Excitement for Math

What? How can you be so excited for math?

Well, for one thing I am starting at an awesome district in southwestern Minnesota (Butterfield-Odin). It's a new opportunity for sharing my love of math with how I struggled with math (I was considered too simple to understand programming by my math professor at MSU who worked with NASA).

Secondly, in my last post I listed my summer goals, which I have accomplished 90% of them!! I am now a Level 2 Google Certified Educator.

I've also learned, as I have been transitioned into this phase (not exactly a voluntary choice), to be excited for others and their accomplishments. If for example, an acquaintance shares their enthusiasm for a dream job or moment, share in that celebration! Kayla Delzer promotes, promotes, promotes this; just find @topdogteaching.

Another one to check up with is May Vang @vangmay1. When you watch her talk on video, or read her blog, you would NOT guess she's been teaching for 30 years!

Yet another of my people I look up to is George Couros @gcouros, a superintendent in Canada ON FIRE about learning. His tweets help keep me going and getting ready.

Of course I cannot mention everyone I have used as a virtual mentor, but it's similar to ones I mentioned in previous posts. Eric Sheninger, Richard Byrne, Sara Van Der Werf, and others have inspired the ideas I implement (and will implement) into my classroom.

Here's my outline of the first week:

Day 1 Introduce myself, expectations, Table Tent activity, and Jo Boaler Activity
Day 2 Lesson about math thinking and reasoning from Jo Boaler's 1st week of math.
Day 3 1-100 activity inspired from Sara Van Der Werf
Day 4 Either one mindfulness activity or review of previous material or both

I will try to be better at logging my activity this year as well...

Mr. Shel

Comments

Times of Transition

I used to DESIRE to dig into research and to experiment and try a hypothesis in my classroom. Since COVID I have felt complacent and unsupported to try anything. This is the danger of not just the pandemic, but ANY major situation. Then I also became involved with MCTM and worked with people whose desire was to make math more connected again. There were several feeling the same way as I did, and for once that gave some comfort. I've discovered through personal study and investment in my thinking habits, (as mentioned in previous posts) that I am an Architect. Not by trade, but by mindful construction of the "Big Picture" and commanding the tools, resources, and assets I am connected to make it happen. Not to brag, far from it, for Architects also are behind the scenes people, and some have the opposite of superiority complex; that is to say, an inferiority complex. This is a dangerous feeling to have, especially if one is in a competitive environment. If you

Hope for the next standards....

Though the picture represents a different reason for my mug smile (taken in May 2022), it makes me feel the same way to try to continue to hope for the future of math standards. Currently we are working underneath the 2007 Minnesota Math Standards, and version III of the new standards have been out for comment by the public. Before, there were general ideas what was supposed to be presented to Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, upper standards (advanced data and statistics), but yet did not account for the College Now or other preparatory math many schools have implemented to be competitive. Here's a case example of hope for improvement. Currently I teach Algebra 1 to the eighth graders in our district. The curriculum we have is very rigorous (that is to say, the book focuses on rational exponents), and gives students little practice with integer exponents to build their confidence. This gap, paired with a low numeracy and low fraction exposure from their previous school exper

New Stress-old story

Photo by Kristine Lewis via Flickr This year marks my first in long time of having a struggle class be THE struggle class. Normally I like to do an activity with them I got from NCTM in the first month called “A Matter of Survival,” and the students usually play it out prettty well. This class could not focus for more than 2 minutes! It took me at least 20 minutes to tally their data. (October). Now they have been struggling to focus enough to understand the concepts...it almost borderlines dyscalculia. Dyscalculia, according to Wikipedia, is " is difficulty in learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, and learning facts in mathematics. It is generally seen as a specific developmental disorder." Wikipedia reference They've been a distraction to themselves for so long, they missed capstone learning moments to solidify their number theory from the 6th grade before coming to the high

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