The First Global Math Department of the Last Month of 2015 is Tonight

Edited By Brian Bushart @bstockus

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Online Professional Development Sessions

Tools for Customization: What Does Customized Learning Look Like?
Join Joshua Schmidt for an honest look into his current customized mathematics learning environment that he has developed over the past six years. His goal has been to create an environment that provides authentic choices, independent pacing, and learning at the students’ appropriate level. This work has come with many successes and challenges. He will give insights into his classroom environment and his choice of technologies. Since customized learning takes on a variety of shapes, he wants to provide not only a better understanding of customization but also ideas that you can put into practice in your own classroom.

To join the meeting when it starts at 9pm Eastern (or RSVP if it’s before 9pm), click here.

Don’t worry! You didn’t miss Global Math last week. We took a week off for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Don’t go yet! We have great things to share.

Educating the Heart

One of the wonderful things about being a part of #mtbos is the opportunities to glean ideas and information from others. This time, @lisabej_manitou post of notes and scattered thoughts from a recent brain based teaching and learning conference enlightened me. In Notes and Scattered Thoughts from Learning & the Brain Conference, Lisa shares information about the correlation between stress and learning, building student resilience, tackling anxiety and educating the heart.

Implications for your math instruction

This post reminded me of articles and blog posts I’ve read about social emotional learning. If we meet the needs of our students emotionally, or educate the heart, students will be in a better position to learn. It is a matter of seeing them as real children first, versus a group of emotionless and sometimes nameless faces we much teach a list of standards before an arbitrary deadline. (By the way, if you don’t know the names of the students sitting in your classroom, put yourself in their shoes, how would you feel if someone who is supposed to be investing in your life didn’t know your name.)

Equally important, Lisa’s post discussed building resilience and two key statements stuck out to me.

Build resilience by allowing time for information to stabilize and take root.
Nothing discourages mastery more than an adult who steps in and says: “Let me do that for you.”

How often do we spend two days on a concept and move forward to the next before students have time to digest the new material? They are left in a state of confusion trying to make connections between the multiple concepts which can lead to anxiety. How many times do we show students a procedure or process and in the end, it is only us who has the understanding of the concept? Building resilience screams SMP 1, SMP 2 and SMP 3, which makes yet another argument of why the Standards for Mathematical Practice should be in the forefront of your teaching.

Lisa Bejarano’s post has stoked a fire I’ve had burning inside me for a while. Perfect timing as I’m heading back to school after a week’s break. I’m going in armed with strategies and information which will help me meet the needs of the students I will encounter.

Written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

What’s Your Elevator Pitch to the Federal Government?

Tracy Zager posted a fascinating exchange she had with a potential congressman:

It’s not often that you get a politician genuinely asking “What should we be doing?” So what’s your elevator pitch to the federal government? What should the US Congress (or any country’s legislature) do to improve teaching and learning in our schools?

Join the conversation on Twitter. The thread starts here.

Written by Kent Haines (@MrAKHaines)

Some GeoGebra Love

I’ve been writing a lot lately about Desmos and the activity builder, and some folks have been under the impression that I have therefore lost my love for GeoGebra. As if! As I sit at this desk, I have a digital pile of gorgeous student-created GeoGebras to give feedback on, so believe me, I’m still a GeoGeholic. This week I’m writing about some great GeoGebra posts I found using #ggbchat. Here’s one by Neil Dickson (@GeoGebrain) about using it to introduce trigonometry. I particularly loved how Neil combined the hi-tech with those old trig tables. Jenny Krzystowczyk’s post (@jennyktechin) is about combining Google drive with GeoGebra to create an isosceles triangle lesson that engaged her students. The post that keeps pinging in my brain, however, is this one by Daniel Pearcy (@DanielPearcy) about the need to talk about good pedagogy when we talk about GGB, or any edtech tool. He includes a link to a series of videos on that subject, based on his own presentation. I’m currently working my way through them, looking forward especially to “GeoGebra Pedagogy Part 5: Student-Centred Tasks”. And I love that he made these videos for people who couldn’t be there in person!

Written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)

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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