Author: Geoff
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Conditions, Preexisting Conditions, and Treatment
Every now and then you come to one of those all-stop, let’s-just-look-at-this-for-a-while documents. This from the Carnegie Foundation is one of those artifacts. It’s pretty lengthy, and there are lots of words. Still, let’s just look at it for a while, shall we? (You’ll probably need to open it up in another window or download…
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A Problem Based Learning Starter Kit
You’ve seen the tasks. You’ve read the research. You’re basically bought in. But how do you begin? More importantly, how do you introduce students to inquiry driven learning? Or maybe you’re not convinced. Perhaps you maintain that the teacher is the primary knowledge constructor. Perhaps you’ve been burned in the past by inquiry driven instruction.…
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A Critical Ingredient Missing From My Math Blogging
Recently I came to a convicting realization recently with the help of a friend. If I’m painting with a broad brush, I’d suggest that effective math classrooms have three things in place: Quality mathematical tasks Effective facilitation Social and emotional safety I’m not sure if there’s a rank-order of the importance of these ingredients to…
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Just how silly is a 45-day weather forecast? And while we’re at it, just how good is a 2-day forecast?
Artifact I’ve got bad news for everyone here in the Fort Collins area: there’s a chance of showers on Labor Day (September 2). It’s a shame because the following Monday (September 9) shows a mostly sunny day, with a high of 77 degrees. (I am writing this on August 8.) Seriously, AccuWeather? Yes, AccuWeather is…
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A non-linear approach to curriculum mapping
I often hear teachers and parents talk about how math skills build on each other in a way that other subjects do not: you have to know how to add before you can subtract, you have to know how to multiply before you use exponents. This is certainly true to an extent, however, I’m wondering…
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My session slides for #pcsceQuip13: Designing Mathematical Tasks
In my session we spent some time doing a Visible Thinking Routine around 5 mathematical tasks, then did a run through of some quick ways to improve or attempt a mathematical task. Here are links to some of the tasks we looked at, and additional ones I provided as models for participants. Literature NCTM Research…
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Toward changing teacher practice and mindsets
This post will serve partially as an answer to Adam’s blog post about changing practice and beliefs about math instruction and partially as a way to set some things straight in my own head. The past few years, I have had and continue to have the opportunity to work with teachers moving toward an inquiry-based…
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Great moments in cognitive coaching, “Scrubs” edition
Presented without comment, from Scrubs episode 1:8, “My 15 Minutes”. A bit of performance evaluating from Dr. Cox.
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Kicking things off: How do I start the facilitation of a problem?
So you’ve decided to undertake inquiry-based learning. That’s great. I’m really glad you see the inherent value in having students swim through a challenging problem on their own a bit before the teacher jumps in with instruction. I’m also glad you’ve been creative at creating new mathematical tasks with cool entry videos, perplexing pictures, and…
emergent math 