I’ll be facilitating a brief workshop and delivering an even briefer lecture at The Urban School of San Francisco on Wednesday, January 11. I’m told that both events are at capacity, but my hosts will be streaming our sessions on their Livestream channel.

The workshop runs from 12:00 to 2:30. (All times Pacific.) It will comprise a) a problem-solving session, b) a debrief of that session, c) some practice turning the raw mathematical material we find in textbooks, on the Internet, and in our daily lives into perplexing tasks for our students.

I’ve titled the lecture “Capturing, Sharing, and Resolving Perplexity.” I would have gone with “The Instructional Technology Presentation for People Who Don’t Like Instructional Technology Presentations” but I’m a coward.

I was browsing BuzzFeed’s 40 Best Memes of 2011 and came across Unhelpful High School Teacher, which has something cathartic for everybody. My favorite:

One of my favorite aspects of math is how, in many cases, we developed new tools to account for the limitations and inefficiencies of the old ones. One of my favorite parts of math education is how we can highlight those inefficiencies with a well-posed problem and justify the use of new tools.

For instance, let’s say some students are awesome at calculating the slope between (-2, 5) and (1, 11) by counting unit squares by hand and then dividing. (ie. “Three over, six up. The slope is two.”) Unhelpful High School Teacher teaches them the slope formula, assigns them the same kind of problems, and punishes the students who don’t use the newer tool even though the older tool is easier. Helpful High School Teacher asks the students to find the slope between (-2, 5) and (999998, 2000005).

Dan Frommer is a technology writer but his blogging tips are easily applied to edubloggers also. This is my favorite:

Write the site that you want to read. That covers story selection, length, frequency, style, vocabulary, attitude, humor, level of sensationalism, and more. Don’t publish anything you’re not proud of. Be yourself.

A participant in my session at CMC-North asked me how to develop a community through blogging. I told him I saw a lot of bloggers come online, post a few times, get depressed they weren’t getting the traction they wanted, and then wander off. I said you had to do it because you were satisfied by the act of writing itself, because you were looking forward to one day reading about the teacher you used to be.

I also said that I follow nearly every link and comment back to the blog that sent it. Often times I’ll subscribe and, because I’m totally lazy, I rarely unsubscribe. So draw in comments and reciprocal links by linking and commenting generously. But only after you’re writing and sharing because you find it inherently satisfying.

BTW. Given the choice, Daniel Schneider chooses blogs and Twitter over the formal professional development of math conferences. Conference organizers take note, get nervous.

Nico Rowinsky:

1. Choose a whole number.
2. If your number is chosen by someone else that number is out.
3. Lowest number wins.

Love that. Have all your students in all your classes submit a piece of paper at the end of class one day. Tally the results, award class winners, award overall winners, show distributions, and talk strategy the next day.

BTW: This MathOverflow thread offers some extended reading.

Brit Cruise has a mind for math and a talent for filmmaking. This is a net win for math educators and math students alike. We should all be grateful for videos like this one, in particular, through which he’ll either tell you something you don’t know about random numbers or visualize beautifully what you already knew. In under two minutes. I’m impressed by the concision most of all.

He’s been trickling out these videos out every few months. Encourage him to keep up (and speed up) the good work.