Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Moving to SBG

Presented by  Farica Erwin

In my journey to make my grading policies match my teaching philosophy, I found Standards Based Grading. Six years of some trial and error, I now have a policy that works for my classroom. Join to learn about how to incorporate SBG, what worked, what didn’t work, how it affects homework policy, and how to still use a traditional online grade book.

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

Next Week

ELL Strategies for a Regular High School Math Classroom

Presented by  Jennifer Thomas and Kari Ferguson

Students need more literacy support in a math classroom due to different language levels, math abilities, and global perspectives. Through examining practice, teachers can focus on their formatting to ensure they are best supporting students.

Register ahead of time by clicking here!

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

From the World of Math Ed

Welcome to Palindrome Week! 

This past week, the number in the calendar if written in American numerical format, can be read the same both forwards and backwards. While we all love to celebrate pi day (either 3/14 or 22/7, depending on your calendar format), Palindrome Week offered math teachers everywhere the opportunity to look for patterns in numbers.  In American numerical format, we have been able to celebrate Palindrome Week every year since 2011, but we won’t have another one until 2021. Can you figure out which week will be the next #PalindromeWeek?

If #PalindromeWeek didn’t set your little pattern recognizing heart a puttering, then quite possibly the probability of a Friday the 13th also being a night with a full moon could. It’s been 19 years since the last full moon on a Friday the 13th (although the moon will not be fully illuminated until 12:30am, on September 14th). This month’s full moon has been called a Harvest Moon, an agricultural term used to describe the moon closest to the autumnal equinox used to indicate a time when farmers and enslaved persons used the moon to harvest crops of the season. The last time a Harvest Moon fell on a Friday the 13th was in 1935, and the next intersection of these two conditions will not occur until 2171.

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There’s a new chat in the #MTBoS world on Tuesday nights at 8PM EST. The #GhostsInTheSchoolyard chat is helping members of our community come together as they read the book Ghosts In The Schoolyard, by Eve Ewing. The chat is being moderated by Tyrone Martinez-Black (@teachnext_tmb), Marian Dingle (@DingleTeach), & Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma), as they lead us through a conversation on the intersection of racism, segregation, and education in Chicago’s South Side. With @NCTM preparing for its centennial celebration of its annual meeting in Chicago in April of 2020, this book chat allows educators to learn and unlearn some of the history of Chicago, and develop place consciousness before attending this event. When you go to a math conference, do you take time to learn the history of the land that you stand on and who stood there before you?

This week, Robert Kaplinsky (@robertkaplinsky) wrote a blog about how he is beginning to recognize systemic racism and white privilege in his life and work through his participation in the #CleartheAir chat moderated by Val Brown (@ValeriaBrownEdu). In his blog he writes, “If you’re a long time reader of my blog, you might be wondering why I’m talking about systemic racism and not just sticking to math. The reality is that the more I learn about how common injustices are, the more I realize that I cannot sit back and do nothing.” It is also important to realize that as mathematics educators, our course content is not apolitical or unbiased. Take a look at the ORC data of Calculus enrollment of schools and districts in your area for just one example of how systemic racism and mathematics overlap.

Written by Lauren Baucom, @LBmathemagician

Not everyone is equally gifted in mathematics.
But there are reasons to teach like everyone could be.

Dan Finkel (@MathforLove), posted what would seem from the outset to be an against-the-grain commentary on the role of growth mindset in mathematics classrooms. His own comment on the tweet in which he posted the link displayed a great intention on being perceived in the right way.

 There’s a lot I love about the post and some things that challenge my current thinking, which is another thing I love about the post. Dan’s comment that “For it to be more than an empty platitude, or a blatant falsehood, we have to be precise” spoke to my condition in a profound way. I think in a similar way to how we support our students to make sense of complex ideas, we need to help the teachers we work alongside with to know what is meant by the messages we send about growth mindset.

 Something that challenged my thinking was that Dan’s post left me with a feeling that some students will just not fall in love with mathematics. Like a Netflix show I recommend to a friend who doesn’t get past the second episode, I can’t help feeling that, if students would just persist with mathematics, they’d see the beauty I see. I wonder if there’s anything wrong with thinking that.

Some handy tips from the Desmos team

Christopher Danielson (@Trianglemancsd), with the help of Sean Sweeney (@SweenWSweens), put together a great post on the Des-blog about a few moves for teachers using the Graphing Calculator and Activity Builder.

The Estimation 180 Podcast is back!

Creator of estimation180.com, Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel), is back with a brand new episode for the start of the school year kicking off the second season of the Estimation 180 Podcast. In this episode, Andrew talks about his favourite question to gauge student number sense. What I love about the podcast is that the episodes are only twenty minutes long, in which he’s able to succinctly give some extremely valuable insight into asking better questions. His latest episode also features the stars of the show, Annie and Patrick – the Math Minions.

Written by John Rowe, @MrJohnRowe