This Week in Math Ed: May 27, 2016

I hope everyone had a restful holiday weekend! This week's TWiME is coming out later than most (I got sucked deep into some project work!), but don't let that keep you from checking out all the great things to hit the world of math ed last week.

Math Ed Said

Ilana Horn at the 2016 NCTM Research Conference
May 20: Ilana Horn wrote, "Who Belongs in our Math Classrooms?," a wonderful post about student affect and what kind of teacher actions and classroom cultures get in the way of students feeling like they belong.

Shared by: Ilana Horn, Bryan Anderson, Andrew Gael, Annie Forest, danny brown, Anne Schwartz, Fawn Nguyen, Ed Campos Jr, Sadie Estrella, Ron King, Tracy Johnston Zager, Evan Weinberg, Sara VanDerWerf, Bryan Meyer

May 21: Are you ready for "The Summer of Math?" Christopher Danielson is, and he wants to help you be ready, too. Christopher has put together a subscription service where you can get a monthly box of math goodies to help keep your kids thinking mathematically all summer long.

Shared by: Christopher Danielson, casey, A. O. Fradkin, Justin Lanier, Janice Novakowski, Kassia Wedekind, Megan Schmidt, Elizabeth Statmore, Martin Joyce, Nicole Bridge, Brian Bushart, Kent Haines, Laura Wagenman, Malke Rosenfeld, Bryan Anderson

May 22: John Rowe shows off a number of approaches to periodic functions, each of which was inspired by work of other Twitter-using math teachers. In this post you'll see a mix of "Which One Doesn't Belong," some Desmos activities, and "reversing the question."

Shared by: John Rowe, Mary Bourassa, WODB? Math, Fawn Nguyen, Taylor Belcher, Patty Stephens, Chris Mueller, Jennifer Lawler, Matt Sheelen, Martin Joyce

May 23: Katrina Schwartz is back yet again with another post on the KQED MindShift blog. "How A Strengths-Based Approach to Math Redefines Who Is 'Smart' uses the recent NCTM session about "Railside High" to describe complex instruction and efforts to change the culture of math classrooms and math departments.

Shared by: Nancy Terry, POWER Org Math, Bryan Meyer, John Golden, Samuel, NCTM, Emily Campbell, Bryan Anderson, SFUSD Math, Jennifer Lawler, Nicola Petty, Susan Davidson, Kaitie O'Bryan, Earl Samuelson, USU TeachMath, Ashley Bingenheimer, Clint Chan, Brian R Lawler, DeAnn Huinker, Geoff Krall

May 24: In a post about so-called "second math classes," Sara VanDerWerf describes "The #1 thing I did in my support math classes." Sara provides a long list of good ideas, focusing in on what she thinks is the single most important thing to help students who persistently struggle in math classes.

Shared by: Monica Brannan, Laura Wagenman, Meg Craig, Shelley Carranza, Jennifer Cook, Sara VanDerWerf, Jennifer Blinzler, Kathryn Freed

May 25: Jamie Duncan wrote "First Grade Fraction Talks... What?." I wondered how she did this without straying too far from the Grade 1 standards, but I think she did so rather nicely — there's no use of fraction notation, and students reasoned their way by focusing on the number and relative sizes of shapes.

Shared by: Jamie Duncan, Nat Banting, Fraction Talks, Ashley Bingenheimer, Andrew Gael, Chris Kalmbach, judy keeney, Genni Steele, Steve Wyborney, Shelley Carlisle, Amie Albrecht, Damian Watson, Andrew Stadel

May 26: Fawn Nguyen shared a post called, "A Lesson Salvaged" in which she describes how a MAP went poorly, and how she gave the task a second try with the help of Geometer's Sketchpad.

Shared by: Fawn Nguyen, John Golden, Kay Endriss, Adrianne Burns, Bridget Dunbar, Taylor Belcher

Around the Math Ed Web

I'm keeping this very short and very simple this week: Last week's Global Math Department talk is here (on interleaved problems), this week's is here (on the math behind game shows), and be aware that due to technical difficulties, NCSM has extended their proposal deadline for next year's annual conference to June 3rd.

