September 29, 2015

Welcome fall (or spring, depending on your hemisphere)!

Edited By Brian Bushart @bstockus

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Today at Global Math

Today at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific, Bob Janes guides us in a session about math and music. There are many strong connections between mathematics and music that can be adapted to fit classrooms from middle school through secondary education. In this talk, we will focus on three key aspects. First, we will look at sound as a sine wave and discuss how complex sounds are created through function addition. Next, we will discuss how various musical scales possess both rational and irrational qualities. Finally, we will explore how composers can use translations to create variations on a theme. Throughout the talk, we will link all of these topics back to Common Core Standards and do a little bit of math along the way. If you teach within a music, arts, or physics themed environment; want a new angle to approach concepts; need an independent study for a particular student; or just like music and math then this is for you!

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Last week (Tuesday, September 22, 9 PM EDT), Matt Coaty presented the session Open House/Back To School Night.

Check out the recording here.

So Long, September

Colour Me Mathy

Maybe because it’s fall, which is such a colourful time of year, this week I purchased a grown-up colouring book, (that’s right, with a u). I am completely taken up with the calming effect of colouring, and as a bonus, there’s also a lot of math in it! As a result, here’s where Twitter led me this week, to mathy things that are also colourful. First, thanks to Tim Harford’s (@TimHarford) tweet, I found out that Alex Bellos has actually made a math-themed colouring book. Cool. Then thanks to Steve Phelps’ (@giohio) tweet, I saw this post by Stephen Von Worley about dancing factors, which includes this Factor Conga link. Just beautiful, and a mind-blowing way to communicate what prime numbers are. Finally, I read Fawn Nguyen’s (@fawnpnguyen – like you didn’t already know!) post about giving feedback using different coloured highlighter pens – oh man am I ever going to try that. More colouring yay!

written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)

Conceptual Understanding in Mathematics

I’m starting to feel that conceptual understanding in mathematics is becoming more like differentiation. You know how people talk about differentiation but never really do it? Or how when asked about differentiation, they have great ideas with very limited follow through? With the implementation of the Common Core standards, one would expect teachers to make the shift to developing students’ understanding of the concepts. One big hindrance I’ve seen is teachers’ own lack of conceptual understanding. It’s definitely one thing I’m facing as I work to support teachers at school. Seeing @ED_realist recent post gives me a clearer picture of my level of conceptual understanding. This post showed me at what level of mathematics my conceptual understanding stops. The conversations his Algebra 2 students had, I could have easily shied away from because I don’t know the whys behind the mathematics. Linked within his post is Grant Wiggins’ post about conceptual understanding. Wiggins’ perspective gives insight to the importance of conceptual understanding at the primary level. Provided with a solid definition, examples and a test, any teacher could assess their knowledge of why. If you find yourself lacking as I did, take action. There are many resources out there which can help teachers build their own understanding. Some of my favorites are Van de Walle, Nzmaths and Georgia Frameworks.

written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

Meatball Surgery

Joe Schwartz posted a typically thoughtful reflection on a recent lesson that he improved through the power of Meatball Surgery. It’s a great example of taking a boring math lesson and improving it through a series of common pedagogical moves such as delaying the question and building student understanding.

But Joe ends the reflection on a relatively pessimistic note. He compares the dry, tedious curriculum with the dynamic classroom he just experienced and steps back to think about how much effort was required to turn that single math lesson into a powerful experience for his students. And that is a lesson that will be taught one time, to one group of elementary students, each year. Elementary teachers have such a burden placed upon them. They never get to try the same lesson twice. If they want to iterate and improve their lessons, they have to wait until the next school year. How can they find the time to meaningfully alter every one of their math lessons to suit their students? And shouldn’t the curriculum itself be a better representation of best practices, so that the teacher doesn’t have to reinvent their lessons each day? Hop into the comments on Joe’s post to debate and discuss.

written by Kent Haines (@MrAKHaines)

If you want more math resources be sure to check out Global Math’s Project Page

Global Math Department Needs Your Help!

The Global Math Department is looking for individuals who are interested in planning the Tuesday night webinars hosted on Big Marker. GMD bookers contact potential speakers regarding speaking opportunities, and provide them with details on planning sessions. If you are interested in being more involved with the Global Math Department, contact Heather at heather.m.kohn@gmail.com or Dylan at dkane47@gmail.com.

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September 22, 2015

What are your goals for the year?

