Online Professional Development Sessions

No webinar tonight. Join us for our next webinar Tuesday, October 6th.

What Works in Math Intervention

Presented by Sarah Powell

Many students experience difficulty with math and require targeted math support. In this presentation, we’ll focus on the design and delivery of math intervention. We’ll review how to select critical content to teach in intervention. Then, we’ll highlight five practices (explicit instruction, precise language, multiple representations, fluency building, and problem-solving instruction) with a strong evidence base for improving math outcomes for students who experience math difficulty. By the end of this presentation, you’ll know what works in math intervention!

To register for next week’s webinar, click 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!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Gender Matters & More

Which tweets in the worlds of math education twitter go viral? Here is a recent example from @YehCathery:

And here is one sample response:

That response was pulled by @Laurie_Rubel, who continues:

The box above is to draw attention, in particular, to gender. (See also this thread for remarks that begin with Laurie Rubel pointing to joint work with Cathery Yeh.)
 
Elsewhere in the world of mathematics, the 2020 International Mathematical Olympiad (“IMO 2020”) has wrapped up. Teams can have up to six competitors; here are as many teams, ranked by score, as I could fit in a single screenshot:

Logos aside, @BristOliver remarks on the United States in a manner that, as evidenced by the above list, applies more widely:

For an item of further reading, check out physicist Athene Donald’s blog post “Of A Retiring Nature.”

(You can also find an earlier thread from me about the 3,000,000 USD Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics for 2021 and earlier.)
 
Finally, two items around constructive happenings. First, take a look at @xyu119’s Dismantling Mathematics blog post “Virtual engagement strategies that don’t require webcams.”

Second, be aware of this upcoming conference as tweeted below by @JulietteBruce12:

Wishing strength to all who work towards justice as we enter October with a United States election like none other ahead. Register to vote, make a plan to vote; help others register to vote, help others make a plan to vote; and vote for Joe Biden – in the words of Scientific American:

— Benjamin Dickman [@benjamindickman]

NYC Schools: The Fall

Within months of hearing proposals to convert public parks into hospitals and cemeteries for coronavirus victims, teachers throughout New York City returned to our classrooms last week for virtual meetings and in-person cleaning and furniture rearranging. Within two days of our return, one of my coworkers tested positive for the virus – prompting a schoolwide two-week quarantine peppered with bouts of anxiety and daily phone surveys from the health department. Our school was, predictably, one of many schools that reported positive cases those first few days, all before a single student had set foot in the building. 
 
Protecting the hundreds of thousands of school-based NYCDOE employees and their household members should have been enough to warrant full remote instruction for at least the first few months of this school year. Clearly, our own safeties were never truly a major consideration…

… a fact that became all the more apparent last week as some teachers were required to report to work the morning after an employee tested positive. 

Celebrating all-but-mandated teacher exploitation while failing to address the systemic inequalities that we are meant to resolve is hardly new.
 

 
The standard argument for reopening would have us believe that risking teacher safety is another necessary sacrifice for addressing the virus’s disproportionate impact on low-income families of color. Emphasizing both the risk of a potentially widening achievement gap and the need for families with limited financial security to return to work, politicians such as de Blasio and Governor Cuomo have gone as far as to declare teachers essential workers rather than extending services and rent relief to families in need. (And, like other essential workers, we received multiple emails from NYCDOE Chancellor Carranza thanking us for being “heroes” in lieu of PPE and other needed supplies.) 

Without trivializing these deeply problematic financial and educational barriers, disparate educational outcomes for students of color are but one injustice to reckon with in the conversation around school reopening. Over 78% of the 121 Americans under 21 who died from COVID-19 were Black, Latino, or Native American, despite accounting for only 41% of the population, with a similar trend emerging in the total number of virus cases. Disproportionate rates of coronavirus-related illnesses and deaths are of course not limited to students, leaving low-income students of color more likely to grapple with the loss of family members as families make impossible choices between safety and financial security.  Reopening schools further complicates the decision by signaling that it is safe to do so.
 
