Mathkins

I am feeling inspired after three days of the Add It Up conference in St. Louis. For the last two days, I have even gone home and started working on lessons for next year. How do I fit all of these good ideas in? I just get so excited. But what keeps coming up for me is how do I stay motivated after the first month or so to keep inserting all of the new ideas. How do I remind myself once we are deep into content that problem solving and estimation still deserve time in class? During the summer, I have time to read, go to conferences, and collaborate. I find all the inspiration I need push myself and I have a ton of time to implement it. But once school has started, when all of my responsibilities start piling up, along with papers I have to grade and just being exhausted, I find myself just falling back into my old routines. I start talking too much. Seems counter intuitive. I have to work harder than my students when I am doing all of the talking. I really appreciate being reminded ...

Why Am I Talking? I think about this question constantly as  I am creating a lesson or activity and bounces around my brain while in the middle of a lecture. What can I do to get my students talking? What questions can I pose in the middle of the lesson that will get them processing new ideas and connecting them to previous ones? Getting my students to talk in class is a two step process. First, I need to help them build relationships with their classmates and with me. If they feel comfortable in class, they are more likely to jump into the tougher math questions. So to start building that report, I start every class with them asking their partners, "Hi, how's it going? How has your day been so far?" We do this every day. Some days I have them ask their partners random questions: What toppings do you like on your pizza? What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Does sky diving sound like fun to you? Usually by the 2nd week they are saying "What's up?" to t...

Wow, what an amazing first week! After a summer of reading some great books, a week long math conference, and incredible conversations with colleagues I jumped in feet first and tried some completely new things this year. I was nervous every day this week, so nervous my stomach was doing back flips every morning and for about 2 minutes before every class period. I didn't know if my new ideas were going to be successful or flop. That uncertainty was very scary and hard to push through. But I made it to the other side relatively unscathed. Day 1- The Play-doh experiment So I bought some mini cans of Play-doh and as I greeted my students for the first time I had them pick a color, find a seat, then read the directions on the board.  Directions: Use the Play-doh to create something that you like, something that you don't like, and/or something that tells us about you. Please keep it school appropriate :-) As I walked around the room introducing myself to each person ...

Yesterday wrapped up a 4 day math conference filled with incredibly inspirational speakers and presenters. I now have a notebook full of ideas, lessons, and activities that I can use in my classroom for the upcoming year and enough enthusiasm to fill a football stadium. I was also able to have some amazing math content and practice conversations with other teachers from my district including elementary teachers. I get very little contact with them during the school year as a high school teacher. Overall, it was an amazing experience from top to bottom. But here is my question...I have so much information and so many great ideas, how do I share them without overwhelming the rest of the math department (11 other teachers) but also getting them to buy in to trying something new? All ideas welcome! On the last day, during a debriefing session, with the entire group that went to the conference, our math coordinator asked us to come up with an action plan. What will we do to share this i...

I gave a presentation at the Saint Louis Adding It Up conference on Monday on collaborative strategies that I use in my classroom. It was the first time I have ever presented outside of my school district, which I have only done twice, so I was pretty psyched for the opportunity. It was a small group but I think I everyone was able to take at least one thing away from it. I took a lot of time to share how I build community in my classroom because I feel that before I can ask my students to have deep meaningful discussions about math or collaborate with their peers, I need to establish a safe and supportive space to do that. Everyday, before we go over the warm up, I have my students talk with their partner by asking them a few of the following questions. "Hi, how are you today? How has your morning/afternoon been? What did you have for breakfast? What are you doing after school? Do you have any quizzes or tests today?" This daily check-in not only breaks the ice, it also he...

The math coordinator in my district convinced me late April that I should present at the Adding It Up conference in Saint Louis in July. Actually, it's next week July 17th - 20th. It is a 45 minute class demonstration style presentation on collaborative strategies. I definitely have plenty to talk about but I am worried that it will all be stuff they have heard before. Aren't professional development conferences usually populated by the teachers that are already trying the cool stuff? Will I really be able to bring something new and interesting to the table? I guess I should have the mindset I do with my students. If I can help just one person it's worth it, right?

I actually went to bed fairly early last night, 10 pm, that's my summer bed time. But as I lay there in the dark with my rain sounds guiding me toward a sweet slumber, my brain kicked into high gear. It started collecting and shaking loose all of the ideas that have been swirling around after reading some really great books (The Classroom Chef, What's Math Got to Do With It, and Teach Like a Pirate). As the clock ticked away, I started imagining my first few days of school. How I would attempt to connect and make them feel comfortable during that first awkward day? What can we do on that first day that will make them look forward to the second? Every question that I asked my brain came back with a engaging and inspired idea. I ran to get a notebook. I needed to jot these ideas down before sleep stole them away.