Edited By Ashli Black @mythagon

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Today at Global Math

Today at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific, join us to take a look at different ideas and structures to help make Back to School Night a memorable and great experience for your parents!

Click here to join the conference.

Last week (Tuesday, September 15, 9 PM EDT), Jennifer Bogie and others presented the session Warm-ups: What are they good for?

Check out the recording here.

Great Blogging Action

Back to School Night and more…

What is a math teacher to do when faced with a room full of parents waiting to hear how you are going to make their children mathematical experts?

Give them a positive math message! But how do you do that? Besides going to tonight’s awesome Global Math Department meeting about Back to School Night, the illustrious Fawn Nguyen has shared with us all of her Back to School Night slides. What stands out to me is that she doesn’t just talk about what routines and math the students will be doing, she shows them. In my opinion, the best way to give someone a positive message about math is to allow them have a personally positive experience with math. Her slides can be a guide for how to get started.

What’s more important than getting to know the parents of the students in your class?

The students.

michelle full house duh.gif

Sam Shah has shared with us the survey he gives to his students as their first “homework” assignment. As the homework debate rages on, Sam shows us how homework can be truly valuable to both the students and the teacher!

written by Andrew Gael (@bkdidact)

GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALS!

It’s great to have goals for the school year. In Joe Schwartz’ recent blog post, Can I Get Some Feedback With That Pie?, I realized that Joe and I have extremely similar goals.

My goal: learn more about K-5 math happenings to make stronger connections in 6-8.

Joe’s goal: make better connections with his ILA teachers.

My goal: work at providing students/teachers with feedback that keeps the learning move forward. Inspired by Robert Q. Berry.

Joe’s goal: collaborate with teachers to explore ways we can give better feedback.

What are your goals?
Who can you team up with to keep each other accountable?
What will it look like if/when you have reached your goal(s) this year?
How will you be able to measure the effectiveness of reaching (or not reaching) your goal(s) this year?

I want to know. Tweet me. Submissions so far:

written by Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel)

If you want more math resources be sure to check out Global Math’s Project Page

Global Math Department Needs Your Help!

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September 15, 2015

So Many Resources!

Edited By Carl Oliver @carloliwitter

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Online Professional Development Sessions

Last week, Chris Harris (@charrismath) presented the talk: Introduction to Number Talks for Grades K to 12. This talk shared the who, what, where, why and how about Number talks for Elementary, Middle and High Schools.

Check out the recording here.

This week (Tuesday, September 15, 9 PM EDT) join Jennifer Bogie and others for the session Warm-ups: What are they good for?

Join us here to reserve your seat and attend the session.

Great Blogging Action

Amid the business of a starting school year, it is easy to lose sight of the many resources that can help with teaching. The resources online that help us prepare for lessons. The other teachers who can serve as a resource through their blogging. And of course the often overlooked resource of students’ parents and families who can help, with perhaps a little direction.

April might be the cruelest month, and students might think September is (so long, summer…), but for me it’s been a non-stop bonanza of ideas, resources, and connections. On any given day, my browser has 10 tabs open (or more) because I have come across must-have, must-try mathematical and/or classroom gems that I still need to pore through, tag, file in Evernote, or print.

When I sat down to write this post, I flipped through my blog feed and instantly found even more goodies. This is what I’m looking at now, and what I recommend you take a look at as well.

For math-y fun, try Christian Perfect’s 30 second arithmetic challenge, which I found on theAperiodical. Trust me, you’ll be addicted. This is the first time I’ve across this blog, which definitely bears more exploration, but for those of us and our students who love to mess with numbers in our heads, the 30-second challenge is great fun. By the way, I found my way to this blog via theResourceaholic, who posts weekly recommendations of – you guessed it – resources; if you aren’t subscribed to this site already, you should be. Right now.

This retweet came through my twitter feed just a little while ago, so I went over to Rachel Fruin’s blog,Classroom Fruition, to see how she was incorporating a Ted Talk into her math classroom. Rachel reflects thoughtfully and articulately on the activities she uses in her high school classroom, and as evidenced by her use of the Ted Talk, is creative in find ways to engage her students in problem solving. Definitely a blog to keep my eye on.

Finally, I highly suggest you subscribe to Lisa Winer’s blogs, Eat Play Math and tech4scots (co-written with Carolina Seiden). Lisa shares widely and specifically classroom tech strategies and tools, complete with inspiring examples, easy to follow instructions, and compelling enthusiasm. It’s great to hear about new ideas, but even better to have someone talk you through an implementation strategy.

