March 29, 2016

Record Keeping, Blermions, and Other Good Reads

Edited By Ashli Black @mythagon

Forward

Online Professional Development Sessions

Interested in learning more about Desmos Activity Builder? Want to know how to use it to help your lessons and not hinder them? Join Shelley Carranza tonight to look at high school activities and draw out general best practices for teaching digital math lessons in middle school or high school.

The conference starts at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific. Click here to join!

Click here to check out last week’s conference, “In Transforming Intervention: Moving from Skills Remediation to Rich Problem Solving,” by Kassia Wedekind and Mary Beth Dillane.

Things to Check Out

Preparing for the end of (next) year

As the best of the #MTBoS books begin to arrive…

…and the excitement builds…

…and builds…

…Michael Pershan (as always) brings up a good point in his new post, “If we’re going to have a book compilation of best posts at the end of the year, then I had better be a bit more scrupulous about collecting my favorite posts.”

Everyone should make an effort to record their favorite blog posts all year in order to have a more annually comprehensive “best of” book. Whether you tweet about your favorite posts, collect them in padlet, or blog about them like Michael (and others), just do it somehow. So this December, we don’t have a “Best of the Math Teacher Blogs in December 2016.”

written by Andrew Gael (@bkdidact)

Go Blermions!

Thanks to Sam Shah and the goodness of the #MTBoS, we’ve got a keeper for all you geometry teachers! Sam shares Teaching the Crossed Chord Theorem in all its coolness.

I remember teaching intersecting chords to my geometry students; formulaic and bland.

NO MORE!

After reading Sam’s post, I want an opportunity to run it with geometry students. Jennifer Wilson says it best in the comments, “What a beautiful journey of creation and collaboration and implementation for this learning episode. Thank you for sharing!”

Go blermions!

written by Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel)

Two Reads to Check Out

the good folk over at Achieve the Core have been running a series on Adapting Materials for the classroom. The most recent post is on Essential Knowledge for Adapting Instructional Materials and written by @jody_guarino, an awesome elementary- ed specialist in Southern California.

On the geometry side of things, the initial draft of the CCSSM Geometry Progression for 7-8 and HS is now out!

written by Ashli Black (@mythagon)

Visit our Website

unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

March 22, 2016

This week, The Madness Of March

Edited By Carl Oliver @carloliwitter

View this email in your browser

Forward

Online Professional Development Sessions

Intervention has traditionally been focused on skills remediation. Come explore how to transform intervention time into a problem solving workshop in which students build identities as mathematicians while engaging in rich problem solving. In Transforming Intervention: Moving from Skills Remediation to Rich Problem Solving, Kassia Wedekind and Mary Beth Dillane will share videos of mathematician interviews from Mary Beth’s 5th grade classroom that both illustrate the changes students experienced over the year and left us with many questions and wonderings about what was next for these students and others. Join us tonight at 9 EST here.

Last week Shelley Aaberg presented Bringing the World Outside School Into Your Math Classroom. Everyone’s got problems (of the math variety), especially people outside your school. Whether it’s an oil storage tank in an auto shop, a mailbox on a mail carrier’s route, or raising public awareness about rabies-infected skunks, seeing the math in the world is easy. Turning that math into a lesson or an activity for students is the tricky part. To view the recording click here.

Great Blogging Action

The Madness of March

March is often a rough stretch for schools. Summer is so far away, the year began so many months ago, and the bag of tricks seems to be empty. There just isn’t much for anyone to get excited about. The early spring doldrums can stretch in to the classroom, affecting students and teachers as well.

As Justin Aion writes in his post Disconnection, “When you give an assignment that allows students multiple options and the one they choose is ‘I’m not doing this,’ it makes it very hard to gather the enthusiasm to put your energy into finding a new one.” When students are not pushing themselves to do their best, or do anything, it may not be fair to shoulder the burden of their lack of effort. This is also the case for students who immediately look for help when they struggle in their work. There maybe some students who look for adults to help them out at the first sign of difficult. Elizabeth writes in her post What to do when strong students struggle that the times that “…you have to be willing to allow them to struggle. Only then can they truly own their own success.” Sometimes, the answer to teachers’ struggles with students is to allow the students to do some of that struggle for themselves.