Research Notes

The first few articles have been added to the September 2016 volume of The Journal of Mathematical Behavior:
In what's being called "Volume 2, Issue 2 Supplement" for July 2016 (rather than Issue 6, I guess, which would have been next), here's more from the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education:
Here's something mathy and new from Teaching and Teacher Education:
The University of Exeter reorganized their website and wiped out Paul Ernest's archives of the Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal. I found Ernest's new faculty page and hope an updated link appears there soon.

Math Ed in the News

There really wasn't a whole lot of math ed-related news for the 7 days of May 20-26, but I found this (and look forward to seeing how Common Core is discussed in Texas at next year's NCTM Annual Meeting in San Antonio):

Math Ed in Colorado

I have little new to report here, but I'm excited that Geometry Point in Romero Park is open in Lafayette! I'll have to grab my camera and check it out someday soon.

This Week in Math Ed: May 20, 2016

Math Ed Said

May 13: The first time I saw "WODB" (Which One Doesn't Belong?) mentioned on Twitter, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But when you see it in action, skillfully facilitated, you get it. Tracy Zager shared with us "Straight but Wiggled," in which a bunch of first graders make sense of ideas like "diamond," "straight," and "vertiwiggle." If you're familiar with Paul Cobb et al.'s work on the emergence of sociomathematical norms in classroom group activity, it makes it extra interesting to see what happens here.

Shared by: Tracy Johnston Zager, Ilona Vashchyshyn, Bridget Dunbar, Malke Rosenfeld, Kent Haines, Simon Gregg, David Butler, Mark Chubb, John Golden, A. O. Fradkin, Bryan Anderson, Laura Wagenman, Pat Power

May 14: If you're looking for Ignite talks from the 2016 NCTM Annual Meeting, or prior meetings, you can find them at The Math Forum.

Shared by: Suzanne Alejandre, Peg Cagle, The Math Forum, Tracy Johnston Zager, Amie Albrecht

May 15: It's a return appearance for the Ontario Math Links, this time for the week ending May 13th, 2016.

Shared by: David Petro, Mary Bourassa, Matthew Oldridge, Kyle Pearce, Jon Orr, Ryan Smith, Cathy Yenca

May 16: Jon Orr describes "Double Clothesline – Solving Equations," a very nice approach to understanding solving equations. Instead of a balance or algebra tiles, this uses double number lines in a way that gives more focus to the quantitites, rather than choosing or performing operations.

Shared by: Jon Orr, Shelley Carranza, Kyle Pearce, David Petro, Alex Overwijk, Pam Wilson, Lisa Lunney Borden, John Gibson

Dan Meyer
May 17: Dan Meyer is thinking about the informal that supports the formal understanding, which he illustrates in the post "Blue Point Rule." This is familiar territory for those of us who study Realistic Mathematics Education and its approach of progressive formalization. RME uses the terms "informal," "preformal," and "formal," and what Dan's wrestling with is what I'd call the "preformal" in RME. It's important that we call it out because it's really tough to make that last transition from a preformal model or conception to the use of a formal equation or rule. Dan's collecting "Before I ask for (Formal X), I ask for (Informal Y)" statements, some of which hint at common models used in RME.

Shared by: Dan Meyer, Bridget Dunbar, Jon Orr, Imtiaz Damji, Chris Mueller, Carrie Diaz Eaton, Mark Chubb, Nancy Terry, Jamie Duncan, Michael Fenton, Eddi Vulić, Rob Horcher, Missy Stringham, Levi Patrick, Rob Horcher, Jessica Faurote, Regan Galvan, Tim McCaffrey, Martin Joyce

May 18: There were 14 more shares of Dan's "Blue Point Rule" post, but I didn't want that post to completely overshadow this post by Matt Larson, which also got (re)tweeted a lot on the 17th and 18th. "NCTM Is Its Members" talks about NCTM understanding the needs of its members and what they're doing to meet them. I'm pretty excited about some of the directions NCTM is going, and they're moving a bit faster than I expected when I was thinking about these issues a while back. If you have feedback and ideas for Matt and NCTM, be sure to go to the post and leave them. You can see what other people have said and Matt's replies, and it looks like a pretty good discussion so far.

Matt Larson

Shared by: Lisa Henry, Amanda Jansen, TCM - NCTM, NCTM, NCTM - MT, April Pforts, UNL NebraskaMATH

May 19: The Chalkbeat story "How one Tennessee school district is getting students excited about math" describes number talks in a 1st grade classroom.

