Utah elementary math teachers, your voices matter!

A few more participants are needed for a doctoral study exploring teachers’ experiences with AI and differentiated math instruction. It takes about an hour, and your perspective is key to understanding how teachers use AI in real classrooms. To participate, you'll need to share a copy of your conversation with AI with the researcher.

Learn more here: https://qualtricsxm5cxrlb95j.qualtrics.com/.../SV....

Please share!

I’m a 1st-year Computer Engineering undergrad, and I’ve been teaching/tutoring high school math (Grades 9–12) for about 4 years now.

Because of my engineering and JEE-prep background, I hate teaching math as isolated formulas just to pass exams. Whenever I teach a concept, I try to show why it matters—connecting high school math to AI, machine learning, finance, and everyday local examples.

I also teach math as one giant interconnected web rather than separate chapters. For example, when I teach Functions to 10th graders, I don't just stick to the textbook chapter. I build it from the ground up (Sets → Ordered Pairs → Relations → Functions) and use it as a bridge to connect Linear Programming, Trigonometry, Transformations, Quadratics, Vectors, and Coordinate Geometry.

The good news: My students' grades have improved significantly since studying with me.

My worry: Sometimes I feel like I’m putting too much cognitive pressure on them by going this deep. Whenever I ask for feedback after tests, they just say, "I’ve never been taught like this before," which sounds nice, but I worry they're just being too polite to tell me it's overwhelming.

My questions for experienced teachers:

How do you balance teaching deep, interconnected, real-world math while still keeping things simple enough for students who just want a good GPA?

How can I tell when a "deep dive" is genuinely helping vs. causing cognitive overload—especially when students are too polite to give critical feedback?