March is certainly a time where teachers think about how to serve students better. It certainly takes a lot of work and probably a lot of different strategies in order to come up with a recipe that will produce the outcomes you want. In Culture and the Kitchen Sink, Geoff Krall was trying to synthesize a visit to a building with exceptional school culture when he noticed that there wasn’t one clear strategy that led to their success. “Then it dawns on me: none of these things produce exceptional school culture. All of these things produce exceptional school culture. It’s all of these things that are producing the culture that I just experienced, and certainly more practices that I didn’t witness.” Certainly success will involve a number of different approaches, and the support of many people, including the students and staff.

By Carl Oliver (@carloliwitter)

“The only answer I know — the only answer I trust — is that you have to be willing to allow them to struggle.”
~Elizabeth (@cheesemonkeySF)

The Struggle is All Too Real

Elizabeth’s latest post, What to do when Strong Students Struggle is a reminder that the struggle is real for all of our students at one time or another. This is something that resonates with a lot of educators and parents so it’s great to to be able to connect. The best way to help? Step back, let them struggle, and own their failures and successes. Like many teachers, it’s really hard to stand by and watch students struggle. A part of me feels like I am not doing my job, but then again holding their hands and spoon feeding them isn’t in my job title either.

After reading her entire post, don’t forget to check out the NYT column Elizabeth mentioned, “How Can you Make a Student Care Enough to Work Harder?” The article mentions that research has shown that they way to increase intrinsic motivation is to back off and promote autonomy. Step back, let them struggle, and own their failures and successes. And then head over to Dylan Kane’s post on how he is messaging productive struggle in the classroom. So while the struggle is real, it doesn’t have to be painful.

By Sahar Khatri (@khatrimath)

Viable Arguments and Critiqued Reasoning

I always enjoy a post about the Standards for Mathematical Practice because they help strengthen and improve my own understanding.

In the past, Steve Leinwand and Andrew Stadel have praised the power of SMP #3-Construct Viable Argument and Critique the Reasoning of Others. This time it’s Robert Kaplinsky. If you want to improve your own understanding you need to check out Robert’s take on SMP#3.

Written by @gfletchy (Graham Fletcher)

Hot on Twitter: #NCTMAnnual is around the corner

‏@SuMACzanne

And stop by Booth 1335 (p. 193 in Program Book) to pick up a #MTBoS ribbon! @NCTM @themathforum @crstn85 @MFAnnie pasta? #MTBoS

Visit our Website

unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

March 15, 2016

Keeping It Real (World) at Global Math Department

Edited By Brian Bushart @bstockus

View this email in your browser

Forward

Online Professional Development Sessions

Bringing the World Outside School Into Your Math Classroom
Presented by Shelby Aaberg (@ShelbyAaberg)

Everyone’s got problems (of the math variety), especially people outside your school. Whether it’s an oil storage tank in an auto shop, a mailbox on a mail carrier’s route, or raising public awareness about rabies-infected skunks, seeing the math in the world is easy. Turning that math into a lesson or an activity for students is the tricky part. We will see examples of engaging math problems from the community. We will discuss a teacher’s considerations when deciding how to incorporate problems from the world outside school and some of the challenges teachers may encounter when collaborating with people outside the education world.

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

Last week at Global Math Jessica Balli shared about using peer feedback to increase student understanding.

Check out the recording here if you missed the presentation.

Looking at the Past, Present, and Future

Simply the Best (of Last Year)

Tina Cardone and Ilana Horn have done yeoman’s work by compiling the best posts of 2015 from around the Math Twitter Blogosphere (#MTBoS). Their new book, The Best of the Math Teacher Blogs 2015, is now available! In it, you will find many of Global Math Department’s favorite presenters and contributors, as well as new faces that you might not have heard from before.

Additionally, all profits from this book go toward scholarships to help teachers attend Twitter Math Camp in the summer. If you want to support this community while getting a compilation of its best work, this is your chance. Check it out.

(Full disclosure, one of my blog posts is included in this book. But I would be a full-throated supporter of the book regardless, just because I think it’s a great resource for our community.)

Written by Kent Haines (@MrAKHaines)

Current Events

On my radar this week: Keeping organized, and getting ready for end-of-year exams. Cathy Yenca’s post about how she uses googledocs to keep valuable resources organized. It fits with something I once heard an organizational guru say: “Organization is really about retrieval.” Amen to that.

In my province, there has been some discussion lately about how to best use tools like GeoGebra and Desmos in an exam setting. This article about Geogebra exam mode explains how access to the internet and other types of software are restricted and monitored during an exam. I haven’t yet given any kind of test other than paper-and-pencil, but this offers an interesting alternative.