These disparities may explain why parents opting for remote learning were disproportionately people of color: nearly 46% of black and Latino families completing the survey opted for full remote instruction, in contrast to only 33% of all white families. Over half of all Asian families throughout the city requested fully remote instruction – a result that could perhaps be explained by the ethnic makeups of the neighborhoods most dramatically affected by the virus:
 

Rather than continue to delay the start of hybrid instruction as school-based cases inevitably rise, de Blasio should demonstrate his commitment to not only all school-based staff and our families, but also our most vulnerable students and their families by mandating a fully remote start to the school year.  
 
– Nasriah Morrison [@nasriahmorrison]
 

Get Involved with the Newsletter

Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.

With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Hands Down, Speak Out: Exploring the Crossover between Math and Literacy Talk

Presented by Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and Christy Thompson

Come learn about Hands-Down Conversations, a structure for dialogue in which students take the lead, building agency and understandings as mathematicians and readers. We’ll dig into strategies for engaging in argumentation and explore the crossover between the content areas.

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

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Modelling Care through Mathematical Routines
By: Hema Khodai (@HKhodai)
 

The thread linked above is reflective of teachings in 
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
 

Amid protests by hundreds of non-Indigenous fishermen, a First Nation in Nova Scotia, Canada launched its own self-managed commercial fishery on September 17, 2020 and issued five lobster licenses to its own members.
 
What? 
 
Mi’kmaw Chiefs have declared a State of Emergency which may be extended by the time you read this article. Trina Roache, a video journalist with APTN Investigates reports, “This is a story about how Canada handles treaty rights.” 
 
In August of 1993, Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi’kmaq man from Membertou, Nova Scotia, caught and sold 210 kg of eel with an “illegal” net and without a licence during closed-season times. He was charged, arrested, and found guilty under the federal Fisheries Act and the Maritime Provinces Fishery Regulations in provincial court (1996) and appeals court (1997). 
 
On September 17, 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada reversed Marshall’s conviction in a landmark ruling in Indigenous treaty rights. The Supreme Court recognized the hunting and fishing rights promised in the Peace and Friendship Treaties which were signed between the British and the Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqiyik, and Peskotomuhkati in 1760–61.

Video clip of a news segment aired on September 18, 2020
(Use the drop down in the upper left corner of the video feed to see 9/18)

Treaty Rights.
 
So What? 

It has been 21 years and Canada hasn’t implemented the Marshall decision which said the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy bands in Eastern Canada could hunt, fish and gather to earn a “moderate livelihood”. Why?  The court followed up with a clarification two months after the initial ruling, saying the treaty right was subject to federal regulation.
                                                                                                                                          
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans only started meeting with First Nation communities covered under the 1760-61 treaties in late 2017 to define what a moderate livelihood fishery means. Meanwhile, Mi’kmaw fishermen continue to fight the same fishery charges their fathers faced 20 years ago.

So, the Sipekne’katik First Nation developed its own management plan for a moderate livelihood fishery and kicked it off with a ceremony on the wharf in Saulnierville. The chief handed out the first license to Randy Sack, the son of the late Donald Marshall, Jr., and the Mi’kmaq headed out into St. Mary’s Bay to drop their lobster traps. The band’s management plan including conservation regulations has been submitted for approval to the federal Fisheries department.
Non-Indigenous fishermen are using intimidation tactics like following them, shooting flares, cutting traps, burning boats, smashing cars, in “protest” of the “illegal” fishery which is “out of season”. Canadian government officials are urging “calm” and “understanding” and expect resolutions that respect “the laws of this country.”

Racism.

Now What? 

