We all stumble across moments or images that would make for great math explorations. For example, every time I stop at Buc-ee’s I photograph the cabinets of ice for sale. Someday, I am sure I will make an interesting activity predicting how much a bag of 30 pounds of ice should cost. On a recent trip, however, I discovered that… Read more →
Graham Fletcher (@gfletchy) creates a great series of short videos showing the development of early math skills throughout the elementary grades. These Progression Videos not only show the importance of each part of the instructional sequence, but they also help you reflect on math pedagogy and how the brain makes connections and develops fluency. I felt it would be useful… Read more →
I recently read Walking Papers in which Francesco Clark tells the story of his spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed. He describes the treatments he has sought out, how he has dealt with a variety of attitudes within the medical profession, and how he has started a business creating skin care treatments. The medical professionals provide a great analogy… Read more →
So I’ve been visiting with a colleague over some common challenges, and I’ve been impressed by what a deep thinker he is. Even when he’s talking about students’ behaviors, he’s really talking about the big picture and what that student behavior represents. During one of these conversations I complimented him on a really engaging lesson and he responded with a… Read more →
Getting ready for tomorrow’s campus book study found me reading about classroom procedures in Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion. Often I’ll attend an inservice or read an article and be reminded of techniques I used long ago but abandoned for some reason. A sort of, “Hey, I used to do that and it helped a lot. Why did I… Read more →
Socrative… Thanks to MathyCathy for this one. You create a quiz. Students access the quiz online via a web browser or an iPhone/iPad app. The quiz gives immediate feedback as they answer each question, then emails the teacher a nice color-coded spreadsheet with each student’s response. Remind101… send text/email announcements to students/parents without ever sharing your phone number or email…. Read more →
This morning several students on campus participated in a panel, answering staff questions about learning styles and classroom environments. We learned a lot. At one point, students were asked about reading and writing in non-Language Arts classes. One of my students described an activity that we do, and he got all the major points. Made me feel good. Here’s the… Read more →
A friend forwarded me an email for an online holiday sale: We’ll be offering a coupon code for 10% off which will be in addition to the up to 20% you can take off your products. That’ll mean up to 28% off 1000s of products. Our promo code will be CMT12. The reason it is up to 28% off and… Read more →
Students can be like quicksilver in the computer lab. You have firewalls in place, you’re observant, but you turn your back for a second and find one of them reading the wikipedia article on the Bloods and the Crips. (True story. But at least he wasn’t editing the article for accuracy.) Symbaloo allows users to create a graphical list of… Read more →
This app by Riley Lark, et. al. is nice for gathering data or engaging students. You visit the app at http://activeprompt.herokuapp.com/ and upload an image. Students visit a link (Symbaloo, anyone?) and place a dot on the image according to your prompt (where will these lines intersect? Which best represents your solution? the prompts are limitless!). Then a teacher link… Read more →