This Week in Math Ed: March 11, 2016

Math Ed Said

March 4: Graham Fletcher is back with another video in his Making Sense Series, "The Progression of Addition and Subtraction." Perhaps my favorite thing about these videos is that my perspective of standards more easily shifts to a multi-year span of time, instead of a deadline when those standards appear for a particular grade. Learning takes time, y'all.

Shared by: Graham Fletcher, Alex Overwijk, Heather Kohn, Zak Champagne, Jaymie Obney, Tracy Johnston Zager, Bridget Dunbar, Meleia Bridenstine, Tyler Anderson, Dave Lanovaz, Keith Devlin, Brett Parker, Kyle Pearce, Shauna Hedgepeth, Andrew Gael, Richelle Marynowski

March 5: Corey Drake's article, "The fantastic new ways to teach math that most schools aren’t even using," was the most-shared link on March 3rd and it topped the chart again on the 5th.

Shared by: Joel Amidon, Amanda Jansen, Julie Kubiak, Margie Pearse, Paul Reimer, Tina Palmer, Theodore Chao, Alayne Armstrong, Nancy Terry

This is my one picture of Dan Meyer, and it's lousy. It's him, trust me.
March 6: Dan Meyer's advice to his younger self and other teachers is to "Ignore The Adjectives. Watch The Verbs.." I hadn't quite thought of this the same way, but I've come to cringe when I hear "hands-on" and "real-world," as both terms have been overused and abused of their meaning. Instead, I find myself asking, "What are students mathematizing?" This is where it's particularly helpful for me to think about Adrian Treffer's classic Three Dimensions, in which he describes horizontal mathematization is described as starting from a realistic context and organizing it mathematically with increasingly sophisticated models, while vertical mathematization is described as a process of reorganizing within the mathematics itself.

Shared by: Nancy Terry, Dan Meyer, Margie Pearse, Lorraine Males, Andrew Gael, Mark Chubb, Brett Parker

March 7: Ilana Horn wrote "Professional Development is Broken, but Be Careful How We Fix It." Not only is the post great, but the comment section is equally great! Posts like this really hit home for me, as I'm now in a position where I'm tasked with bringing outside expertise to a group of teachers. My years in academia have sensitized me to labels, definitions, and frameworks, and there's a challenge to interpret people's discourse and ideas with each new group I meet with.

Shared by: Ilana Horn, Danny Brown, Josh Fisher, Peps Mccrea, Bridget Dunbar, Bryan Meyer, Tyler Anderson, Patrick Honner, Andrew Gael, Michelle Naidu, Darren Kuropatwa

March 8: A post on the Achieve the Core website, "Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching," highlights the special kind of knowledge math teachers need for choosing problems and methods that best set the conditions for student learning. This math teacher knowledge is often called "Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching," which may be best known for being described in Ball, Thames, and Phelps (2008).

Shared by: Alex Jaffurs, Amy Spies, Jennifer Lawler, Kimberly Dugdale, Illustrative Maths, Josh Fisher

March 9: NCTM and Teaching Children Mathematics (TCM) held another #TCMchat, this time around Chepina Rumsey's article, "Promoting Mathematical Argumentation."

Shared by: NCTM - TCM, Zak Champagne, NCTM, The Math Forum, USU TeachMath, Jody Guarino, Julie Kubiak

March 10: Robert Kaplinsky asks a question near and dear to me, "Why Are You Using That Problem?" I don't think I would have answered the same way Robert has, but I appreciate efforts to articulate the criteria with which problems/tasks/activities are chosen.

Shared by: Regan Galvan, Bridget Dunbar, Julie Kubiak, John Berray, Robert Kaplinsky, Andrew Stadel, Bryan Anderson, Melinda Lula, Sendhil Revuluri, Shauna Hedgepeth

Around the Math Ed Web

NCTM had a March 1 deadline for APME chapters (and as of this writing this page still says March 1), but according to a tweet, it appears the deadline has been extended to March 21.

I haven't been saying enough about the Principles to Actions book chat (#nctmp2a), which continues on across a series of tweets and blog posts. I see so much good stuff in Principles to Actions and have sometimes wondered if there shouldn't be some kind of 8-year PD plan for the 8 teaching practices it describes. I think you could dig deep that entire time and still not max out your teaching abilities.

"Using Peer Feedback to Increase Student Understanding" was the topic at this week's meeting of the Global Math Department, and next week's presentation is slated to be "Bringing the World Outside School Into Your Math Classroom."



Research Notes

Another article has been added to the June 2016 issue of The Journal of Mathematical Behavior:
And that's it. Maybe this will give me a chance to catch up with last week's giant list of new research articles.

Math Ed in the News


Math Ed in Colorado

CCTM: Today is the last day to submit nominations for the CCTM leadership award and teaching award, but you have until March 18 to apply for the technology integration specialist postition on the CCTM board.

Math Circles: April 18 looks like the next meeting of the Northern Colorado Math Circles and you can learn more about the activities of the Rocky Mountain Math Teachers' Circle by signing up for their listserv.

Cassie Harrelson of Aurora Public Schools is facilitating an online book study of Jo Boaler's Mathematical Mindsets. The book study can be found on CEA's COpilot site and a course flyer can be found here.

CU-Boulder is looking for a master teacher in mathematics for their CU Teach program. It's an awesome opportunity to help prepare the next generation of math teachers in Colorado, as well as a great place to work.

The "Expanding Your Horizons" symposium for middle school girls interested in STEM registration begins March 1.
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Location: Boulder, CO, USA