Ah it’s the time of year again. The time of year when we all start looking forward to fireplaces, family, and chewing up reams of your school’s printer-paper by printing out the Math Blogging Retrospectus.
The impetus of creating the Retrospectus was that it’s so damn hard to keep up with all the great math teaching content being produced. It’s really difficult to make sure you got all the value out of the math blogosphere when new posts and bloggers pop up every day. Thus, the Retrospectus.
All I’m asking you to do, dear reader, is to paste a link to one (or two or three or ten) of your favorite math blog posts from 2014 in the comments. It’s up to you to determine what “favorite” means. Perhaps it was something that you used in your class or want to use in your class. It’s possibly a moving story from a thoughtful facilitator. It could be a post that made you think differently about something, or in a new light.
From last year’s description:
It’s incredibly difficult to keep track of the ever-growing Math Blogosphere. Keeping up with posts is like trying to hold water in your hands. I’m looking for timeless or timely math blog posts that inspired, touched, and/or entertained you. This decidedly NOT a voting thing. It’s NOT a ranking. And for the love of all things holy, it’s not an EDUBLOG award thing. If a blog post touched a single person, I’d like to capture it: chances are it’ll touch another. There are math blogs that I and you do not even know about, but someone reading this does. Let’s all partake in some shared sharing. Share a link to a few (or several!) blog post that you truly enjoyed, I’ll do some of my patented copying and pasting and attempt to assemble it into a tome that can be downloaded or printed out. They could be short posts on instructional practices or problem ideas. They could be longreads of reflections on teaching and systemic issues. Any and all types are welcome.
I’ll start. Throughout the year, I’ve been bookmarking interesting posts. Here are 10 (and only 10) of them.
- Kate examines the purpose of exams.
- Jonathan gets students to argue mathematically in Pre-Cal. PRE-CAL.
- Chris weighs in on the seemingly-seasonal real-world conversation.
- Ilana recognizes smartness and addresses status issues in math.
- Nora does typical, awesome Nora things. This time with gamifying systems of linear equations.
- Andrew tortures students with a spelling bee in math.
- Nat drills conceptually.
- Michael explores feedback and when it’s best to give (and not give) it.
- Julie gets students to understand the volume of a cone conceptually.
- Sam goes all-in with u-substitution.
Now it’s your turn: post a link in the comments below. If you’ve been derelict in your duties of bookmarking your favorite posts, the @GlobalMathDept newsletter archives might be a goof place to get your footing.
Once you’ve done that, feel free to go back and check out previous years’ Retrospecti:
Failure gets a bad rap, but we need people who fail well: http://mrmck.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/we-need-teachers-who-fail/
I wrote about failure as well.http://wp.me/p3GVbH-dL
Joe Schwartz is the man over at Exit 10A. I have trouble picking just one post. How about today’s?
http://exit10a.blogspot.com/2014/12/kindergarten-interlude.html
Refreshing to know that kindergartners are being exposed to the 8 CCSS Mathematical Practices. He basically ends by asking 5 and 6 year olds to construct viable arguments!
This Kip Thorne-inspired Geometry project was probably my favorite project that we did this year:
http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/a-3d-geometry-project-for-kids-and-adults-inspired-by-kip-thorne/
And the Terry Tao public lecture at Mo Math was probably the most useful non-standard thing to use to talk math with kids. The link below is to the first of three project that we did based on that lecture.:
http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/using-terry-taos-momath-public-lecture-to-show-math-to-kids/
A few of my favorites:
From Ilana, again: http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/first-do-no-harm/
Great classroom action from Graham Fletcher: http://gfletchy.com/2014/11/04/undressing-tables-naked-numbers-and-modeling/
Math With Bad Drawings on mistakes: http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2014/11/05/wrong-but-not-stupid-or-how-to-call-out-mistakes-without-trampling-the-mistaken/
Tracy Zager’s kid teaches us all some things about listening: http://tjzager.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/you-just-listened-so-then-i-could-figure-it-out/
The ever articulate Cheesemonkey: http://cheesemonkeysf.blogspot.com/2014/03/stalkers-and-dreamers.html ponders the never-ending process of becoming.
For those of us who didn’t attend Twitter Math Camp, Heather Kohn’s post gives a great sampling of it:
https://growingexponentially.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/convince-us/
And for one of my new favorite classroom techniques, Laura Wheeler’s post: http://mslwheeler.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/visibly-random-groups-vertical-non-permanent-surfaces/
Here are some of the things that inspired me this year.
NCTM’s call for “Grand Challenges” in math education produced several nice responses. Here’s Robert Talbert’s (http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2014/06/28/grand-challenges-for-mathematics-education/), but Raymond Johnson, David Wees, Michael Pershan, and I all had our own takes.
