Math and the Minnesota State Fair

I am excited that I had the opportunity to visit with Christopher Danielson in person and see the mathematical goodness that is Math-on-a-Stick at the Minnesota State Fair later this month. Math-on-a-Stick is a “large-scale public math playspace at the Minnesota State Fair” (Talking Math With Kids). I have some pictures below so you can see all the fun we had. Here are my 5 takeaways from the visit that can also guide our classrooms.

1. The math stations were collaborative. Nearly every station had a table with chairs meant to bring people together. People were encourages to talk and work together. I walked up to a number of stations and just started chatting to people of all ages. It was a lot of fun.
2. There was no right (or wrong) way to engage at most of the stations. The stations were exploratory in nature. People could make up their own aims and ways of engaging. The more different ways that I saw people engaging the more motivated I got to try them or think of new ways.
3. Everyone had choice over what they chose to do (or chose not to do). There were no rules that we had to do all the stations or had to go in an order. If a station spoke to you, you could go engage with it. If it didn’t interest you, no one cared if you chose not to engage with it. You created your own adventure.
4. There were volunteers that helped, if you wanted. They were cheerful helpers who were happy to be there but didn’t instruct. They simply stayed close in case we wanted help or to chat or had questions.
5. The space was a community space. Clearly people came together to volunteer, to engage, to support, to just observe. This space has grown up over years to become a community oriented place that exists to bring mathematics to the masses. It has grown and connected many people of the years asking for nothing in return.

I hope to go back one day! It was a great experience and I want to give a special shout out to Sarah Van Der Werf who was the lead volunteer that morning and took so much time to chat with me about Math-on-a-Stick and other math topics. I highly encourage everyone to visit if you are able and think about how you might bring a bit of the spirt of Math-on-a-Stick to your community.

I would be remiss to not remark on the Minnesota State Fair outside of Math-on-a-Stick. The food was amazing and delicious. There were so many animals to see and learn about. The fiber arts were AMAZING. It was so, so busy. People everywhere! The day we came was a record attendance day, over 200,000 people visited just that day! Definitely an experience I’ll always remember.

Instructional Nudge – First Attempt

This nudge is one of Sam Otten’s (my friend and frequent collaborator) favorites. It is simple and has some nice research behind it. Basically, anytime you are going to give instruction on a topic and have some problems for students to learn how you add one small step before that process goes underway.

First, before instruction, give students a few minutes (maybe 3-5) to try one of the problems you will learn about that day. Yes, I know, they don’t know how to solve it yet, but that’s kind of the point. You are giving them time to explore the problem, see what they do know or what it might relate to that they already know, and whet their appetite for the lesson to come. That’s it, then you just go about your typical lesson. This brief space for students to think and explore before they learn exactly what to do can increase their interest and success on subsequent problems. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Find more of our nudges on the Practice-Driven PD website.

UnTeach Project – What’s in your brain?

Sometimes it is hard to get kids to share how they are thinking about math, especially small children. For example, I can ask my niece, who is currently 6, if she knows what 8 plus 3 is. She will get to 11 after a lot of silent thinking. The wheels are definitely turning, but I want to know what she’s doing.

Sometime she’ll say I just knew it or I did it in my brain or I used my fingers. I often want a bit more than that. Did she count up from the 8 or from the 3? Did she make a 10 with 8 and 2 and then add on the last one? How did she count on her fingers? To get her to give me a bit more, a question I like to ask is what did your brain do.

Asking what her brain is doing (or how did your brain get that?) often gets her talking a bit differently. It is trying to support her in thinking about her thinking (metacognition) and making it clear to me since I can’t go into her brain. In the case of 8 + 3 it also lets me understand if we can move on to a count from a larger strategy if she did count on from 3 instead of 8 or to help her compose facts if she didn’t do it that way.

So maybe next time you want to understand a child’s thinking, try phrasing it in a new way and asking them to open up their brain to you so you can take a peek inside.

Upcoming Events & Happenings

Here are some updates and upcoming events I have planned. Let me know if you plan to be at any of these, it’s always nice to say hi in real life.

ConnectED

On October 13th I get to kick off a math-focused day with Florida Educational Consortia members by giving a keynote talk. I love sharing new ways of thinking about mathematics and learning from people who have different experiences and relationships with mathematics. This should be a great day in Orlando!

NCSM Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado

I’ll be a major speaker (I am so excited!). I’ll be presenting a session titled, “Ideas for Aligning Messages, Actions, Feedback and Evidence and Data to Feedback and Actions” on October 28th.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado

I’ll be rebooting one of my favorite sessions I’ve done. It’s called “Thinking Outside the Box with Substitution and Elimination” and I’ll be presenting it on October 29th.

Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD

One of my favorite conferences every year! This year I’ll be sharing a session focused on advocacy for those who are eager to get started but may not know how. Should be a good time!