So the spring term means two things for my Honors Geometry kids – the technology inquiry project and looking at the French Garden Problem. So for those of you who are not familiar with both of those I’ll try to quickly fill you in while I talk about how they just happen to so coolly […]
Maybe it’s just how I am, or maybe I’m just always worried about what people are going to say about me, but I am hesitant to criticize other teachers publicly in the blogosphere. I’ve always felt this camaraderie with others once I’ve learned they were a teacher even if we are very different from each […]
Apologies faithful readers – those of you who know me well, know that I have been dealing with a great deal of personal issues and preparing for the summer PBL Math Teaching Summit, so I have taken a small hiatus from blogging for a while. However, with that under control for now, I turn to […]
I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to the idea of “tracking” in PBL, mostly at the prodding of the teaching fellow I’m working with this year – which is so awesome, of course. Having a young teacher give you a fresh outlook on the practices that your school has come to know and […]
It’s been an extremely busy fall for me, but with the help of my friend Nils Ahbel, I have finally put together an informational flyer and schedule for the Problem-Based Learning Math Teaching Summit for next summer. As you begin to look for professional development opportunities for yourself, please consider being a part of this […]
So I have one class this year that is rather frustrating and pretty tough to handle when it comes to buy-in with what I’m doing in the mathematics classroom. Perhaps it’s because it’s first period, or perhaps it’s the mix of kids (quiet, shy, cynical?) – but I’m having a hard time inspiring them to […]
I just read a great story posted on a blog about Malcolm Gladwell’s comments about Alan Schoenfeld’s research on persistence in problem solving in Gladwell’s book Outliers. In this story, a young woman persists for 22 minutes on a problem that had an average persistence time for most students of about two minutes. Of course we […]
OK, so I’m not really doing the full blog challenge – This weekend was nutso and blogging everyday is really tough – enough with the excuses. But this question, “Who was or is your most inspirational colleague and why?” just really struck me at my core. There have been so many, probably for all of […]
So the question for today is “Discuss one observation “area” that you would like to improve upon for your teacher evaluation.” This is a tough one for me because as a teacher at an independent school formal evaluations are done in the second and sixth years so I don’t have formal evaluation “areas” per se. […]