Writing for the Global Math Department Newsletter has become a family affair in the Khodai household. Every third Sunday, my husband and child find me scowling into my laptop screen, furiously typing away, and often mumbling about the injustices that go unobserved and unnamed. Their breakfast preparations and routines are interrupted by my punctuated exclamations of, “Listen to this!” as I share something I have learned,  another puzzle piece that is correctly fitted to form a more complete picture of racism on this continent.
 
This particular Sunday morning, my husband asks, “What do Mi’kmaw fishermen on the East Coast have to do with Math?”
My prickly response is, “What doesn’t it have to do with Math?”
What he’s really asking (and I’m tired of answering) is how will I convert this into a math lesson? What connection will I make to the curriculum? What practical skill will I teach through this story? Will we count the number of lobster in the sea? I am more interested in these questions: How do we define “moderate”? Who should define “moderate”? Who sets the standards of “livelihood”? What are the geographic boundaries of the First Nations covered in the treaties? 
 
Is antiracism not within the domain of Math? Isn’t that the issue? That we continue to divest ourselves with all the formal education, and ‘rigorous’ training in scientific thought and advanced mathematical modeling, from justice and love? 
 
The conflict is about a definition of what a moderate livelihood means to Mi’kmaw people. It is about imposing standards of time (seasons) on peoples whose lives are not constructed in seasons. It is about imposing capitalistic ideals on peoples who have been and remain water walkers and stewards of the land. Peoples whose lands WE have settled on. Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs Co-Chair Terrance Paul says the DFO should be educating the general public on the treaty right to a moderate livelihood fishery instead of harassing Indigenous fishermen exercising their treaty rights. We proclaim in our land acknowledgements that we are all treaty people, but is anyone honouring the treaties?

We are all treaty people.
 
I sign off with this sharp reminder from my brilliant friend, Muna.

Kesalul.

References are hyperlinked and additional resources are linked below.

Mi’kmaw language instructor Curtis Michael, of Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia, takes us through a few lessons on the language of the Mi’kmaq 

A Pitch for Intellectual Play
 

In the midst of the pandemic and a myriad of political issues, today, I’m writing about self-care.
 
How much have you played recently? It’s the beginning of the school year, and things are different, harder, take longer, and more hectic. Still, when was the last time that you played?
 
And, in particular, when was the last time that you took the time for yourself to engage in intellectual play that might renew and re-energize your interest in mathematics and teaching mathematics?
 
I recently finished the book, The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter by physicist Paul Steinhardt, and it was a much needed energizer for my work, although I am not a physicist nor do I teach physics. This book gave me greater insight into the nature of mathematics and theoretical physics — it sparked my wonder and curiosity and the power of those disciplines, and reinvigorated my passion for sparking joy in the mathematical experiences of mathematics learners.
 
I know that taking the time to do this is important, even when it is hard to find the time amidst all the chaos of work, family, housekeeping, and exercise, especially when TV is so easy. Yet, somehow, I’ve found that I’m less overwhelmed when I slow down, skip TV (or delay it), have a routine, and engage in intellectual play.
 
Here are some suggestions to get you started: “RECREATIONAL MATHEMATICS”

1. Read a chapter from a STEM novel. You won’t regret the time.
2. Head over to www.cpm.org/play and check out “Tom’s Problems.” These problems are fun and doable, very open-ended, and not a pinch. I’ve done a few myself and always feel a sense of curiosity and have multiple (sometimes premature) ah-ha moments that make me remember why I love mathematics. If you have a partner who wants do these with you or some friends who would enjoy doing together them over a video call (I know…), the collaboration makes it 10 times more fun. None of these problems require complicated mathematics, so you might even consider inviting a teen in your house to think through these with you (but only if that keeps it fun)!
3. Talk math with your kids. Or just build a tower or cook with them, using a recipe to experiment with quantity and proportion. Being interested in their thinking is the fun part!
4. Do some mathematics that remind you of that experience of mathematical uncertainty — embrace the ambiguity and allow yourself to explore different paths that may fizzle out as unproductive. Here are some places to find fun, mind-stretching problems… Maybe best done with a cozy beverage, especially if you live in a zone where the fall chill is setting in:
   1. Do some geometric puzzles! Here’s some by Catriona Agg and some more by Ed Southhall.
   2. Try out some cryptarithms for beginners or try more complex ones!
   3. Join a Math Teachers Circle (here’s one in San Jose), or create your own!

