Category: math
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How (not) to get your PhD Part 8: Committee… Assemble!: Prelims, Quals, your defense and the moving of mountains
In the penultimate post of this mini-series, I discuss your doctoral committee, prelims, quals, IRB, and your defense. What they are and why getting these things to line up make it seem like a miracle anyone gets their PhD.
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How (not) to get your PhD Part 6: Teach
Here’s something I did right during my time obtaining my PhD in Math Education: teaching. The thing I appreciated most about the UW program was the opportunity to teach several classes in several different modalities. Because I live an hour away from UW I was able to teach on-campus sporadically as both a Temporary Lecturer…
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How (not) to get your PhD Part 1: Why (not) to get your PhD in Mathematics Education
The more inherent you can make your motivation for getting a PhD, the happier you’ll be. In May of 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, I was laid off from my job at a non-profit due to COVID related “budget concerns.” It is in that context – when the world was crumbling around…
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Emergent Math Winter Mini-Series: How (not) to get your PhD
(Usually I reserve my longform blogging projects or other math projects on this website for the Summer. However, I’ve been working on this mini-series for months now and finally have enough time to figure out what I want to convey. Also I was waiting to figure out what the next chapter of my story in…
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Explainer Post: A Year’s Worth of Illuminating 5th-to-6th Grade Warm Ups
A year’s worth of math warm ups intended to help students and teachers get kids ready for middle school math.
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Experiencing novice-ness through tabletop games
It’s important as seasoned Math teachers we remember what it’s like to experience new content. Modern tabletop games might be the best way to create those experiences.
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My semester with Desmos Activity Builder
This semester I taught College Algebra and Developmental Math at a community college. Being new to the institution, I mostly hewed to the standards and progressions and textbooks from prior iterations of the course taught by more tenured faculty. However, I did make one significant change: the graphing calculator. While previous iterations of the course…
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‘Necessary Conditions’ Five Years Later
Necessary Conditions was published five years ago this Fall. I’m not sure if five years is a long time or a short time, but it’s a natural time frame to reflect on the book (since we evolved to have five fingers instead of, say, four). So I apologize in advance for what is sure to…
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Reconceptualizing “more math” for pre- and in-service teachers
I am rereading Liping Ma’s Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics for a class. It’s an exceptional book; I’d put it on the Mount Rushmore of books about math education (that might be a post for another day). For those who haven’t read it, the book is an exploration of elementary math instruction in the U.S.…
emergent math 