Comments on: Ten Years of Blog Comments

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 01:52:12 +0000

Thanks for the kind words, everybody. K:

Interesting gender breakdown. There are certainly plenty of women math educators so do they tend not to read the blog, not to comment on the blog/not comment as frequently, or not to get featured as frequently?

Yeah, great questions. The gender imbalance is in this post is pretty hard to miss. Here are my best guesses to your questions. Three quarters of US public school teachers are female. That drops to about half when you look at secondary math and science. (Source: Hechinger.) Math education bloggers are balanced pretty evenly between male and female teachers. (Source: my gut.) Looking back over my last few posts, my own blog is pulling in about 10% female comments. I have featured about 163 comments since 2011, of which 20% were female. I'd like to figure out how to boost that 10% figure. For reasons I wish were more apparent, a bunch of women don't feel like they can / should comment here. Those of us who do comment are missing out.

By: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Blogging – dy/dan

Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Blogging – dy/dan — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:58:37 +0000

[…] Amplify your readers. I pull interesting comments up into the body of the post itself and let people know I’ve done that. I try to do that quickly, before the post gets emailed the next day, so email readers understand how much I value my commenters and can benefit from their thoughts too. This process creates a bunch of interesting and virtuous cycles. One is that I get more (and more useful) comments the more people know I’m paying attention to them. Another is that the next generation of interesting math education bloggers is in your comments right now. So amplify them. Embolden them to set up their own project. (See also: Ten Years of Blog Comments.) […]

By: K

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:51:47 +0000

Interesting gender breakdown. There are certainly plenty of women math educators so do they tend not to read the blog, not to comment on the blog/not comment as frequently, or not to get featured as frequently?

By: Roberto Catanuto

Roberto Catanuto — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:31:58 +0000

Congratulations to you and your awesome work. And also that of your wise commenters!
You help shape the work of so many readers and teachers.
Thank you.

By: Norah Colvin

Norah Colvin — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:16:14 +0000

Congratulations on ten years of blogging. What an awesome way of honoring your readers and commenters. Are lives and minds are definitely enriched by those with whom we converse.

By: Megan

Megan — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 05:01:12 +0000

I think of where I was 10 years ago as a teacher, where I have been since then, and where I am now. This work, this group of educators sharing/talking/engaging in cognitive conflict/building understanding together… all of it – has been a huge part of my own teaching & learning journey!

By: James Key

James Key — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 22:31:11 +0000

Dan, many thanks for hosting the world’s *premier* math ed blog. You are truly a game-changer, inventing and re-inventing the profession through your ambitious work. I am sure I speak for many in thanking you for bringing together the math ed community for the most vibrant conversation on the internet around our great discipline. Here’s to ten more great years!

By: Galen

Galen — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 19:02:26 +0000

Congratulations! I’ve been teaching for over 20 years, discovered your blog in the last 2, and consider it to be one of the best resources I’ve ever used. Thanks for sharing and promoting highly intentional insight and discussion.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 17:30:00 +0000

Wow. That’s crazy. If one blogger-year corresponds to 7 human years. You would have been 70 years old by now. :)

By: Bryan Penfound

Bryan Penfound — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:20:55 +0000

I think it’s awesome that you went out of your way to personally thank these individuals. I feel like sometimes when we get caught up in the hustle of teaching we forget the simple acts that make us human. Kudos to the past ten, and cheers to ten more great ones.