 
Maybe engaging in this kind of mathematical play will help you in your teaching, or maybe not (but, it probably will). Either way, that’s not the point of this post. In my opinion, intellectual play is what helps us move beyond feelings of surviving to feelings of thriving. Right now, the world needs people who are thriving. It can’t hurt to try!
 
Lara Jasien (@LaraJasien)
Researcher at CPM Educational Program

Get Involved with the Newsletter
 
Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.
 
With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight at 9:00 EST

Using DeltaMath for Distance Learning

Presented by Zach Korzyk

DeltaMath has long been a free tool used to give automatic and detailed feedback to students for math practice on over 1400 different math problem types. Given the current health crisis, this immediate feedback is more important than ever. This session will cover the basics of creating assignments and viewing student results. We will also discuss the newer features of DeltaMath Plus that give the teachers a lot more flexibility in creating assignments: attaching videos to assignments, creating an online test and writing your own questions on DeltaMath.

Join us at 9:00 PM EST.  Click here to register!

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

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

It was never just about the math, but always about the love

There are two quotes that I keep close to my heart and revisit before I begin teaching a math lesson. I don’t always say them, sometimes I recite them in my head less than perfectly, but they are always present in my actions and choices. 

The first: “I have never encountered any children in any group who are not geniuses. There is no mystery on how to teach them. The first thing you do is treat them like human beings and the second thing you do is love them.” – Asa G. Hilliard III

The second: ““The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” – Paolo Freire 

The first took me years to learn, to fully understand, and I confess that I am understanding what it means still in every interaction I have with a child on a learning journey.

The second is something I’ve felt in my marrow since I started this journey, this way of knowing and being that is in communion with younger souls and on their infinite possibilities. They are still unfurling, they are still growing and finding their own places in the sun. (and if I pause and reflect for more than a minute, so am I)

When I teach, I am in the forever nebulous terrain of learning, of wandering and wondering with my students.

Once upon a time, Robert Frost penned this poem: 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I think about this in the context of mathematics – of pathways and pickings – that mathematics is not a well-trodden road, on which we set children to carefully and delicately follow. It is in the wildness of things we find possibilities for the most joy. 

It is not a well-paved road, overseen by a monotonous guide intoning highlights in the driest of voices.

Mathematics is a finding. It is a gleaning. My job as head math witch is to show the magic of possibilities. Here – juicy berries burst delicately upon the tongue. There, look, a potential pathway.

But mostly, my job is to whisper softly “Observe. Look at the way the red cardinal flies. What do you find beautiful about it?” or to remark “Goodness, I am so proud of this glen we have stumbled across together, for we could not have found it without you.”

My job is to make the mundane sacred. There is a kind of holiness in exploration and all adventures alike. The delight of a first geometric construction or the hundredth.

The joy that follows – a shared basket of stolen apricots, a ripening, a mutual endeavor. I look for ways to make this happen – but, with all things, adventures are also not always pleasant; sometimes in the thorns and thickets of our explorations, we fail to find a pathway forward. We get frustrated with one another — what started off as a sunny excursion is full of biting horseflies, that despite our best attempts to wave them away, we cannot get rid of.

The adventure has changed now. We are in a new portal, trekking across a digital realm together. The world, which has not been safe or kind for so many already, especially for those that have been blessed by the sun’s kiss on their dark skin, has become even more precarious. An axis tilted ever further to its side. We who seek balance are spinning off-kilter. 

