But understanding it myself, and being able to teach are two completely different things. So what I’m saying is that you’re dead on about the prerequisites. If you’re only interested in the “purity” of math, these lesson ideas aren’t going to make sense to you. But if you’re interested in USING math to accomplish something else, then it all falls into place.

:)

Your approach to designing work is commendable. I’ve sent your blog to countless math teachers asking how they can embed authentic, real world situations into their math curriculums.

What I would love to see is what your students are doing.

I think in education, and in the blogosphere in particular, we focus most of our time and energy to what teachers are doing. And you are a master of both creating and sharing your end of the learning experience. However, I’ve often thought I’d love to see what happening on the other end.

What do students create in your class? What forms do their mathematic thinking take? Do they model like you? What do you count as evidence of deep understanding from your students? How many kids get it? What do you do when they don’t?

I’d love to see you collect and share your students work – since this is what matters the most.

Some of the greatest lessons I’ve had have flopped in the classroom – and I learn this from examining the student work…

when i first started reading your blog, I didn’t think i could use many of your ideas b/c i teach the low level, basic math classes but I see you teach remedial algebra so probably teach about the same skill level of kids. I need to have more confidence in their ability.

Elizabeth: Is there room in your view for a distinction between our becoming skilled *users* of sophisticated, targeted digital media in the classroom and the need to become an army of Steven Spielberg-level *producers* of professional-quality math films and snippets?

Yeah, absolutely. I’ll go one farther and throw out the digital media altogether. If you see something interesting in a newspaper or in a magazine, an interesting fact or analysis, do you know how to flip that around, how to obscure parts of the analysis or certain crucial facts and challenge your students to recreate them?

WCYDWT has been about bringing my own learning struggle into my classroom in a way that my students wouldn’t just observe passively but also participate in.

So at a certain point you get sick of just bringing in news clippings and you start copying/pasting interesting things from the web into your slide software. And then eventually you get sick of those constraints and you start snapping digital photos of interesting things on the way to work. And perhaps at that point you start to seek out stronger tools and so it goes. But we can definitely start with non-technical constraints.

Also, FWIW, I want to express my worry that very of us will be able to achieve your level of competence at digital filmmaking and editing. Given my time and talent constraints, it just feels out of reach.

And if that’s going to become the new baseline for being considered a good math teacher, our whole society may be doomed.

I can definitely take other people’s multimedia materials and turn them into effective classroom experiences. But I’d have to become a different person to develop a filmmaker’s orientation.

Is there room in your view for a distinction between our becoming skilled *users* of sophisticated, targeted digital media in the classroom and the need to become an army of Steven Spielberg-level *producers* of professional-quality math films and snippets?

Burt: What’s preventing people from reworking a textbook exercise and getting this hands-on practice? Is it lack of multimedia skills? Do you think it is practical to teach us how to create the kind of slides you used in your ski lift presentation? Once people got started, they might want to expand their knowledge of multimedia techniques, but first they have to get started.

This is good. I’m at my wit’s end so I’ll take any kind of life preserver but this looks particularly buoyant. I need to formally blog about the exploded view of a textbook application problem (those layers from my presentation) and then perhaps we’ll host a show-and-tell where teachers can submit their own revised examples.

No, you don’t. I get what you’re trying to do in your classroom. I feel like a fraud because I should be doing it more, too.

I enjoy reading your blog, and it has made me work to become a better teacher.