Grant Wiggins’ “Conceptual Understanding in Mathematics” was typically provocative and insightful (https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/conceptual-understanding-in-mathematics/). And it, too, generated many responses–from me, Christopher Danielson, and others.
Seth Godin’s “Bad at Math” (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/10/good-at-math.html) inspired me to respond. David Coffey had a nice response as well.
Fawn Nguyen’s (hang on, let me check the spelling… Ok) “Finding the Greatest Product” challenge was terrific: http://fawnnguyen.com/multiplication-finding-the-greatest-product/.
Mike Lawler has quickly become one of the most prolific math bloggers out there, and this post is a great example of how he wonderfully synthesizes the things he finds (here, a tweet and post of mine and the 3D printing influence of Laura Taalman) into mathematical experiences for his kids. http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/mr-honners-13-14-15-triangle-and-a-surprising-unsolved-problem/
Much of Dan Meyer’s blogging this year is worthy of nomination, but the slides from his TMC keynote and his reflection on 8 years of teacher blogging had me thinking quite a bit, for quite a while. http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2014/twitter-math-camp-2014-keynote/
And since you may be reluctant to nominate your own work, let me vote for your “Critiquing the Common Core on its Merits and Demerits” (https://emergentmath.com/2014/11/25/critiquing-the-common-core-on-its-merits-and-demerits/).
During the year (mostly before we started the GMD newsletter) I kept track of my favorite posts in a bookmark folder. I don’t remember why these were my favorite, but when I read them they were. Here they are, without commentary, since the commentary would inevitably be a post-facto justification.
http://exit10a.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-would-happen-if-we-took-problem.html
http://blog.chrislusto.com/?p=760
http://blog.chrislusto.com/?p=792
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/seeing-status-in-the-classroom/
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/status-the-social-organization-of-smartness/
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/what-is-a-teaching-disaster-and-how-do-we-talk-about-them/
http://samjshah.com/2014/03/05/mulling-things-over/
http://borschtwithanna.blogspot.com/2014/02/better-math-discussions.html
http://anglesofreflection.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-not-how-big-your-class-is-its-what.html
http://researchinpractice.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/a-critical-language-for-problem-design/
http://robertkaplinsky.com/prbl-search-engine/
http://function-of-time.blogspot.com/2014/04/dear-reader_7.html
I keep a folder with my favorite posts of the year, but I rarely remember why these posts were my favorite. So here they are, without comment or explanation.
http://robertkaplinsky.com/prbl-search-engine/
http://exit10a.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-would-happen-if-we-took-problem.html
http://blog.chrislusto.com/?p=760
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/status-the-social-organization-of-smartness/
http://samjshah.com/2014/03/05/mulling-things-over
http://borschtwithanna.blogspot.com/2014/02/better-math-discussions.html
http://anglesofreflection.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-not-how-big-your-class-is-its-what.html
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/seeing-status-in-the-classroom/
http://blog.chrislusto.com/?p=792
http://researchinpractice.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/a-critical-language-for-problem-design/
http://function-of-time.blogspot.com/2014/04/dear-reader_7.html
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/what-is-a-teaching-disaster-and-how-do-we-talk-about-them/
Also:
http://educating-grace.blogspot.com/2014/12/misconceptions.html
http://educating-grace.blogspot.com/2014/08/notice-and-wonder-when-it-works-when-it.html
http://slamdunkmath.blogspot.ca/2014/05/open-strategy-cup-stacking.html
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2014/you-can-always-add-you-cant-subtract/
http://coxmath.blogspot.ca/2014/04/hypothesis-wrecking-and-diagonal-problem.html
http://coxmath.blogspot.ca/2014/04/fostering-hypothesis-wrecking-mindset.html
http://coxmath.blogspot.ca/2014/05/when-it-cant-be-wrecked.html
https://christopherdanielson.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/standard-algorithms-unteach-place-value/
https://emergentmath.com/2014/04/13/classroom-technology-and-everything-else-start-with-the-why/
https://emergentmath.com/2014/04/23/nctmnola-processing-session-2-what-math-teachers-applaud/
http://educating-grace.blogspot.ca/2014/12/conference-notes-part-1-how-we-talk.html
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/first-do-no-harm/
http://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/beyond-beliefs-in-teacher-learning/
http://function-of-time.blogspot.ca/2014/11/graphles-to-graphles.html
http://mathmindsblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/decimals-in-a-one-frame/
http://tjzager.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/you-just-listened-so-then-i-could-figure-it-out/
I agree with a good many of the other commenters…lots of great reads out there.
I would add:
https://christopherdanielson.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/standard-algorithms-unteach-place-value/
And
http://mathybeagle.com/2014/10/09/procedure-in-the-drivers-seat/
Also…
https://bstockus.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/numberless-word-problems/
Another: http://mathexchanges.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/is-there-room-for-math-that-isnt-hard/