I could keep going – my browser now has even more tabs open (the more OCD members of my family are quite horrified, in fact). But I promise you, if you just dip your toe into the resources I have mentioned, I am certain you will be off on a treasure hunt of your own.

Cheers –

Wendy Menard

@wmukluk

As football season ramps up, baseball playoffs begin to take shape, and leaves begin to change color, there’s one thing that’s sure to follow… the smell of blogging will fill the air. There is no possible way to highlight one single post, so if you’re new to the elementary blogging world, I’d love to introduce you to some people that will help your dendrites grow over the course of the next year.

Joe Schwartz’s recent post shows how you can take a game from previous year and make it better. If you’re looking for ways to incorporate more feedback in your skill set, you’ll want to check this out.

Kristin Gray is leaving the classroom for one year and will be sharing her understanding and love ofNumber Talks throughout her school as she works as a math coach. If you’re a newcomer to Number Talks or a season veteran, lots of goodness is sure to come out of Delaware this year.

If you work at the district level and want to learn how to incorporate the #MTBoS and all its’ awesomeness into your everyday practice, you’ll want to check out Brian Bushart as he blogs and shares his district happenings at #rrmathrocks. Brian also helps moderate #ElemMathChat on Thursdaynights at 9:00pm EST.

If you’re looking up for ways to cross-pollinate subjects, then Malke’s what the doctor ordered. Tweeting under the name Math in Your Feet she gives the perfect blend of math and art, dance, music…and quite frankly, whatever else she can tie math to. She’s brilliant!

Steve Wyborney is always up for sharing through his animated posts that help students build a conceptual understanding.

Mr. Harris doesn’t have a blog, but you’ll definitely want to check out the way he engages his first grade class and embraces a #growthmindset through his twitter feed.

Lots of great things happening in the K-5 world. When you stop by their blog be sure to leave them a comment and tell them thanks.

Written by @gfletchy who blogs at gfletchy.com

September is a time for welcoming in new students, but that also means welcoming in new parents. Like many in my neck of the [concrete] woods, I’m preparing for open school night. This past week Matt Coaty(@mcoaty) shared his twist to curriculum night inspired by Fawn Nguyen’s last slide on. Sometime last year Fawn Nguyen (@fawnpnguyen) shared the following slide:

Matt shares his elaboration to the parents for each section and gave concrete examples and tips to parents. Similar to Matt’s parents, mine find it hard to stomach number one. He states, for teachers and parent alike “It’s innate to help when our kids struggle.” I appreciate that he mentioned more than just not completing work for their children, but brought up building persistence and allowing struggle. I discuss a great deal about persevering through problem solving with my students and we spend so much time working on this in the classroom, but I’ve never thought about making that a key message to parents.

Matt’s post was a great reminder to make the connection between class and home. Read the rest of Matt’s elaborated message to the parents here.

If you want more math resources be sure to check out Global Math’s Project Page

Global Math Department Needs Your Help!

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September 8, 2015

Let’s Talk Numbers!

Let's Talk Numbers!

Included this week: This week’s Global Math webinar details and some highlights from the MTBoS

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This Week at Global Math…

Introduction to Number Talks Grades K to 12
Common Core Content Standards and Practice Standards require many, but not all, teachers to change the way they are teaching. Math classrooms, in general, should not look like the math classrooms of fifty years ago (or even 20 years ago). Number Talks can facilitate these changes and can make teachers and students excited about the changes. A Number Talk is a purposeful whole class activity the goals of which are to build mental math and computational strategies, to develop the Mathematical Practices (for teachers and students) and to deepen understanding of mathematics. In other words, to develop number sense. This session will explain the who, what, where, why and how of Number Talks. We’ll look at the differences in primary, elementary, middle, and high school Number Talks. And we’ll try to do a Number Talk ‘on the air’!!!

Presented by Michael Pershan and Hedge. To RSVP, click here.

Last week’s recording on Social Dynamics and Math Discussions can be viewed here.

