The school year thus far has been rather challenging. I have been constantly working and yet always falling further and further behind. Blogging felt like a vanity project that I could not afford to prioritize over lesson planning, grading, supporting other teachers, writing recommendation letters, and so on. But I worked hard over vacation, and … Continue reading #MTBoS 2016 Blogging Initiative
Author: Joey Kelly
Hope & Despair
I recently saw this article, and I thought the "reason for despair" and "reason for hope" conceit was good food for thought to get me blogging again. This year, I find that I am constantly vacillating between hope and despair. Instead of talking about the state of education in general, I want to talk about the different … Continue reading Hope & Despair
NCTM Lessons: Randomness, Verticality, and Spiraling Activities
A few months ago, I went to my first math ed conference: the NCTM Annual Conference, which was here in Boston this year. I really enjoyed myself, and I think I got a lot out of it. One session in particular gave me the final push I needed to change my teaching in three significant ways. … Continue reading NCTM Lessons: Randomness, Verticality, and Spiraling Activities
NCTM Takeaways
A few months back, I attended the NCTM annual conference here in Boston. I wanted to blog about every session that I attended, and while I'm trying to catch up on a bunch of blog topics from this year, I just haven't been able to devote the time and energy to write about every interesting … Continue reading NCTM Takeaways
9. Four Fours
I meant to blog about this problem about 10 months ago, but better late than never. Highlight: We got student-supplied answers for 1-100. Lowlight: Those 100 answers did not come from 100 different students. In fact, one student was able to come up with about a third of them himself. We got some but not nearly … Continue reading 9. Four Fours
13. Thirteens
Source: NRICH Maths – Elevenses Why did we choose this problem? Good Play With Your Math problems: involve some sort of “play” before choosing a specific strategy. have a low floor (accessibility and entry point) have a high ceiling (need for more complex mathematics) have a succinct, accessible, intuitive wording and visualization This problem meets … Continue reading 13. Thirteens
12. Space Race
On Friday, we shared Play 12. Space Race with our students. Here is a sketch of how this problem developed. 1. Find a fun problem. We met Ben over the summer at a BU discussion workshop, showed him some of our Play problems, and talked about our approach to the project. Later, Ben sent us a problem that … Continue reading 12. Space Race
Video Game Design
Recently, Daniel Schneider posted this video of video game designer Edmund McMillen. In the video, McMillen talks through a few levels of a game, illustrating some of the design decisions that make the game intuitive, engaging, and challenging. I loved this video. I immediately watched it a second and a third time, thinking about the parallels … Continue reading Video Game Design
Strategy Showcase: Always/Sometimes/Never
For a department meeting at the beginning of the year (before I started running department meetings), I had the opportunity to showcase a instructional strategy. I chose Always/Sometimes/Never. Unfortunately, I was sick, and I was not at the meeting, but I'm a huge fan of this strategy, and I would like to talk about why. … Continue reading Strategy Showcase: Always/Sometimes/Never
New Role, New Website, and Being Sick
I haven't written a blog post in a long time. I've been some combination of sick and swamped for most of this school year. There are tons of lessons, activities, and challenges that I would love to talk about, and hopefully, I will find time to do some more writing soon with Thanksgiving and winter … Continue reading New Role, New Website, and Being Sick
Mister, is this right? 