I will first start this blog by saying that I hope this one gets more attention than my Amsterdam abroad blog, of which I wrote three posts in six months. I’m not a big fan of blogging, but I find myself with many thoughts, and no outlet to share them. Needless to say I’m very…
read more »Whenever I tell most people that I am moving to Las Vegas after graduation, they laugh. After growing up in the Midwest and going to school on the East Coast, the common conception is that Las Vegas is just a desert oasis that’s little more than the Strip. A few more slightly more informed people…
read more »The quantitative reasoning conference redefined the notion of what constitutes research by broadening the definition of mathematical experience to include any experience that happens while trying to teach and understand math. I spend most of my time building mental models of student thinking, and constructing logical arguments, yet I know that the forces that kept…
read more »My yoga teacher spent a lot of time talking about acceptance today-I should accept my body as it is today, take it as far into the pose as I can and not judge myself. I should accept the past because it won’t change. I have particular habits of thinking and acting and being that make…
read more »Yes, I’ve been doing work in math education. And no, I don’t think that is what I’ll write about. The questions that have plagued me lately are all about Ioana and her life and death. I’m used to having theories, explanations, answers, proofs. Death, to a scientist, seems like such an unanswerable mystery. It’s like…
read more »I went to yoga today for the first time since Ioana died. I knew something would make me cry in the middle of class before I went. Oh well. It’s where I’m at. The moment I started crying in yoga was the mention of a “shoebox of photographs with sepia-toned loving” in this Jack Johnson…
read more »News stories about my friend’s tragic 300 hundred foot fall in the Grand Canyon fill my facebook news feed. Here is the ABC video. The key point is that she was incredibly experienced and not to blame for her fall-the best I can guess is that she probably stepped on an errant rock that started…
read more »I’m watching videos of teachers to identify traits of good and bad teaching so that I can develop observation rubrics. Here is the Algebra Lesson from the Teaching Channel. There are obviously some things this teacher is doing very well. The classroom culture is excellent. Her willingness to keep trying new things and reflect upon…
read more »First, I’m absolutely loving the people who are commenting. Even when we disagree, the conversations are so useful in moving my thinking forward. Second, tonight my task is to make a calendar for the development of the Instructional Quality Assessment for Secondary Mathematics(IQAsm) that will hopefully be used in professional development projects around the nation…
read more »ah…. I’m not sure if it is unethical or not to share what I did about what the math teachers wrote on their surveys. If I get it published, it’s fine, but blogging is not publishing. I guess I’ll just take out the juicy details of what the math teachers were confused about. Their answers…
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