Shared by: John Golden, Melissa Soto, Donna Boucher, NCTM, Gary Petko

Around the Math Ed Web

A few more links popped up this week that I think are too good to pass up:
I'm eager to listen to Sam Otten's podcast with Thomas Carpenter. The episode is 28 minutes long and if I had 28 minutes to talk with Tom Carpenter, I probably wouldn't get past 1970. I'm guessing Sam did better than that.



In the Global Math Department last week, Tracy Zager gave a talk called, "How Do They Relate? Teaching Students to Make Mathematical Connections." Next week, Yana Weinstein and Cindy Wooldridge will talk about "Improving Math Education with Interleaved Problems by Global Math Department."

Deadlines: NCSM Annual on June 1 and RUME on August 19th and December 2nd (for posters).

Research Notes

The June 2016 issue of ZDM has arrived, with the theme Cognitive Neuroscience and Mathematics Learning — Revisited After Five Years:
I see one math article was just added to the August 2016 issue of Teaching and Teacher Education:
There's also a new issue of the Mathematics Education Research Journal:
New in AERA Open:
I don't watch Urban Education on a week-to-week basis for math ed articles, but recently a few caught my eye, so here's what I found published either this year or in upcoming issues:

Math Ed in the News

Do you remember that thing I put in last week's news section? No, you didn't, because there wasn't a news section! Somehow it slipped by unnoticed. But here's some news for you this week:

Math Ed in Colorado

The highlight of my week was attending the Colorado Mathematics Awards at the Grant-Humphreys Mansion in Denver. Organized by Richard Gibbs, David Carlson, and the CMA steering committee, this event recognizes students for outstanding performance in MATHCOUNTS, the American Mathematics Contents 8, 10, and 12, Moody's Mega Math Challenge, the USA Mathematics Olympiads, the American Regions Mathematics League, the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, the International Contest in Modeling, the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling, and some teaching awards. Whew, did I remember them all? It was great to see students ages middle school through college all being recognized for their outstanding work, and the fact that Colorado has a special event that brings all these people together is really something to be proud of.

The packed house at the Grant-Humphreys Mansion for the 2016 Colorado Mathematics Awards

While it was great to join everyone in this event in its 21st year, I think a big challenge going forward is to make sure opportunities to participate on math teams and in math competitions gets spread across all of Colorado. As a former MATHCOUNTS kid from a 5200-person rural town in Iowa, I noticed that most of the awardees were students from large, high-SES schools on the Front Range. I realize I only saw the winners, not all the participants, but the small-towner in me would love to see some students there representing places like Gunnison, Ordway, and Walden. Geographic diversity is one of a number of struggles concerning math competitions, so if you'd like to expand the opportunity to participate in math competitions at your school, let me know and I'll see if I can get you connected to people who can help.

In the News:
PD opportunities:
Job openings:
  • Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, CO, needs a math teacher for grades 9-12. At this time, the schedule includes Algebra 1 and several honors classes, including Precalculus. Bailey is a beautiful, small mountain community about an hour southwest of Denver and PCHS enrolls about 300 students. Class sizes are in the twenties or lower. Please apply to www.plattecanyonschools.org.
  • Lake County School District in Leadville is looking for a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. If you are interested in joining a math department that combines Jo Boaler's work with Expeditionary Learning while living in a small town in the mountains, this job is for you. More information and an application can be found at their website. (Update 5/23: Position filled!)

This Week in Math Ed: May 13, 2016

Math Ed Said

May 6: "Why Math Education Doesn't Add Up" along with a radio interview with Steven Strogatz appeared on PRI's Innovation Hub. Strogatz grapples with a tough truth: In general, most everyone gets through their adult lives just fine without using much of the high school math they were required to take. And yet while we all forget the quadratic formula, without consequence, we seem to collectively struggle with essential numeracy.

Shared by: Steven Strogatz, Dan Anderson, John Golden, Dan Meyer, Malyn Mawby, Dan Anderson, Jocelyn Dagenais, MathDDSB, OCTM, Steve Phelps, Earl Samuelson, Dan Allen

May 7: If there's been a more bizarrely disappointing story this year to hit TWiME, I can't remember it. "Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight" describes xenophobia and paranoia run amok.

