share, and the math ed community grows when we share what we&#39;re learning.</p></li></ul><p><strong>Notable quotes:</strong></p><p>&quot;It worked to get me through school, but did it work to help me in my life?&quot;</p><p>&quot;We build our math minds so we can build the math minds of students.&quot;</p><p>&quot;You haven&#39;t failed until you stop.&quot;</p><p><strong>Guest bio:</strong></p><p>Christina Tondevold is a Recovering Traditionalist. She previously taught mathematics traditionally and expected the students to parrot back what she taught them. Now she gets to work with teachers in developing students’ mathematical understandings in a balanced way by developing conceptual understanding while working on procedural fluency through her site BuildMathMinds.com where you can get PD at Your Fing