A Week for Zombies, Introductions, and Debate

Why am I hoarding zombie pens? Growth mindset! Let me explain:

This week, it’s not so much math that’s been on my radar, but “growth mindset”, of course as it applies to math. At our first staff meeting this year, we watched this inspiring talk by Eduardo Briceño. What he said that keeps resonating for me is how the idea of effort is a negative thing to someone with a fixed mindset, but a positive thing to someone with a growth mindset. This is a huge issue for math education. After all, how many of our students think of effort as punishment for not getting something right away? I’m pretty sure that just changing that one perception would be huge. And the difference can be simply about the words we use, like for example, putting the word “yet” after “I don’t understand.” I’m not a touchy-feely person, though, so before you roll your eyes and move on, here’s a great article by Jackie Gerstein about whether or not this is just another fad. I figure it’s worth a shot, for myself and for my kids. I’m going to walk the walk and talk the talk, starting with this zombie problem from TedEd. Which I haven’t solved. Yet.

written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)

Introducing Katie Breedlove

Most times, when teachers feel they don’t have anything to offer or say within a blog post, their posts are often profound. After speaking with my friend @Katiebreedlove, I immediately logged on to read what was her second blog post (I think ever), Perseverance. In our conversation she expressed she wanted to blog more but felt as though she didn’t have enough to say. If this post is saying “nothing”, I cannot imagine what saying “something” looks like.

She tackled a hard topic, perseverance. We strive as teachers to get our students to push past quick results in times where quick results are what matter. I dare say there are teachers out there who are afraid of taking a chance and persevering through the hard change. With such a fixed mindset, teachers prevent their students from solving problems, make sense of them and seeing things through to a solution. Katie provides her view of this within her “elevator speech” in which she expresses what she wants for her students, perseverance. Keep writing my friend and welcome to #mtbos!

written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

Should teachers pay teachers?

An effusive New York Times article about the website Teachers Pay Teachers set math Twitter abuzz this weekend. Larry Ferlazzo, Glenn Waddell, and others took issue with the positive portrayal of a site that they claim is not representative of the broader teacher sharing economy. After all, the MTBoS is full of rich activities and lessons that are typically available for free. So is TPT a valuable resource for overworked educators or a mechanism for enabling and profiting from teachers’ laziest impulses? Join the debate on Twitter!

written by Kent Haines (@MrAKHaines)

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September 1, 2015

Welcome to September!

Included this week: This week’s Global Math webinar details and some highlights from the MTBoS

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This Week at Global Math…

Social Dynamics and Math Discussions
Do students actually listen to each other during math discussions, or do they just talk past each other? What structures and routines can you create in your classroom to help students engage in genuine mathematical discourse? This GMD meeting explores these questions and how social dynamics in the classroom can promote or inhibit genuine mathematical discussion and argumentation. Participants will leave with concrete tools to foster mathematical discourse in their classrooms.

Presented by Joe Herbert and Benjamin Walker. To RSVP, click here.

Last week’s recording on Problem-Based Learning can be viewed here.

Changing of the (school) Seasons

Be Part Of A Team, Not An Island

Jennifer Wilson wrote a great post about the power of team-teaching, a model definitely worth considering. Team-teaching might not be feasible for your district/site this year, but definitely learn more about it.

picture of students in a classroom

If your team can’t teach together, don’t make it an excuse for not growing as an educator. The next best step in growing as a professional is making the time to go observe other teachers during your prep. Jennifer noticed a teacher saying,

his willingness to spend his planning period observing her class emphasizes the culture of learning from each other

I challenge you to pick a day each week to go observe another teacher at your site, math or another subject. Set a weekly alarm on your phone to email a teacher, asking them to stop by during your prep. If the teacher you want to observe doesn’t have a class during your prep, ask an administrator to cover your class during one of your other periods. Be creative. If you really want to observe other teachers, you’ll find a way. Share your experience with me.

written by Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel)

Math has taken over the Great American State Fair!

CNf3j-LW8AARlsL.jpg-large

Spearheaded by Christopher Danielson (pictured with Megan Schmidt and Malke Rosenfeld (right)), the “Math On A Stick” fair is continuing through September 7th! If you’re in the Minneapolis area you better make it to “Math On A Stick.” If you don’t, I’m sure there’s plenty of people stalking #mathonastick on twitter who would gladly go in your stead!

Here’s a blog post written by our own Vegan Math Beagle about her experience at the fair. Also, if you’d like to volunteer for a three hour shift click here!

Finally, check out these pics (stolen from Annie Fetter’s twitter feed!)

written by Andrew Gael (@bkdidact)

The Things We Remember

The memories that stick with us from childhood are sometimes random and sometimes filled with lessons learned. In a recent blogpost, Chris Lusto weaves a brilliant tale of 1st grade life, mathematics, and the memories that schools and teachers impart in their students’ — both for good and for ill.

As we roll into the 2015-2016 school year, what do you want your students to remember about you and your class?

written by Ashli Black (@mythagon)

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