Working memory (sometimes referred to as “short-term memory”) helps math students as they hold information temporarily in their mind. It’s essential for mental math. With limited working memory, students may need tools or supports to successfully perform calculations or make sense of a mathematical task. When it comes to math text passages, teachers can adjust the passage to help students… Read more →
Desmos + New STAAR Item Types = Deeper Discourse STAAR has introduced new item types that go beyond multiple choice and griddable items. This session explored how to use Desmos to model these new items types, capture student thinking, and elicit more student discourse The goal of this session was to model new item types in Desmos, then show how… Read more →
IEPs and MTPs – Adapting the Math Teaching Practices for Diverse Learners NCTM’s Effective Math Teaching Practices help provide rich learning opportunities for all students. These practices benefit students who receive special education services as well. This session describes how teachers can adapt the MTPs to meet the needs of students with EIPs and invite all students to rich, student-centered… Read more →
This past weekend, I was honored to join 40 other new Desmos Fellows in San Francisco for a weekend to talk about access & equity, classroom practice, instructional coaching, math history, the future of math education, lesson study & we even squeezed in time to talk desmos.com and their online platform for visualizing math concepts! The welcoming crew at Desmos… Read more →
This session reviewed research and strategies addressing memory and problem solving among students with IEPs. Presentation Slide Deck Vocabulary Activity for spaced practice
This session provided a short introduction to the Desmos Activity Builder, then explored strategies for scaffolding activities to meet the needs of struggling learners. Session Slide Deck Desmos Activity Builder: Differentiation Demonstration Desmos Activity Builder: Scaffolded Questions
I love those rich conversations with colleagues when they express a thought and you feel like you agree completely, but you’ve never been able to express it that clearly. That’s how Routines for Reasoning makes me feel – the book explores strategies teachers can employ to help develop students’ reasoning and problem-solving abilities. Each of the strategies does such a… Read more →
Region 4 Educational Service Center hosted their annual Math Conference, and they usually offer a handful of sessions addressing students with special needs (EL students, students with IEPs, struggling learners, and more). This year, I attended a fantastic session by a new presenter, Leximar Irizarry. The heart of Ms. Irizarry’s session was a cluster of five stations that attempted to replicate… Read more →
I once fixed a broken cruise control on my SUV. I used an internet search engine to look up the specific problem I encountered, I found the exact part number to order from the dealership, and a couple of online videos gave me step-by-step instructions on restoring everything to working order. Of course, I still know nothing about how cruise control… Read more →
Meet Taco, my trained snail. I give him signals, and he walks up and down a tree in my backyard. If you’ve worked with integer tiles, you can see some quick connections. The yellow commands look like positive integer tiles, and the red commands look like negative integer tiles. After students experiment with Taco the snail, they are ready to… Read more →