Now that you’ve read about the three steps I often follow when trying to raise a math problem’s Depth of Knowledge level, I thought it might be useful to take you through the entire thought process of actually implementing those steps. The experiences I’m describing took place while preparing with some other teachers to teach…
This is the fourth in a series of interviews with educators who are using #ObserveMe signs and what they’ve learned along the way.
Name: Bill Wietman
Twitter handle: @WWietman
Years in education: 12
Current position: Middle School Assistant Principal
Location: Bismarck, North Dakota
Have you ever realized that so much of our job as educators has nothing to do with the content we teach? Much of it is how we share what we know or about relationships between:
teachers and students
teachers and parents
teachers and other teachers
teachers and admin
teachers and other school staff
This is the second in a series of interviews with educators who have are using #ObserveMe signs and what they’ve learned along the way.
Name: Sherry Nesbitt
Twitter handle: @snesbitt1972
Website: http://sherrynesbitt.weebly.com/
Years in education: 23
Current position: Middle School Spanish
Location: Hershey, Pennsylvania
I originally wrote the text below as part of a UCLA class I taught for in-service math teachers. Many of them were going through what I had also gone through: the uncomfortable feeling of realizing that you are finally making sense of math combined with the reality that for so many years you hadn’t. I always wanted to share this online but never did because I didn’t know what people would think. I came across it again recently and realized that it was hypocritical of me to encourage people to be vulnerable and go outside of their comfort zone during trainings, yet not do the same myself.
So, here it goes…
I recently attended a full day workshop with Jo Boaler where she shared a different way of thinking about convincing someone from Thinking Mathematically by J. Mason, L. Burton, and K. Stacey. In the book, she identified three levels of convincing: Convince yourself Convince a friend Convince a skeptic I immediately realized that this…
Keynote Rich Real World Problems Identify a Fraction on a Number Line Placing Fractions on A Number Line How Much Is One Third Of A Cup Of Butter? How Big Is The 2010 Guatemalan Sinkhole? How Old Is The Shepherd? Is Depth of Knowledge Complex or Complicated? Tool to Distinguish Between Depth of Knowledge Levels…
@robertkaplinsky when does a student feel like they have the power to question the questioner #cmcn15 — Shira Helft (@MsHelft) December 12, 2015 Sats on college readiness from @robertkaplinsky High school and college teachers’ – crazy difference #MTBoS #cmcn15 pic.twitter.com/ii7VCVcczP — Arjan Khalsa (@ArjanKhalsa) December 13, 2015 How old *is* the shepherd @robertkaplinsky ? #cmcn15…
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…
This problem’s success depends on students having a sufficient understanding of how a plane measures a vehicle’s speed from the air. The picture below may be useful to help “develop the question” as Dan Meyer has recently blogged about.
When the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics were written, the authors defined three shifts (coherence, focus, and rigor) to articulate “how the standards differ from previous standards—and the necessary shifts they call for.” The shifts are useful in articulating the big picture as to how things have changed. This blog post delves solely into…
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…
Math content and language objectives can be challenging to create, especially when you don’t want to explicitly tell students what they will be learning at the beginning. Additionally, if your school is using the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model, content and language objectives are required for every lesson. Fortunately, the Common Core State Standards’…
How do astronomers estimate how many stars exist? How many stars are there in the universe? These questions may be useful in helping students down the problem solving path: What is a guess that is too low? What is a guess that is too high? What is your best guess? Can we…
Your friend is sick and has to take medicine five times a day for seven days. How often should your friend take the medicine? These questions may be useful in helping students down the problem solving path: What is a guess that is too low? What is a guess that is too…
In 2010, an enormous sinkhole (pictured below) suddenly appeared in the middle of a Guatemalan neighborhood and swallowed a three-story building above it. How much material will they need to fill the sinkhole? How much will it cost to fill the sinkhole in? These questions may be useful in helping students down the problem…
You and your family are driving in a car and have to make a few stops before you reach your final destination. You check your GPS navigation and it shows you how long it will take to go from one destination to the next but not what time you will arrive at your final…
