Author: Geoff
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Spring, Broken
On March 11, 2020, the National Basketball Association halted the season due to the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The cessation in play occurred soon after the cancellation of a game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City due to a positive test from one of the Jazz players. Only five days prior the entire state of…
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The next steps in classroom conversation orchestration
I’m currently rereading Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions by Smith and Stein (2011) as part of a book study with a school. I’ve always appreciated this book as a great stepping stone from a classroom where the teacher is the ultimate knower of math to a classroom where students construct their own understanding.…
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A couple of lessons from a semester of Math Education PhD coursework
I’m nearing the end of my first semester as a PhD student in Math education. Of the many lessons and content I learned over the past few months, I’d like to share two (for now). Lesson 1) There is a much richer scholarship and history of social justice in math education research than you’d think…
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Your cultural lexicon: who’s “in” and who’s “out”
In one of my recent classes, we had a guest speaker. The speaker was a Black professor of math education. She spoke of one of her favorite high school math classes and math teachers. He was a white Calculus teacher. She loved that class and thought he was a phenomenal instructor. However, she mentioned that…
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A protocol for emerging bilingual problem solvers: a reflection on Kitchen (2014)
(Note: this blog post is cross-posted in my weekly page of doctoral musings (Week 5). If you’re interested in the journey or random insights from research, be sure to check those out. In this case I found the research article eminently practical so I figured it’d be worth posting on the BLOG blog.) Of all…
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Math Syllabus Bootcamp Mini-Series Part 5: Putting it all together. Additional nuts & bolts and an example syllabus.
In this miniseries we’ve covered how to promote and incorporate diverse identities into your syllabus, ways to promote a myriad of types of mathematical thinking, how to establish and teach norms, and laying out the year in a Hilbertian “challenge problem” style. Now we’re going to put it all together. I’ll give some additional suggestions…
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Math Syllabus Bootcamp Part 4: Anchor Problems. A Hilbert-ian approach to curriculum mapping
In 1900, mathematician David Hilbert famously published 23 as yet unsolved math problems. The problems covered a large swath of math fields. They served as a challenge and inspiration for 20th century mathematicians. I propose taking that same approach to laying out your content units for the year. Most syllabi showcase content via unit titles:…
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Math Syllabus Bootcamp Part 3: Norms. What are expectations for quality collaborative work?
(This is Part 3 in a mini-series on constructing a math syllabus. I hope it challenges you to think about possible ways to vision your classroom, even if you don’t utilize all the ideas. Check out the previous entries via the links below.) Norms exist in every classroom, whether they are on a placard on…
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Math Syllabus Bootcamp Part 2: Smartness. What does it mean to be a mathematician?
In Part 1 of this mini-series, we looked at how we can promote diverse identities in mathematics from the first artifacts students see: you, your syllabus, and your classroom. Here in Part 2, we’ll examine the mathematical habits, behaviors, and skills that ensure students will be able to participate fully. Like with identity, students and…
emergent math 