​So, within this topsy-turvy landscape, some questions must be prepared for, and planned for:

These are my essential questions when I set off upon a new journey. Each and every time:

1. How do I love you as you explore? How do I demonstrate that love with kindness, with patience, with grace? 
2. How do I hold my hands, so golden brown these days, as footholds upon which you clamber? To make your own way? 
3. How do I show you that in failing, there is a lesson? One about yourself and the possible imaginaries of the world around you?

 

These are not quantifiable questions. They cannot be measured by standardized testing. They cannot be tied to funding. They cannot be visualized in sterilized graphs by those who have never set foot in an educational space.

…and yet they matter just the same. 

​~ Sara Rezvi (@arsinoepi)

Get Involved with the Newsletter

Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.

With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

No webinar tonight. Join us for our next webinar Tuesday, September 15th.

Using DeltaMath for Distance Learning

Presented by Zach Korzyk

DeltaMath has long been a free tool used to give automatic and detailed feedback to students for math practice on over 1400 different math problem types. Given the current health crisis, this immediate feedback is more important than ever. This session will cover the basics of creating assignments and viewing student results. We will also discuss the newer features of DeltaMath Plus that give the teachers a lot more flexibility in creating assignments: attaching videos to assignments, creating an online test and writing your own questions on DeltaMath.

To register for next week’s webinar, click 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!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Relationships in a Virtual Space 

As the Fall 2020 school semester blooms, my Twitter feed has been full of different educators mentioning different aspects of teaching during this pandemic. Mostly, it has been teachers airing their frustrations with virtual learning. And rightfully so. Teaching is already a tough job without the added layer of navigating and learning the virtual world. Every time I read a Tweet about how to take virtual attendance or students not turning on their cameras while in a Zoom class, all I can think about is one word – relationship.

Rita Pierson said in her Ted Talk way back in 2013, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” This quote has stuck with me over the years. Over the past few years, sometimes when I was working with teachers, it would pop into my mind. Now, during 2020, I’ve been thinking about it in context of making sure students know they are accepted and that they matter.
 
A person I just recently started following on Twitter, Jennifer Binis (@JennBinis) is the master of #PairedTexts. She always has a way of putting two tweets or articles together that are related. The way she does it always has me thinking and learning. Taking that idea, here are two tweets I saw individually that have me really learning and thinking. I thought they might make good #PairedTexts.
 
The first tweet I saw was from Jose Vilson (@TheJLV) reacting to a news story in Houston where a teacher was put on leave for posting Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ posters in her virtual classroom.

Then just the other day I saw this thread from Idil Abdulkadir (@Idil_A_) where she is discussing her experiences with these types of posters and what they mean to the individuals we are trying to welcome by posting them.

Both of these Tweets still have me thinking about that one word again – relationship. Maya Angelou has this quote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
 
One last tweet that I saw this past week was from Howie Hua (@howie_hua). In this thread Howie is sharing some things he has been doing in the virtual setting that his students say they appreciate. Perhaps within this thread is an idea for you to help with that one word – relationship.
 

by Amber Thienel (@amberthienel)

#TMWYF: Talk Math with Your Friends 

In March 2020, in response to a sense of loss of both mathematics and community, we created an online math colloquium series we call Talk Math With Your Friends (#TMWYF). Our series features presentations on mathematics, math education, and other topics of interest to the broader math community. We have featured talks on research exposition, course design, pedagogical techniques, mathematical outreach, and more. As organizers, our goal is to cultivate a lively, friendly, interactive environment, and so each talk includes a few “featured friends” who remain unmuted to interact directly with the speaker during the talk. Some talks have utilized breakout rooms, polls, and other forms of interactivity. Many of the talks have been recorded and are available on the TMWYF YouTube channel.

Here’s a brief summary of just three highlights from TMWYF:

• Disrupting Settler Colonial Mindsets in Mathematics (September 3): In the most recent talk, Dr. Belin Tsinnajinnie (@LoboWithACause) of Santa Fe Community College spoke about how ongoing Diversity and Inclusion initiatives in mathematics perpetuate the settler colonial mindsight by seeing Native people as resources to extract, rather than recognizing the already existing mathematics within or serving the goals of these communities.

