I’ve got some unsolicited suggestions for how the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) may be able to reduce expenses related to running its conferences. My hope is that by sharing these ideas publicly, we can get a conversation going that will make it more affordable to attend an NCTM conference. I am fully…
If you’ve ever wanted to speak at a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) conference or you’ve applied and were not accepted, then this blog post is for you. It’s the text version of a presentation called How to Apply and Speak at an NCTM Conference which Dan Meyer and I co-presented at the 2017…
I was fortunate to be one of six speakers chosen “to give a highly provocative ten-minute talk” at Shadow Con 2016 that took place during the 2016 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Annual Conference. My talk, Empower, is about the differences between power and influence and how we can use that knowledge to create…
This post is the third in a series about the experiences I’ve had while participating on a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) program committee. Part one covered what I learned at the initial meeting to prepare for my upcoming duties including evaluating conference proposals. Part two covered what I learned after reviewing hundreds of…
I want to start off by making this post’s intention clear: my goal is to level the information playing field which will enable us to improve math education conferences for speakers and attendees. Working together we can create something better than any one of us could have created on our own. A key component of…
I have a whole new level of respect for anyone who has ever worked on putting together a conference, especially if he or she had to review the speaker proposals. I just finished reviewing over 240 proposals for the 2015 NCTM Regional Conference in Nashville and I’ve learned quite a bit that I want to…
I recently participated on my first National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) program committee which is tasked with selecting the speakers for the 2015 regional conference in Nashville, Tennessee. I had very little understanding as to how these conferences came together and I was excited to be a part of it as I had so much to…
My best advice to anyone preparing to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for mathematics is to get students talking and writing about their work. Regardless of your stance on the CCSS, being an effective communicator is a valuable and often challenging life skill. It is even more challenging when the content is…
The Common Core’s Standards for Mathematical Practice significantly progress efforts to articulate how students should demonstrate their mathematical proficiency. These standards “describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students” (Standards for Mathematical Practice, 2010) by giving expectations for the depth of students’ understanding, the skills students should…