This Week in Math Ed: November 18, 2016

I'm so far behind! Going from Innov8 one week to a holiday the next week wasn't good for blogging productivity. Please excuse my tardiness and this abbreviated version of TWiME.

November 11: Geoff Krall gave us "What does it mean to be problem based? An attempt to unwind 'PrBL.'" I appreciate when someone sets their assumptions aside about what we think we know and attempts to define/explain the thing in a more useful way.

Shared by: Kit G., Brian Marks, Carmel Schettino, Wendy Rose Aaron, Erika Bullock, Nicole M. Joseph

November 12: Folks were sharing a "Manifesto on the Teaching of Mathematics" written by Viktor Blåsjö, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utrecht. If you're going to think deeply and write about the teaching of mathematics, I can think of few better places in the world than Utrecht.

Shared by: Maria H. Andersen, Fred Feldon, Matthew Oldridge, Jennifer Lawler, Joshua Bowman, Dan McQuillan, Steven Strogatz

November 13: Kristin Gray came up with a way to help teachers prepare to do number talks in their classrooms that she calls "Number Talk Karaoke."

Shared by: Jody Guarino, Jamie Garner, Laura Wagenman, Max Ray-Riek, Lindel, Jana Sanchez, Laura Wagenman, Joe Schwartz, Kristin Gray

November 14: The AMC 8 competition happened on November 15th, so people were sharing a link with information about all the AMC competitions.

Shared by: Jennifer Lawler, TODOS, NCTM, POWER Org Math, John Golden, Malke Rosenfeld, MAA

Matt Larson at the 2016 Innov8 Conference

November 15: In his President's Message, Matt Larson made some really good points in "The Need to Make Homework Comprehensible."

Shared by: Juli K. Dixon, Denise Spangler, Sarah Bush, Christie Madancy, NCTM, Matthew Beyranevand, Greg George, Chris Kalmbach, Matt Larson

November 16: Reflecting on the CMC South conference, Tracy Zager builds from a talk by Megan Franke that highlighted the idea of "Springboarding" directly from counting to problem solving for young learners. There are some great examples in the post, and those of us who teach higher grades might be pleasantly suprised at what students are capable of when they're giving the right opportunities.

Shared by: Lisa Melton Pizzuto, Rosa Serratore, Denise Gaskins, Elham Kazemi, Janice Novakowski, Becca Lewis, Tracy Johnston Zager

November 17: Dan Meyer brings up "Engagement in Math: Three Places to Start" with some basic advice on gaining students' interest.

Shared by: Kit G., Levi Patrick, Brian Bushart, Robert Kaplinsky, Simon Gregg, Jennifer Blinzler, Christy Vehe

As I mentioned, I'm keeping this short in an effort to catch up!