• Designing and Deploying “Math that Matters” (May 14): Professor Jessica Libertini (@DrMathL) of Virginia Military Institute spoke about a curriculum redesign project for mathematics courses at her institution. The attendees at TMWYF were able to participate in several group activities from the “Math that Matters” course.

• From Clocks to Categories (June 25): Andrew Stacey (@mathforge) describes himself as “Mathematician: formally academic (differential topology), currently educational (secondary UK).” One of his aims is to bridge the gap between school mathematics and the mathematical ideas typically introduced in graduate-level coursework. In his talk, he showed how category theory can be accessible to students even early in their mathematical studies and how that perspective helps him and his secondary students.

 
We invite everyone to attend and enjoy TMWYF. At present, we meet over Zoom each Thursday afternoon 12:30PM Pacific/3:30PM Eastern. Information about our upcoming talks, including our Zoom link, abstracts of talks, and speaker information, is available on our website.
 
Additionally, if you have an idea for a talk, please send in an abstract! We welcome talks on any topic for a mathematically interested audience. We particularly encourage submissions from members of underrepresented communities and also from early career mathematicians. You can submit abstracts on our website.
 
The organizing team of TMWYF hopes you’ll join us. Our next talk on September 10th (3:30-4:30 Eastern, 12:30-1:30 Pacific) features Jessie Oehrlin (@numberdance), applied mathematics graduate student at Columbia University

• Using Climate Models to Understand Stratosphere-Troposphere Interaction

  Earth’s atmosphere is a multi-scale, coupled, nonlinear system. We care about everything from clouds here and now to global temperature in 2100. The state of the atmosphere depends on ocean, land, and ice conditions as well as external factors like emissions. Nonlinearity means that information from initial conditions is near-useless after two weeks. And the atmosphere is really hard to do experiments on. It’s great. I’ll talk briefly about how different kinds of weather and climate models capture various temporal and spatial scales, with predictability coming from different sources. Then I’ll focus on the bottom two layers of the atmosphere, the troposphere and the stratosphere: how they interact, why their interaction affects our winter climate, and how we use models to answer our questions about them.

 
The Zoom link for this talk, and a calendar of future events, can be found on our website.

This article written by the current organizers of TMWYF:

• Tien Chih, Montana State University-Billings (@TChihMath)
• T.J. Hitchman, University of Northern Iowa (@ProfNoodlearms)
• Brian Katz, CSU Long Beach (@thewordninja_bk)
• Drew Lewis, University of South Alabama (@siwelwerd)
• Kate Owens, College of Charleston (@katemath)

Get Involved with the Newsletter

Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.

With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Feedback without Fatigue

Presented by Christine Koerner

We know that feedback is essential for student learning, but how do we provide it without constantly giving up hours of our time? In this presentation, educators will learn about providing meaningful feedback and explore resources that help provide instant/ timely feedback. Considerations will be made for school-based, hybrid, and distance learning environments.

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

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Beauty and Justice in Mathematics Education
 

With schools and universities opening back up, how do educators get back to business as usual? If we turn on the news, we hear about the shooting of Jacob Blake (among countless told and untold stories of police violence in the U.S. and around the world), the deaths of protestors on all sides of the political spectrum, the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, the passing away of a hero, Chadwick Boseman, for many children and adults, the ongoing lack of justice for Breonna Taylor, and now reports that many teachers are leaving the profession due to coronavirus and remote teaching concerns. 
 
How do any of us—educators, staff, students, parents, administrators—get back to business as usual given the conflicts, tensions, and ecological crises we face? 
 
Maybe the answer is: we don’t.
 
