??

It is perfectly reasonable to want balance in one’s life. And who stays online for just 20 minutes? (With you sending them the best of…, it does seem doable. But maybe they subconsciously know that if they let in this trickle, they’ll want more, and then it will be a deluge.)

Obviously, many teachers have started blogs so that they can do this (which is awesome), but why is the burden on the teacher to do this on their own? I wish we could better set up the duties of a teacher in order to promote this kind of discussion/reflection/problem-solving. Dan, when you write an especially good/relevant post, I forward it along to the rest of my department, but I don’t think they read it. I’ve talked to some teachers about it and they say that they need more balance in their lives, that they don’t want to burn out, that they need to be good parents to their children, and that they don’t have time to read edublogs or current research. On the one hand, I sympathize with their plight because I think it’s real. On the other hand, is it possible to carve out 20 minutes a day 3 times a week to read current research/edublogs? Or, better yet, is it possible to structure this into our job as teachers?

List C is the only list that would not be in numerical order if the decimals were omitted. If list A or B was used students who ignore the decimals would still likely order the decimals correctly without understanding the true values of the numbers.

AnonEngineeringProf: I was at a National Math Panel Forum last Fall and heard something really interesting from one of the researchers. He said that in some very effective schools, they use Geometry to motivate Algebraic thinking. For instance, when you start talking about complements, you logically get to a “what is the measure of this angle here?” moment. When you start with Geometry, which is more concrete, you can give the Algebra a context that it lacks when taught in its abstract own.

“Cathy Seeley, former President of NCTM, asked why we don’t teach teachers the same way we tell them to teach students.” My answer: Because there is a difference between education and training. This is something that has always bugged me about most teacher professional development. There is a big difference and until PD people understand that, they won’t find effectiveness.

“how do you talk to teachers about their teaching?” I like the focus on what the students know. Talking about the teaching process itself can devolve into subjective judgments that are not helpful. Also, I believe that almost everyone (teachers included) has a hard time judging themselves. They are simply incapable of seeing what they are doing well and poorly. More importantly, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is how well the students went from not knowing to knowing.

Anyway, thanks for the summary. Lots of great stuff here.

–paul

As a high school student who loved math, I remember hating geometry. I still think of it as pointless. One person’s personal preferences are hardly a sound basis for educational policy, but I wonder: Why is geometry so important?

P.S. I guess I can relate to the norms. They sound like variations on “Don’t judge or criticize the person, critique the ideas” and “Constructive comments (that identify how something could be better) often work better than critical comments (that identify something that went wrong)”. Sounds like the norms may be about not alienating people and establishing an atmosphere where people can feel comfortable dissecting what works best.