Shared by: Kent Haines, Egan J Chernoff, Earl Samuelson, Francis Su, Michael Welch, Allison Krasnow, Shannon Houghton, Dave Richeson, Megan Schmidt, Robin Hosemann, Sahar Khatri, Amy Hogan, solve my maths, Nick Yates, Adrian Pumphrey, Andy Zsiga, Shannon Houghton, Eddi Vulić, Spencer Bagley, Keith Devlin, David Petro, T R, Ralph Pantozzi, Robbyn Glinsmann, Linda Hoang

May 8: Is this awkward? I feel like this is awkward. (Just kidding!) Somehow I didn't discover the weekly "Ontario Math Links" posts until a month or two ago, after I started TWiME. The Ontario Math Links predates TWiME by several years, and it's really my fault for not knowing about it. I'm happy to say that my posts and their posts are more complementary than redundant. The Ontario Math Links for the week ending May 6th, for example, highlights resources shared and talked about during the annual conference of the Ontario Association for Mathematics Education, something that didn't come up on TWiME.

Shared by: David Petro, Heather Theijsmeijer, Mark Chubb, Jon Orr, Matthew Oldridge, Kyle Pearce, Jennifer Lawler, Mary Bourassa, Laura Wheeler

May 9: On Monday people were (re)tweeting a post by John Rowe called "The Best Worksheet I have ever (re)written." It uses the "reversing the question" method credited to Fawn Nguyen to take some pretty run-of-the-mill textbook problems and give them some new direction.

Shared by: Jon Orr, Mary Bourassa, Eddi Vulić, Shelley Carranza, Amy Scales, Fawn Nguyen, WMC - WI MathCouncil, TODOS

May 10: Tuesday is Global Math Department day, and people were excited for Carl Oliver's "Teaching the Mathematical Practices Through Non-Routine Problems."

Shared by: Mary Gambrel, Global Math, Carl Oliver, Sharon Vestal, Geoff Krall, Megan Schmidt, April Pforts, Kent Haines

May 11: Instead of listening so much to Andrew Hacker, Patrick Honner says "When it Comes to Math Teaching, Let's Listen to Math Teachers."

Commentary: Listening to math teachers is a big part of my job. It's probably my favorite part. I agree with Patrick, that we should be listening to math teachers. But I also want to point out that listening isn't the same as getting answers, and you won't need to listen to very many math teachers in order to find differences in opinion. But in and of itself, that is one great reason to listen — the needs, wants, and beliefs of the math teaching community are not distributed evenly. Debates about the value of the content we teach existed before Hacker's name showed up in the New York Times, and math teachers will still be debating it long after the paperbacks of Hacker's book are cleared from the bargain bin. In fact, everyone should read The Saber-Tooth Curriculum (1939) to see how, possibly, some form of the Hacker debate has been happening since the dawn of mankind. From the math teachers I've been listening to (like here and elsewhere), this particular debate plays out more or less just as you'd expect: a system designed to open opportunities to more students (by putting more on a path to calculus) might inadvertently now be too restrictive and out-of-date (by making our mathematical pathways too narrow). It's a debate worth having, and Hacker is welcome to add his voice, but listening too much to any one voice is not a very good formula for progress.

Shared by: Math for America, Dan Anderson, Kate Nowak, Elizabeth Statmore, Ilana Horn, Tim Hudson, Jennifer Lawler, Keith Devlin, David Butler, Kathy H, James Tanton, Peg Cagle, Bowen Kerins, John Allen Paulos, Jack Brown

May 12: People were still buzzing about Patrick's post from the 11th, but not far behind were tweets about "Twitter 6000," a set of resources courtesy of the ATM.

Shared by: ATM, Learning Maths, The NCETM, solve my maths, Laura T, Danny Brown, Simon Gregg, Helen Williams

Around the Math Ed Web

I mentioned Carl Oliver's Global Math talk above, and next week you should be on the lookout for "How Do They Relate? Teaching Students to Make Mathematical Connections by Global Math Department" by Tracy Zager.

Proposal deadlines:
  • NCTM Research Conference: Not yet announced
  • NCSM Annual Conference: June 1, 2016
  • AMTE Annual Conference: May 15, 2016
  • RUME Conference: There are two deadlines for the Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Conference: August 19, 2016 is the deadline for preliminary, theoretical, and contributed reports, and December 2, 2016, is the deadline for poster reports, and that has rolling acceptances. The next RUME conference is February 23-25, 2017, in San Diego.

