Author: Geoff
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Lectures, various types
“I lecture, but I do it in a dynamic, interactive way!” Teachers are sometimes justifiably defensive about their lectures. In many circles, lectures are a four-letter word. This flies against not only hundreds of years of pedagogical practice, but cuts against the teacher-as-expert model of instruction. Of course, there are good reasons for that too.…
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Starting with the What
It’s become almost de rigueur to “Start With The Why” or at least to share that title track from the Simon Sinek TED Talk playlist. I often use it to structure my talks or professional developments. I don’t necessarily disagree with the mantra. However, in practice, I seem to often get more out of teachers…
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I am a tree / I am a nest: What I learned after Day One of Elementary PBL Training
I have had the pleasure of “facilitating” Elementary PBL sessions this week. I placed “facilitating” in quotes because I’m essentially window dressing while the venerable Stacey Lopaz, Jodi Posadas, and Megan Pacheco do the actual facilitation. My knowledge base of Elementary PBL is probably lower than the median participant. Even in just a day I’ve…
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Putting the pieces together
Just a quick post to draw your attention to a new “selected posts” page. I’ve attempted to map my past writings on Problem Based Learning (PrBL) – at least the ones I don’t totally hate – onto a Problem Process. Check it out! Let me know what you think.
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Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for School Improvement
These past couple school years have afforded me the opportunity to stretch a bit beyond my math-y world. I’ve had the opportunity to coach entire schools and facilitate whole-staff PDs. It’s definitely invigorating lest I become too myopic in my approach to instruction. I’ve also had the luxury of seeing many different types of school of varying…
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Just added: Grade 3 CCSS-PrBL Curriculum Map of Tasks
I don’t often put up a blog post every time I add a new map, but I thought I’d pause a minute and comment on the ol’ CCSS-PrBL Curriculum Maps in general. I just added a CCSS map of (in my opinion) quality tasks that adhere to tenets of Problem-Based Learning created by teachers, curriculum specialists…
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Better (or at least less destructive) Test Prep
I’m dubious of the effectiveness of last-minute test prep. It might help final scores on the standardized exam, but I’m not 100% certain that it does. That said, I still conducted test prep class days because A) it might help! and B) there was a decree from above to do so. So there you have it:…
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[NCTM] Adaptation
Greetings everyone! Below you’ll find resources and some sample tasks to potentially adapt in service of opening the beginning, middle or end. Whether you attended my session or not, let’s have a discussion in the comments about which task you would adapt and how you’d adapt it. [Slides] Adaptation NCTM [Handout] NCTM_Adaptation_Krall [Framework] [Tasks to adapt]
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Revisiting the revisitation of the 2000 election
A couple years ago I shared a stats-ish problem idea regarding the oh-so-fun 2000 presidential election. The problem was cribbed from a graduate level stats textbook but the data are straightforward enough for a – let’s say – 9th grader to grasp. What made me want to revisit the task is some fun data tools…
emergent math 