To be sure, we have students in front of us physically or in little boxes and we have to teach them. But the current climate also affords us an opportunity to rethink our priorities. Francis Su (@mathyawp) and Jordan Ellenberg (@JSEllenberg), for example, invite us to reconsider the time we spend training students to rationalize the denominator.

Instead of going back to the usual routine of guiding students through a minefield of mindless computation and standardized test prep (which many teachers, in all fairness, are under great pressure to do), we might allow ourselves to envision a more purposeful role of math education in the lives of our students and our communities. What part should math and math classrooms play during times of crisis? 
 
Over the summer, two trends in Math Ed Twitter captured my attention: 
 
(1) the promotion of art and beauty in mathematics, most notably through the Math Art Challenges posed by Annie Perkins (@anniek_p), and 
 
(2) the promotion of social justice and anti-racism through math education, notably Dr. Nicole Joseph’s (@projnicolej) work on Black Feminist Mathematics Pedagogies, Benjamin Dickman’s (@benjamindickman) algebra 2 social justice curriculum, Dr. Kari Kokka’s (@karikokka) compilation of social justice mathematics and science resources, and former NCTM president Dr. Robert Berry’s (@robertqberry) ongoing work with mathematics for social justice (among the contributions of many others who I have missed).
 
Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) and Francis Su (@mathyawp) remind us that justice (and injustice) and beauty (and the lack of beauty) occur every day in classrooms and are within our reach. Knowing that justice and beauty, or the lack thereof, are always evident in our classrooms, we can ask ourselves: how can we be more purposeful in the roles that our math classrooms play toward helping students recognize and create beauty and justice in our world? 
 
This is one of the things that I study in my grad school program in education. How can the aesthetics of math and math education, including but not limited to notions of beauty, be both reimagined and deployed in service of a more just and sustainable world? 
 
I don’t have all of the answers, and I probably never will. But I believe that math teachers are at the forefront of addressing this question and other questions like it due to a dual commitment and love toward students and mathematics as a field. 
 
p.s. I love this tweet:

bye, bye, bye
@melvinmperalta

Bidirectional Grace
 

Our students are going through a lot right now. When I asked a few students in my community what they wanted their math teachers to know or do, though, they recognized that teachers, too, have a really hard year ahead of them. These students have been doing online instruction since March, and are now in the third week of school for the fall 2020 semester. Two main themes came up in their responses over and over: First, give students grace, because they are facing very trying circumstances, and second, give yourself grace.
 
As Black students face an onslaught of video-recorded terrorism, Black, Indigenous, and Latin* students face disproportionate losses from COVID-19, and Asian American students face increased racism, an extra measure of grace in the learning of math this year is really important. Students appreciated teachers who recognize the specific challenges of their communities. A student who wanted us to call him “No” asks teachers to understand that many are “dealing with other home problems and personal problems” so please allow for absences, late assignments, or even just small concessions like cameras off when such things come up. He lists many challenges burdening students, such as financial hardships, lack of WiFi, added work hours to help the family, and worries about the pandemic. “No” adds, “Have an abundance of leeway for students. You never know the other factors going on in their life.” Almost all students mentioned slow or inconsistent internet access, and “Ren” requested that teachers keep synchronous assignments concise for this reason.
 
After asking for this grace, though, students extended the same to teachers. Ren responded, “To every math teacher, you are doing absolutely fantastic and patient with dealing with people who are trying their best to succeed.” “MM” added, “As hard as it is for students to adapt to all of this I cannot imagine coordinating online lessons and having blank faces stare back at you on a zoom screen. Us students really do appreciate all your hard work!” Teaching is hard under the best of circumstances, and this year, it is herculean. I hope that these student voices remind you to be understanding and empathetic as students deal with these challenges, and also remind you to extend yourself the same grace. This is an unprecedented challenge, but they see and appreciate your efforts. Ren concludes, “Every teacher has done everything they can to keep us safe and secure.”

Written by Samantha Marshall (@sammieamarshall)

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