Research Notes

First up is the June 2016 issue of the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education:
From AERA Open:
The first articles of 2016 for the International Journal for Mathematics Teaching and Learning (from Plymouth University in the UK and the College of Nyiregyháza, Hungary) has these open-access items:
The first 2016 issue of the Journal of Statistics Education is now available, looking all bright and shiny on its new Taylor & Francis home. Annoyingly, the shiny new home does a lousy job at telling me where the authors are from, when it tells me at all.
A lone new article has appeared in the very specialized Technology Innovations in Statistics Education:

Math Ed in Colorado

It isn't math-specific, but you should be aware that CDE is conducting an Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) listening tour around Colorado. There's still a lot of ESSA details to work out for CDE and districts alike, so if you want to know more or have some input, these meetings are a great place to start.

PD opportunities:
Job openings:
  • NEW: Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, CO, needs a math teacher for grades 9-12. At this time, the schedule includes Algebra 1 and several honors classes, including Precalculus. Bailey is a beautiful, small mountain community about an hour southwest of Denver and PCHS enrolls about 300 students. Class sizes are in the twenties or lower. Please apply to www.plattecanyonschools.org.
  • Eagle Valley HS (Eagle County) is looking for a teacher certified to teach dual enrollment courses. Applicants who have taken masters-level math courses and can be credentialed with CMC to teach dual enrollment courses will receive strong consideration. See the school website for more information and here to apply for the job.
  • Lake County School District in Leadville is looking for a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. If you are interested in joining a math department that combines Jo Boaler's work with Expeditionary Learning while living in a small town in the mountains, this job is for you. More information and an application can be found at their website.

This Week in Math Ed: May 6, 2016

Math Ed Said

April 29: The New York Times featured a story and set of graphs titled "Money, Race and Success: How Your School District Compares." The title is a little misleading, as the expert in the study specifically warns against using this data for ranking. What you should really be getting from this story is the sheer pervasiveness of inequality that's predicted by race and income, regardless of place. These are not problems you can just say happen somewhere else.

Shared by: Thad Domina, Eric Milou, Tracy Johnston Zager, Jose Vilson, Mike Lawler, Steve Phelps, Regan Galvan, Michael Welch

April 30: The Curriculum Matters blog in Education Week ran a story a couple weeks ago asking, "The Search for Common-Core Curricula: Where Are Teachers Finding Materials?" I seem to frequently find myself in conversations about curriculum coherence and the cobbling together of materials teachers are either finding or developing themselves. This post summarizes some findings from a RAND Corporation study, and it's good to get some numbers to go with the stories I've been hearing about curriculum selection and use.

Shared by: Amy Hogan, Tracy Johnston Zager, Taylor Belcher, Rob Horcher, Megan Schmidt

May 1: "Reflections on a Career in Teaching" is a great post by David Bressoud, who finished his last teaching assignment this semester. David admits that most of the important lessons he's learned by teaching are ones many others already new, but that there's no replacement for digging in and doing the work yourself.

Shared by: MAA, Patrick Honner, Natalya St. Clair, Francis Su, Egan J Chernoff, TJ Hitchman, Ilona Vashchyshyn, Peg Cagle, Warren J. Code, Dan McQuillan, Joshua Bowman

May 2: Graham Fletcher's ShadowCon talk, "Becoming a Better Storyteller," is now online and was the focus of a Twitter chat. Graham mixes a few messages here, but my overall takeaway is the need to shake ourselves of our assumptions about what our math curriculum should include. I went through a moment like this a few years ago when I went looking for mentions of absolute value in the Common Core State Standards. Yes, absolute value is in the standards, but I couldn't find anything about solving absolute value equations. Graham shows in his talk that there's no call in the CCSS to simplify fractions. What can you find (or not find) in your standards?

Shared by: Graham Fletcher, Joe Schwartz, Nanette Johnson, Robert Kaplinsky, Sahar Khatri, Mike Flynn, Andrew Gael, Dan Meyer, Rusty Anderson, NCTM, Zak Champagne, Mark Chubb, Laura Wagenman, Sara VanDerWerf, casey

May 3: How had I not heard of Eugenia Cheng? If you don't know who she is, see this feature in The New York Times: "Eugenia Cheng Makes Math a Piece of Cake."

