Tag: mtbos

When Twitter Ain’t Enough

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There are dozens of math teachers that I admire from afar, many of whom converged on San Antonio this week for NCTM. I got to sit at the feet of these b my teacher-crushes b and hear firsthand what they may not share in print.

That’s the point of conferences, right? To confer.

Online, I get a two-dimensional view of these educators. For some, itbs a highly-curated image of their best work, best screenshots, and best writings, edited to perfection. Therebs a degree of anonymity online, where I can choose to show only the best parts of myself.

Look at that picture to theB left. Thatbs the best picture of me that I have, so of course that’s the one I share.

But when Ibm sitting six feet from Elham Kazemi, listening to her description of the five (six?) methods of student discourse, itbs a completely different experience than just reading her book.

In literature, the digital persona would be called a bflatb character. Two-dimensions, no depth.

By spending time in real life with colleagues from home and abroad, I can repaint them in my mind as broundb characters, full of life and detail and minutia that donbt come up in a tweet or blog post.

Chris buys me a drink as soon as I arrive, then asks, bIf you could be any rockstar for a night, who would it be? Ibm asking everybody here.b
Our new friends at the bar pitch their workshop toB Stephanie, who listens intently and offers thoughtfulB feedback.
Ethan beams as he shows me pictures of his kids.
Karrine b who Ibd never met b comes in for a hug: long-overdue, since she translated the Mullet Ratio into French for use in her schools in Ontario

There are also imperfect parts to our round-ness, stuff you see from staff at your day-to-day, but not from teacher-crushes.

Gray hair thatbs more prominent than it was when that headshot was taken.
A foul mouth with a foot regularly placed in it.
A laugh thatbs a little too loud for the room.

(Some of those are me.)

TheseB traits, the good and the fallible, are what make us real, what make us into actual people. These are people with whom I can have personal relationships based on professional interests.B An online network of math teachers is great, but shaking hands and being a smartass in person is important, too.

See yball in Atlanta this summer.

~Matt bInterrupts sometimes and has a moleb Vaudrey

April 8, 2017
Desmaze

Claire Verti, one of my teachers, sent me this blog post today. David Sladkey is using Desmos to complete a maze with his students.

Sweet, right?

I immediately tackled it and now present to you my completed Desmos Maze. As you can see, I had some fun toward the end.

Then, because we’re testing this week and my entire role is to sit and wait for something to break, I made this. Using Google Draw, we can make any kind of maze we want. Make just three points if you want students to start practicing, like Michael Fenton did spectacularly.

Or make a complicated one if you have two-hour blocked periods for SBAC testing and some Pre-Calc students who need to be challenged.

This might be what I bring into Mr. Rynk’s class next month for a demo lesson; I’m curious to hear students talking about piecewise functions.

Then, I made this one, thinking that it might help students with coordinate plane, but I’m not sold on it yet.

Initially, I had students changing the ordered pair (x,y) to move the point, but then, as students delete the 5 and type the 6, the point blinks in and out of existence. We need continuity. But moving the sliders isn’t very challenging, and it’s no longer a math activity, it’s a game with very little math reasoning in it.

Improve this, will you?

~Matt “I Promise; This Is Technically Work” Vaudrey

UPDATE 23 APRIL 2015: A nice follow-up question to keep the class challenged:

@MrVaudrey @Desmos @ClaireVerti @dsladkey Amazing! What is the minimum number of equations needed? https://t.co/8Ms5gbA0Ct

— Eric Milou (@drMi) April 23, 2015

April 22, 2015
Two Schools of Math Teachers
Today, I witnessed an excellent old-school lesson. The teacher was engaging, funny, and had play-doh on the desks with toothpicks to demonstrate angle relationships to the sophomore Geometry students.

Students inserted a Cloze Notes-Style handout into their plastic dry-erase sleeve and followed along, filling in words to define the vocabulary in sentence frames. By the end of class, all the students were giving the correct hand signalB for Adjacent Angles, Vertical Angles, and more.

But something… just didn’t feel right about it.

No… not right… something didn’t feelB complete about it.

Earlier this week, I was chatting with John Stevens and Jed Butler on Voxer.

Voxer – group texts, but with voice messages instead. It’s awesome.

We had just gotten our issue of CoMmuniCator (the monthly publication of CMC) which featured two-page descriptions of lessons, like visual patternsB and drawing the ideal polygon.

It occurred to me, those are two things that prominent math educators have doneB extensive work with online, yet CMC has no idea, nor do the teachers who are submitting these articles.

We appear to have two schools of math teachers.

The first school is the Math-Twitter-Blog-o-sphere (affectionately and mercifully abbreviated #MTBOS).

Hundreds of math educators across the world weigh in on blogs, twitter feeds, and Voxer channels to inform best practices on teachers thousands of miles away that they’ve never met. The focus is professional growth that helps students learn mathematics in a meaningful way.

The second school is the CoMmuniCator crowd.

They spend hours writing a two-page description of visual patterns in their math classroom, include a worksheet, and submit it to the local Math Education journal, feeling satisfied: that their environment is full of opportunities like this.

To these, I insist; there is so much more than your pond.

Outside the pond, there is a wide large world full of dynamic educators whose students aren’t just learning the standards, they’re learning to wrestle,

to challenge,

to critique,

to debate,

to seek meaning out of chaos.

In short, there is an ocean of educators growing children into little mathematicians while others are makingB really cool photocopies in their pond.

I’m not saying that they’re bad teachers. Not that they’re boring.

Just that they’re missing out.

I’ve had dozens of conversations with math teachers since my recent job change to EdTech Coach. Less than half have heard of Dan Meyer or Desmos.

Evelyn Baracaldo, a representative of NCTM 2015 – Nashville, sent out a few emails to teachers (including me), inviting us to present on “Emerging Technologies”. Some digging on my part revealed:
- The deadline to submit proposals is 15 months before the conference date. (Proposals for a conference on “emerging technologies”.)
- There will be no wireless internet available.
What?

NCTM, the largest group of Math Educators in the nation, is missing the point.

EDIT: Shortly after posting this, I had lunch with Robert Kaplinksy, who convinced me that NCTM reaching out to blogging, tweeting teachers like me is a step in the right direction,B and I should lighten up.

He’s correct. Afterward, I applied toB give a workshopB at NCTM Nashville.

This feels like the keynote addressB at Twitter Math Camp (which I didn’t attend this year, though I heard whispers and elevator summaries). Those of us in the ocean have a vested interest inB theB thousands of ponds across the country.

Some of those ponds are excellent and need no help.

This year, I’m excited to show the pond-fish just how big the ocean is.

UPDATE 3 MARCH 2015: The California Mathematics Council continues to borrow blog posts in print form,B with three-acts and visual patternsB in the March issue. I have mad respect for Brad Fulton, butB surely he’s aware of Dan Meyer’s work on the three acts of a mathematical story.

Also, it’s cringeworthy that CMC appears unaware of Desmos andB still uses Comic Sans.

~Matt “The Sand Shark” Vaudrey
September 25, 2014