VCTM’s Free Virtual Conference

I’ve never presented at my home-state conference, since it’s in the fall, and I’m usually playing in a field hockey league near Philly in the fall.  But, hey, pandemic, so no field hockey!  And a virtual conference!  I’m in.

Here’s a PDF of my slides: VCTM 2020 Sense Making

I encourage many of you to try out the NYTimes Learning Network’s project, What’s Going On in This Graph?. Be sure to check out the energy generation graphs, too.

Here is Zak Champagne’s Ignite, The Math Ahead, The Math Behind, in which he talks about asking questions you don’t know the answer to in order to become a better listener.

And for those of you interested in t-shirts:

NCSM’s Free Virtual Conference #NCSM20

My thanks to everyone who came to my session during NCSM’s Free Virtual Conference, and of course many thanks to NCSM and TI for making this happen.

In case you hadn’t guessed, doing a webinar as a presenter is NOT like doing a session live, mainly in that I can’t have any focused back-and-forth with the attendees (and I can’t see anyone!).  But there was great participation in the chat, and having that channel of communication going on adds a whole new dimension to learning – instead of just talking to your learning partner when I ask you to, you can talk to everyone the whole time, while also taking notes, tweeting, taking screenshots, and drinking (hopefully good) coffee.  I hope that those of you who are now responsible for “teaching” your students online get a little inspiration about ways to expand or revise what you’ve been doing, both technology-wise and in terms of tasks and foci.

I brought up Christopher Danielson’s book, Which One Doesn’t Belong. There is a web site at wodb.ca.  I also mentioned an adorable picture of my niece and my dad:

I encourage many of you to try out the NYTimes Learning Network’s project, What’s Going On in This Graph?. During my session we looked at the (timely!) graph that will be the focus tomorrow, April 1.

I said I would also point to Zak Champagne’s Ignite, The Math Ahead, The Math Behind, in which he talks about asking questions you don’t know the answer to in order to become a better listener.

I’ll add anything else that I think of (or that someone requests), but I know that all you really wanted was my slides.  I’ve also included the chat transcript in text form – it might be ugly, but you can go at your own speed!  So here goes:

The Power of Students’ Ideas Slides [pdf]

Chat Transcript [txt]

South Dakota STEM Ed 2020

What a fun group of math educators you’ve got in South Dakota!  And not only did I have some great math conversations with a lot of teachers, I ate chislic and saw the World’s Largest Pheasant (plus the Corn Palace and the new Arc of Dreams in Sioux Falls) with the rest of the featured speaker crew, Sean and Mike, and our fabulous tour guide, Allen Hogie.  Phew!

Here are the slides from my talks.  If there is anything you had hoped to find here that’s missing, drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll make sure you get it.

Session 308 at CMC North

Thanks to everyone who came to my session and gave so much focused attention to the student work.  I know it was rushed, but hopefully many of you share the sentiment of one person who told me Sunday at breakfast that it was rushed, but that the two structures are simple enough that many folks will be able to implement them.  Look at all these hard working groups!

Please let me know if you try these structures and how others in your PLC respond to them

Below I’ve linked to PDFs of the slides and the student work.  You might also want to watch Zak Champagne’s Ignite in which he talks about becoming a better listener: The Math Ahead, the Math Behind

Two Structures for LASW – CMC-South 2019

Thanks to everyone who came to my session and gave so much focused attention to the student work.  I was excited to hear afterwards that some of you were already using the structures for looking at student work that you brought to the conference, and that some of you (hi, pre-service teachers who were there!) will find it helpful in planning some of the projects you’re doing in your current studies.

Below I’ve linked to PDFs of the slides and the student work.  You might also want to watch Zak Champagne’s Ignite in which he talks about becoming a better listener: The Math Ahead, the Math Behind

Let me know if you do any of this sort of work with your colleagues!

Nueva School ICL 2019

I spoke twice at the Nueva School’s Innovative Learning Conference last week.  On Wednesday, we dug into lesson study in a SFUSD elementary school.  My profound thanks to Joe, Karen, Rashida, and especially Lauren and her brave and mathematical students for sharing their math lesson with us.

I had a full day Thursday.  I made a new friend in Lisa Gale, who is the Chief Program Officer for StoryCorps. (We shared an Uber.)  We mostly talked about math and her own children’s attitudes about doing math and thinking about themselves as mathematicians.  I’ll be doing some listening to the stories already on StoryCorps that focus on people’s math experiences, but am also thinking about ways to get some of the stories of our robust math education community out to more people beyond our little universe.  I went to a couple of sessions (hi, @ablinstein!), then gave my own session.  Then I spent the whole next session talking math and learning with my college classmate Karen, who came to my session (and who teaches in New Jersey).

Here are links to my slides and to a number of resources that I mentioned.  If there is something you were hoping I would point to that isn’t included, just leave me a comment and I’ll add it in.

My Wednesday slides: A Focus on Student Thinking
My Thursday slides: Sense-Making: Is It at the Core of Your Math Program?