Written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)

Thinking Ahead

I’m already thinking of next year. This year at school we have focused on implementing formative assessment lessons with fidelity. While this instructional practice has infiltrated the day-to-day instruction of some teachers, others are not quite comfortable doing it without a prepared script. This may ring true for you as well. For many teachers, comfort may come from Dan Ehlert’s post 5 Practices: Stacking Cups.

Within the post, Dane provides a strategic approach to implementing problem-based learning, which begins with a book. I love the excerpts from the book infused into the post as they are aligned with Dane’s thought process. It may be helpful for the reader to follow in the footsteps of this blogger and implement the same or a similar 3-act or problem-based task.

Written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

Visit our Website

unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

March 8, 2016

Good Reads from the Online World

Edited By Ashli Black @mythagon

View this email in your browser

Forward

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight at GMD, Jessica Balli will present on Using Peer Feedback to Increase Student Understanding. This presentation will highlight strategies that allow students to communicate their own thinking and then respond to the thinking of others. By asking students to give feedback to their peers, they become the audience and the authority, as opposed to the teacher, who takes on the role of a facilitator. Come learn how you can give your students more opportunities to reason, communicate, and take responsibility for their own learning!

The conference starts at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific. Click here to join!

Last week at Global Math, Peter Bohacek and Matt Vonk presented on Using Direct Measurement Videos to Learn to Make Mathematical Models. Click here to watch the replay.

Things to Check Out

Binging Professional Development

If you are like most Americans, you love binge watching TV until you pass out on the couch, snoring, with the remote dangerously close to falling out of your hands, crashing to the floor, and waking you up!

Hey man, no judgements! We’re here to help!

Graham Fletcher just released the third installment in his Making Sense Series: Progression of Addition and Subtraction. Jenise Sexton went in depth into the first episode about the Progression of Multiplication, here. In between, Graham released the second episode about the Progression of Division. So grab the comfiest part of the couch and feel free to binge, because the season finale is on its way, based on some sweet insider info!

Screen Shot 2016-03-05 at 6.24.38 PM.png

written by Andrew Gael (@bkdidact)

Make Mistakes Progress

Audrey McLaren sparked my interest multiple times in her recent post: Rethinking How We See Mistakes. Essentially, she’s sharing her thoughts on how to better react to student mistakes in math class by embracing them, as to encourage students to make progress. I’m all for this! Here’s my favorite response from Audrey you could use in class with students tomorrow, “That’s the best mistake I’ve seen today!”

Read more here. It won’t be a mistake.

written by Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel)

Happy International Women’s Day!

+Plus Magazine is an online publication out of the UK “which aims to introduce readers to the beauty and the practical applications of mathematics.” Currently run by two female editors, over the years they’ve published many articles on women in mathematics that are great for sharing with your classes today! This article is filled with with links to information on mathematical heroines from the past (Emmy Noether! Sofia Kovalevskaya!) and present (Dorit Aharonov! Sandy Black!) as well as articles by female mathematicians and podcasts from the International Conference of Women Mathematicians in 2010 and the European Women in Mathematics Conference in 2007.

And never forget xkcd’s contribution to the conversation of women in the sciences.

written by Ashli Black (@mythagon)

Visit our Website

unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences

March 1, 2016

This week, Amazing Resources and Important Ideas

Edited By Carl Oliver @carloliwitter

View this email in your browser

Forward

Online Professional Development Sessions

This week, we have

Peter Bohacek & Matt Vonk joining us to present

Using Direct Measurement Videos to Learn to Make Mathematical Models. This talk will demonstrate how students can study linear, quadratic, inverse-square, and sinusoidal functions using these videos. We’ll also show how students can learn how to evaluate competing models by making and testing predictions. Join us tonight at 9 EST here.

Last week Pamela Weber Harris presented

Problem Strings: A Lesson Structure for All Students. A problem string is a powerful lesson format where all students learn, have access to the problems, and are challenged. This was one of the highest viewed talks this year and it provided participants a chance to look at problems such as solving proportions, decimal operations, and solving equations. To view the recording click here.

Great Blogging Action

Amazing Resources and Important Ideas

As I cleaned out my back-logged blog reader, the notable posts fell into two major groups: Amazing Resources and Important Ideas. Let’s be alphabetical and talk about Amazing Resources first.