Shared by: Earl Samuelson, Sara Delano Moore, MAA, Egan J Chernoff, Gary Davis, Peg Cagle, Ilona Vashchyshyn, Patrick Honner, Dan Meyer

May 4: Wednesday was Kaneka Turner's turn to have her ShadowCon talk featured and chatted about on Twitter. "Extending the Invitation to Be "Good" at Math. For me, I was "invited to the math party" in about seventh grade — I was asked to join the MathCounts team and spent my study halls helping my math teacher check homework, organize for class, and design class activities. I've been pointed in the same general direction pretty much ever since.

Shared by: Robert Kaplinsky, Crystal Lancour, NCTM, Mike Flynn, Brian Bushart, Annie Fetter, Kaneka Turner, Rusty Anderson, Mike Flynn, Andrew Gael, pam j wilson, Mrs. Ritzi

Geoff Krall at the 2015 NCTM Annual Meeting
May 5: Geoff Krall shared a rather nice classroom routine for facilitating questioning during student presentations. Instead of a tuned-out audience, some students become panelists who confer with other students to develop sharper questions. I won't bother explaining it, as Geoff did a great job and included classroom diagrams that nicely communicate the idea.

Shared by: Geoff Krall, Bridget Dunbar, Robert Kaplinsky, David Butler, Brian Marks, Erica Litke, Kristin Gray, Regan Galvan, Shannon Andrews

Around the Math Ed Web

The deadlines for submitting proposals for the NCTM Annual Meeting and AMATYC have passed, but there are other dates on the horizon:
  • NCTM Research Conference: Not yet announced
  • NCSM Annual Conference: June 1, 2016
  • AMTE Annual Conference: May 15, 2016
  • RUME Conference: There are two deadlines for the Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Conference: August 19, 2016 is the deadline for preliminary, theoretical, and contributed reports, and December 2, 2016, is the deadline for poster reports, and that has rolling acceptances. The next RUME conference is February 23-25, 2017, in San Diego.
Last week Kent Haines presented "A Conceptual Approach to Teaching Integer Operations by Global Math Department" at the Global Math Department. This Tuesday, we'll see Carl Oliver present "Teaching the Mathematical Practices Through Non-Routine Problems by Global Math Department."

Research Notes

There are only new articles from two journals this week, but they're from what some would say are the two most prominent journals. First, the May 2016 issue of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education is out:
The June 2016 issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics has also arrived:

Math Ed in the News


Math Ed in Colorado

Last Saturday I attended a CCTM board meeting, and I really appreciate the amount of attention and detail that goes into trying to represent Colorado's math teachers the best we can. There were also a few resources shared that you should know about:
  • The GAIMME Report gives guidelines for mathematical modeling.
  • NCTM's ARCs are multi-lesson resources that bring together previous NCTM resources with new materials, activities, and structures to give them more coherence.
There was a problem with the CCTM election, so if you are a CCTM member please watch for an email with details about how to re-vote.

Yesterday, I attended the last Colorado Math Leaders (CML) meeting of the year. Similar to the CCTM meeting, a lot of conversation comes around to making sure anyone who wants to participate in CML can, whether it be in person, the listserv, or other activities we might hold. If you're a math leader in your district — regardless of what title you officially hold — let me know if you want to know more about CML.

NCTM is offering two summer institutes this summer in Denver:
Job openings:
  • NEW: Eagle Valley HS (Eagle County) is looking for a teacher certified to teach dual enrollment courses. Applicants who have taken masters-level math courses and can be credentialed with CMC to teach dual enrollment courses will receive strong consideration. See the school website for more information and here to apply for the job.
  • Lake County School District in Leadville is looking for a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. If you are interested in joining a math department that combines Jo Boaler's work with Expeditionary Learning while living in a small town in the mountains, this job is for you. More information and an application can be found at their website.
On a personal note, I'd like to congratulate two of my math ed grad school colleagues, Fred Peck and Ryan Grover, for earning their PhDs yesterday. Both defended their dissertations last summer, so this wasn't news, but it was great to see them recognized at the graduation ceremony. Fred is now an assistant professor at the University of Montana (and has an article in ESM, mentioned above), and Ryan is a post-doctoral researcher at CU-Boulder, working on multiple projects designed to help preservice and inservice teachers.

Fred Peck (with David Webb, advisor)

Ryan Grover (with David Webb, advisor)