      • My 5-minute Ignite talk about students’ ideas mentions some of the ideas I talked about on Wednesday.  You might use it as a conversation starter if you’re trying to tell people about my session:  The Power of Ideas
      • My 5-minute Ignite talk about sense-making is a great summary of much of my Thursday session:  Sense-Making: It Isn’t Just for Literacy Anymore
      • Joe Schwartz is a retired K-5 math coach. Some of the examples I used come from him (he and I have presented versions of the sense-making session together). His Noticing and Wondering posts can be found here and here.  And be sure to explore other areas of his blog.
      • Posts detailing Joe’s experiences with the Tell Me Everything You Can… prompt can be found here, here, and here.
      • Read about Joe’s efforts to connect reading and math here.
      • A Numberless Word Problems starting point from Brian Bushart is here.
      • Zak Champagne’s Ignite about becoming a better listener (by asking questions you don’t know the answer to, as we talked about in both sessions) is here.

Resources for My Session at #NWMC2019

Thanks to everyone who came to my session, to the session I led with Leslie, or who had a conversation with me in the hall (or at the drag show!).  I hope some of you are still pondering the escalator problem!

My slides as a PDF for my Saturday Session.

Here are resources that I either mentioned, or should have mentioned!

      • My 5-minute Ignite talk about sense-making is a great conversation starter, so you might share it with folks to start conversations:  Sense-Making: It Isn’t Just for Literacy Anymore
      • Joe Schwartz is a retired K-5 math coach. Some of the examples I used come from him (he and I have presented versions of this session together). His Noticing and Wondering posts can be found here and here.
      • Posts detailing Joe’s experiences with the Tell Me Everything You Can… prompt can be found here, here, and here.
      • Read about Joe’s efforts to connect reading and math here.
      • A Numberless Word Problems starting point from Brian Bushart is here.
      • Zak Champagne’s Ignite about becoming a better listener (by asking questions you don’t know the answer to, as we talked about in both sessions) is here.

PCTM 2019: Sense Making, and Ideas

Wednesday: Sense Making: Is it at the Core of Your Classroom?

Here are my slides in PDF form.

Thursday: The Power of Ideas

Here are my slides in PDF form.

Here are resources related to both talks – I’ve tried to add enough of a description so that you can pick and choose.

      • My 5-minute Ignite talk about sense-making is a great conversation starter, so you might share it with folks to start conversations:  Sense-Making: It Isn’t Just for Literacy Anymore
      • Joe Schwartz is a retired K-5 math coach. Some of the examples I used come from him (he and I have presented versions of this session together). His Noticing and Wondering posts can be found here and here.
      • Posts detailing Joe’s experiences with the Tell Me Everything You Can… prompt can be found here, here, and here.
      • Read about Joe’s efforts to connect reading and math here.
      • A Numberless Word Problems starting point from Brian Bushart is here.
      • Zak Champagne’s Ignite about becoming a better listener (by asking questions you don’t know the answer to, as we talked about in both sessions) is here.
      • There’s a whole web site of Which One Doesn’t Belong? ideas, plus Christopher Danielson’s book of the same name.
      • Check out the kindergarten teacher Emily’s post about monitoring for sense-making. (This is required reading for the folks who came to the Thursday session!)
      • I didn’t mention Max Ray-Riek’s Ignite: What We Talk About When We Talk About Teaching, but it’s important and relevant. You’ll find it here.

      Thanks for coming to my sessions. I always love to hear how ideas from my sessions have impacted the work that you’re doing. Leave a comment here, or tweet at me or email me (the contact info is in the slides). Good luck!

Sense-Making at #NCSM19

My thanks to everyone who came to my session and putting up with the recalcitrant technology with good humor!  If I mentioned anything that you were hoping to find a link to that isn’t here, just let me know and I’ll add it.

Here are my slides in PDF form.

  • My 5-minute Ignite talk about sense-making is a great conversation starter, so you might share it with folks before telling them about my NCSM session:  Sense-Making: It Isn’t Just for Literacy Anymore
  • Joe’s Noticing and Wondering posts can be found here and here.
  • Posts detailing Joe’s experiences with the Tell Me Everything You Can… prompt can be found here, here, and here.
  • Read about efforts to connect reading and math here.
  • Joe blogged about his PLC experience here.
  • Andrew Stadel’s File Cabinet Three-Act is here.
  • A Numberless Word Problems starting point from Brian Bushart is here.
  • Zak Champagne’s Ignite about becoming a better listener is here.
  • Check out the kindergarten teacher Emily’s post about monitoring for sense-making.
  • I didn’t mention Max Ray-Riek’s Ignite: What We Talk About When We Talk About Teaching, but it’s important and relevant. You’ll find it here.

Visiting the Western Suburban Math Institute

Thanks to everyone who got up and did math and thinking about sense-making with me first thing this morning!  I hope you had some good conversations with your partners in those moments where I asked you to chat. Hopefully some of you even made some new friends.

Missed it? Check out the #WSMI hashtag and see what this great group of folks learned about today.

As promised, below is a PDF of my slides, as well as some links to related resources.

I’d love to hear from you if you try any of these strategies for the first time.  How’d it go?  Tweet at me (@MFAnnie) and tell me how it went, or drop me some email.  Good luck!