If you don’t know about Find the Factors, go check it out. Now. Every week, Iva Sallay creates six new puzzles at varying levels of difficulty which challenge your number sense and logic. They are a great resource for differentiating in your classroom, and for keeping your own skills sharp. Every week – six new puzzles – amazing!
Speaking of puzzles, I’ve mentioned Solve My Maths before, but last week the blogster shared 5 ‘starter packs‘ – complete workbooks of mathematical challenges suitable for starting class, ending class, differentiating in class, reinforcing number concepts – you name it. And the activities are presented in puzzle-type format, which is always a great way to engage students.
I confess that I found this next link in a post from Resourceaho lic – Revision Mats from Access Maths. These beautifully laid out grids contain a plethora of review problems on specific subjects. I particularly liked the QR Code posters. Explore the website – it’s a delightful rabbit hole of resources.

And now for Important Ideas.

Start out with Common Errors Made by Math Teachers, again from Resourceaho lic. You may or may not have made these mistakes in your classroom, but it’s good to read through them for a check. And speaking of mistakes, you can follow up with this reflection by Audrey McLaren on how we treat our own errors in the classroom. We tell our students [rightly so] that it’s okay to make mistakes, that mistakes provide learning opportunities for everyone in the room, that research on growth mindset shows that our brains grow when we make and correct mistakes. But what about when we as teachers make errors, or flail about a bit in front of the class? Audrey’s got some great thoughts about how to use – even glorify – mistakes in the classroom for maximum learning potential, and how to embrace our own errors for the benefit of our students and ourselves.

How could the blog post title Why Don’t the Black Kids Like Math and Science: Easy Answers NOT grab your attention? This post, on The Hip-Hop Chess Federation blog, is a must read for everyone. This article addresses how we can vest black students in their math education by providing them with historical background on mathematical discoveries and contributions by non-Europeans. We can do this by educating ourselves first, and the article is filled with references and links to resources for exactly that purpose. Glenn Waddell wrote about this article, and reflects on the imperative for teachers to know the students they are teaching, and to learn how to teach them – not just teach math, but as Glenn puts it, teach people.

Lots to read, lots to think about –

Wendy Menard

@wmukluk

Hot on Twitter: Fraction Talks

‏@FractionTalks

This one is baffling me. What Fraction is shaded?

Can you reason a minimum amount? maximum amount? #mathchat #MTBoS

Collaborate

Over the past year it’s been great to watch Brain Bushart share and grow his idea of Numberless Word Problems. In his most recent post, Brian explains how he constructs numberless word problems and provides some great insight into the work behind the scenes. The only problem with numberless word problems is that Brian can’t churn them out fast enough to keep up with the demand. He needs your help. If you’ve ever used a numberless word problem please consider donating your brain to Brain.

Crowd Source

If you’re a fan of Estimation180, Visual Patterns, WODB, Open Middle and other similar sites of awesomeness, then you’ll need to add FractionTalks to the list. Nat Banting is spearheading this charge as he looks to unlock the gateway to algebraic reasoning. Use a picture…take a picture…submit a picture. You can follow along on twitter by adding the handle @FractionTalks.

All of us are smarter than one of us.

Written by @gfletchy (Graham Fletcher)

“Accessibility in mathematics is more than making the print on the worksheet bigger or giving one kid base ten blocks, it is creating a classroom culture when a teacher plans for every student in the room to be successful from the beginning.”

~ Andrew Gael (@bkdidact)

It’s been really exciting to see the conversations surrounding supporting students with disabilities within the context of math education. In case you missed it, Andrew Gael (@bkdidact) recently blogged about math and accessibility. There has been a tendency to view students with disabilities as not normal which has in turn affected equitable access to education. Instead of supporting our students with the lens of deficit thinking, he proposes two lesson planing guides to increase rich access to mathematics, Universal Design for Learning which recommends providing multiple modes of access for students and a toolkit provided by the Education Development Center which helps educators understand students in the room by breaking down need and strengths into 8 categories. Check out his entire post for details and be sure to check out the document produced this week during #swdmathchat (Students with Disabilities Math Chat) 9 Types of Curriculum Adaptations, with specific recommendations for math, to support GenEd teachers teaching students with disabilities. Let’s continue the conversation on the twitterverse!

Written by Sahar Khatri (@khatrimath)

Have you visited the Global Math Department Website Lately?

Over at globalmathdepartment.org we have been doing a little housekeeping. Putting some things away, adding some things. It’s worth checking out, and if you have any thoughts, feel free to let Carl Oliver (@carloliwitter) know. Thanks!

Visit our Website