180 Ideas #7: See Them Say It
An easy activity to get to know your students at the start of the year. Continue reading 180 Ideas #7: See Them Say It
180 Ideas #6: Norms
Start the year out right by developing and sharing norms with your students. Continue reading 180 Ideas #6: Norms
Next up for 180 Ideas
I’ve been having a lovely summer break and hope you have as well. I’ve also been busier than normal for a summer with conferences (seriously check out TODOS), the revision and acceptance of a beastly manuscript (that I am super proud of), and celebrating a large milestone (I earned tenure and promotion at the University … Continue reading Next up for 180 Ideas
180 Ideas: #5 Stop, Collaborate, and Listen
An idea for what to do when a good lesson goes bad Continue reading 180 Ideas: #5 Stop, Collaborate, and Listen
180 Ideas: #4 Choose your own Strategy
As a teacher, sometimes I was pretty good at showing students lots of different ways to solve a problem. I often wasn’t so good at asking them to make sense of when to use these strategies, hence Idea #4: Choose your own strategy. Once students have developed some understanding of different ways to approach a … Continue reading 180 Ideas: #4 Choose your own Strategy
180 Ideas: #3 Creative Non-Examples
When students are learning a new concept we tend to define the concept and give some examples. Consider right angles, we might first define them as angles that are 90 degrees and then show some examples like these: This idea is all about going just one step further by adding in some creative non-examples. Non-examples … Continue reading 180 Ideas: #3 Creative Non-Examples
180 Ideas: #2 Ask for a Wrong
A small idea to celebrate wrong answers in the mathematics classroom. Continue reading 180 Ideas: #2 Ask for a Wrong
180 Ideas: #1 The Flex Day
When I was a new teacher I planned my year out with the help of my district and textbook pacing guides. I knew I needed to get through X number of chapters in X weeks. I typically started by mapping out how far I needed to get through by midterm, then I put in the … Continue reading 180 Ideas: #1 The Flex Day
180 Ideas: The Premise
I taught high school mathematics in Orlando, Florida. My first day in the classroom was literally my first day in the classroom. I had earned a B.S. in mathematics with a minor in anthropology at the University of Florida. As a first generation college student, I knew I should go to college, but I wasn’t … Continue reading 180 Ideas: The Premise
The Purposeful Classroom
Recently, I’ve noticed that we are in the midst of a purposeless, clutter epidemic. It’s hard to trace the start of this epidemic. Perhaps it can be traced back to the rise of Pinterest and easy access to classroom inspiration. In any case, many classrooms are just filled with visual clutter that has little to … Continue reading The Purposeful Classroom