Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

PART 2: How Might Our Beliefs Impact Our Identity as Mathematics Educators?

Presented by Megan Holmstrom and Ryan Grady

As we engage in professional development with teachers mathematics teaching & learning, we have found that asking three questions is a crucial place to begin the work with any group. As you think about the teaching and learning teams you are a part of, consider these three questions:

1. Who are we?
2. Why are we doing this?
3. Why are we doing this, this way?

Further, NCTM’s Guiding Principles for School Mathematics states that, “Professionalism [exists] in an excellent mathematics program, [when] educators hold themselves and their colleagues accountable for the mathematical success of every student and for their personal and collective professional growth toward effective teaching and learning of mathematics” (Principles to Actions p.5 – NCTM 2014). How are we holding our collective accountability in shared professional growth?

Please note: this is Part 2, consider reviewing our conversation from June 18 as front-loading for this chat.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

Next Week

Observational Feedback that Sticks: Google and Extensions that Create Actionable Feedback

Presenters:  Brandi Simpson & Brooke Lucio

Based on the work of Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Teaching That Sticks, this session will demonstrate how observational feedback can “find the core” to develop a productive coaching relationship. We will share our protocols and system for providing feedback that integrates AutoCrat and the Google Suite. Participants will walk away with the skills to design and customize feedback tools to meet their needs at any level.

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

Welcome Back!

The Virtual Conference on Humanizing Mathematics

Last summer, Sameer Shah (@SamJShah2) hosted a Virtual Conference on Mathematical Flavors featuring blog posts from educators who shared their everyday practices that shaped students’ understanding of mathematics. This summer, he invited me to collaborate with him and I accepted the incredible opportunity to create a space for critical engagement and reflection on a theme that has been central to my learning this year; belonging. Our initial conversation revealed a mutual interest in the doing of mathematics as a human endeavor, mathematical identity, belonging in mathematics education spaces, and the rehumanizing of mathematics.

We offer to you for the month of August, the Virtual Conference on Humanizing Mathematics featuring keynote bloggers who are addressing the prompt(s):

How do you highlight that the doing of mathematics is a human endeavor?

How do you express your identity as a doer of mathematics to, and share your “why” for doing mathematics with, kids?

#MTBoS contributors from K-16 are also participating by responding to weekly mini-questions and sharing their mathematical experiences, mathematical identities, and reflecting on what scholarly terms (like ‘mathematics for human flourishing’ and ‘re-humanizing mathematics’) have to come mean in their practice.

Click on the image below to introduce our topic for Week 4 of the conference:

Readers of the first edition of this school year’s GMD Newsletter are the first to know that we are honored to host Dr. Rochelle Guttiérez as our closing keynote blogger on Thursday, August 29, 2019.

We whole-heartedly invite you to visit the virtual convention center and learn with us.

Getting Specific About Equity and Humanizing Mathematics

I’d like to highlight what I see as a burgeoning trend in many parts of the math edutwittersphere. Roughly, this trend involves ideas like equity, humanizing mathematics, critical theory, and power and identity. This trend seems to be distinct from other topics in math ed like cognitive science and mindset research but still closely connected, and I’ve noticed at least three general types of activities surrounding this idea of equity, humanizing mathematics, and applying a critical lens:

1. Spread, Reflect, Critique: Calling out others and ourselves to attend more fully to the work of unlearning, self-reflection, and critique.
2. Research: Collecting, analyzing, and reporting qualitative data on moves and practices that support this work.
3. Specification: Being specific about the ways we operationalize ideas about equity and humanizing mathematics.

Item 3 might be the toughest to do well but it’s also vital for us if we want to move forward as a math ed community. Thankfully, the Virtual Conference on Humanizing Mathematics represents one of several ways we as math educators are helping each other put our ideas about equity and humanizing mathematics into practice. The specific blog posts and Twitter threads can be found at the convention center, and instructions for submitting a contribution can be found here.

One Twitter thread caught my eye. It was by Jimmy Pai (@PaiMath), who went through every single contribution from week one and gave thoughtful, reflective comments on each one.

His feedback highlights the kind of conversations and exchange that can occur when we talk at all levels of grain size, from the critical-analogical-macroscopic reflections of Marian (@DingleTeach) and Hema’s (@HKhodai) keynote address to Chris’s (@cluzniak) share of #DebateMath and journals.

Besides the virtual conference, @JessicaTilli1 asked folx: “If you could conduct interviews for a middle school math teaching position, what are some questions you would ask?”. This triggered a host of responses, many in the realm of equity, humanizing math, and critical theory. I’ll end by highlighting just a few:

Written by Melvin Peralta (@melvinmperalta)

Great Prompts from Summer

I love when a good prompt catches fire on Twitter. The result is a mile long thread full of ideas, strategies, advice, etc that’s just loaded with goodness. Do these things have a name?  (I feel like they need a name!)  Below I’ve shared a few of these loaded threads.  Click on the image of the tweet to take you to the thread and get scrolling!

As we start the new year it’s always good to have some norms:

Math is beautiful.  Check out this collection of “mathematical mindfulls”:

If you’re new to the profession there’s an embarrassment of riches here. Going into my 15th year next week there’s plenty I need to hear too!

For everyone who finished their reading lists this summer (I’m joking, right?), Ibram X. Kendi’s book “How to Be an Antiracist” comes out today and inspired this:

When you find amazing threads like this #pushsend and chime in, and/or retweet so the rest of us don’t miss all the goodness!  Happy Back to School Everybody!

Written by Nate Goza (@thegozaway)