My t-shirt says it all. “When will I ever use this?” is a question I get a LOT as a math teacher. Especially from middle school level students. Believe it or not, I’ve even had conversations about this at the college level. Have you ever told someone (maybe even your child) that you didn’t see the point in learning algebra? That…
How we talk to kids matters. But did you know that the way the English language names numbers is often confusing and doesn’t reinforce important mathematical concepts? If math is about patterns, then counting should be a pattern, right? Well, counting does follow a pattern, but the language we use doesn’t make it intuitive. Think about the names of the numbers:…
For a while now I have wanted to write about this fantastic resource. Well, I am finally getting around to it! YouCubed.org is a site that was founded by Stanford professor of education, Jo Boaler, “to give teachers, parents and students the resources and ideas they need to inspire and excite students about mathematics.” The information and resources here are backed…
Scene 1: In a typical first grade classroom. Student: {staring at a broken pencil} Teacher: Looks like your pencil is broken. Student: {shifts stare to teacher} Teacher: What do you think you should do? Student: {continues to stare at teacher} Early in my teaching career I had a class of first graders in a fairly large elementary school. I don’t recall…
One of the questions I get asked most frequently as the school year comes to an end is What can we do over summer break to keep our children from forgetting what they learned during the school year? Oh, the dreaded “summer slide.” It’s one of the reasons I loved the year round schedule used at one of the schools where…
There are only a few instructional days left with each of my classes before end-of-year testing begins and things have been getting a bit crazy, as they tend to do this time of year. I finally finished up the coursework for this workshop last weekend and have spent some time letting it all ruminate in my head, partly because I’m a…
So, this week is kind of where it all starts to come together. How to take everything we know to plan a really engaging lesson that students latch on to and that moves their thinking forward. Being an Ignition Expert means you, as the teacher, take into account where students have been mathematically, anticipate strategies and thinking they will use, and…
Fueling sense making. This is the point of being a teacher in any subject, right? Finding ways to push students from being mere recipients of information to thinking critically about that information and using it to construct their own real knowledge. For years I have battled within myself about the merits of memorizing math facts. I know being fast at math…
You may have heard talk of this idea of “productive struggle.” You may even have wondered what it is and how it’s different from any other kind of struggle. We know from research that the brain grows through challenges, or struggles, just like other parts of the body. Let’s take muscle growth, for example. You can’t build muscle by lifting weights…
Instigator. Not a word we usually associate with something good. Often we speak of “problem” students as instigators of mischief. The second module of the Making Math Moments workshop changed my perception of what it means to be an instigator. I already knew part of my job as a math teacher is to get students thinking about math. I also knew…
Be a chance taker. What does this mean in math class? For me, this means putting into practice what I know from research and what I believe about how humans learn math. In many areas of life, this seems like not much of a risk. We learn things all the time that make our lives better. We try new ways of…
I have been away from blogging for a while now. Actually, since I began a new job teaching math to middle school students back in August. I didn’t intend to step away from blogging, but with the 65 mile each way commute I have now, it’s been a process to find time to do all the things. My new mobile office…
Have you ever had trouble remembering how to “carry the one” or had difficulty understanding what it means to “borrow?” Do you pause when deciding which way to “move” a decimal or how many zeros to “add” to the end of a number? Most people I talk to believe math is a {really, really large} set of rules and steps and…