I finally got into the evening social scene on the last night (silly introversion made me sit out the first few nights) so I didn't get this post written up right away. Forgive me; some details are now a little fuzzy!
Saturday began with some announcements and our final day of morning sessions. My team pulled together our quadratics lesson rather nicely, I think. You can see all of the lessons on the TMC webpage.
"My Favorites" were numerous the last two days. Let's see if I can recap them all.
Jenn (@Fibanachos) encouraged us to say, "Show me another way." She demonstrated a part-whole relationship diagram rectangle and how to use factor/product triangles with formulas.
Pam (@pamjwilson) went through many favorites: chalk talk, Making Thinking Visible, thinking routines, 2-minute assessment grid, writing with highlighters under black lights, ghosts in the graveyard (from Tales from the Spring), Grudge (from Nathan Kraft), and Plickers.
Max Ray spoke about enCompass, happening at Drexel next week.
@heather_kohn shared some strategies to help ELL students such as having students take turns reading a question, making a comment or asking a question, clarifying and giving positive feedback. She said doing this in partners instead of large group can promote literacy. Cut and grow was another strategy in which students take a response (theirs or a canned one) and cut it apart to make space to write in more details.
Andrew (@Froynboy) had the most clever seating idea I've ever heard of. He assigned each desk (and therefore each student) a 90s hip hop star, complete with picture. He grouped the artists logically and would sometimes call on a table by playing a snippet of one of their songs.
Cindy (@johnsonmath) is better known as the "Conic Card Lady." She shared her philosophy with us all.
Meg (@mathymeg07) showed some ridiculously awesome Word shortcuts that I totally need to set up before I get back to school. She uses macros to "teach" Word some often used math speak. For example, she has word autocorrect pi/2 into mathematical notation. How awesome is that?
Then it was time for Desmos and Eli Luberoff (@eluberoff). He told us about some awesome new features coming to Desmos really soon and let us play with a new lesson. I'm most excited to hear that regression is coming soon. :)
In the afternoon, I went to Chris Shore's (@mathprojects) session on his nationally recognized lesson, "Princess Dido and the Ox Skin." It combines a need to know area, perimeter, and circumference plus conversions between units.
Then, I had volunteered to lead a flex session about interactive notebooks. It was really informal, just getting people to share what their successes and failures were and getting neophytes the opportunity to ask questions of those with some experience.
Then it was 5 o'clock and back at the hotel, we finished the Ox Skin lesson.
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| That's me, fourth from the left, in the green dress. Thanks, Hedge, for the photo that I stole from your Twitter page! I promise we weren't making crop circles! |
After the encircling of the hotel with the "ox skin," we headed back inside where I plopped down on the floor with a whole bunch of other "serial INB" people as Julie dubbed us! That's right, we're so serious about this conference that we continue it in several sessions "after hours." Around 10:00, I finally went up to my room.
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| Photo stolen from Julie's Twitter page. Thanks, y'all, for posting the pics! |
The next day, we finished up with about 90 minutes of additional My Favorites.
Sebastian (@s_speer) shared several number sense games he uses with his middle school students. They will be posted to the wiki.
Anthony (@aanthonya) talked about Stats Mafia and absolute value blackjack. I love that he pulls out a green felt table for his seniors to play on!
Hannah S. talked about her method of collecting cell phones when students shouldn't have them. First, she hands them an envelope. They are to write their name on the envelope and seal the phone inside. If they refuse, she gives them a card that basically says they understand that they will face further consequences and accept those consequences.
Jasmine (@jaz_math) shared her "Tabletop Twitter" questions for opening the school year. She also does a Quadrilateral Traits dating game to summarize characteristics of quadrilaterals.
Bob and Shelli talked about Stat Key. Hello, stats units everywhere. This is a great resource as data is already there and it's possible to quickly switch between several representations.
I shared my love of the True Colors Personality Test and how it helped me know what kinds of activities would most appeal to my students.
Dylan: "Deep problems have few steps but one insight."
Glenn wanted us to buy our own domain names. I understand his point about it making you seem like a true professional instead of a hobbyist, but a few hundred dollars a year is not worth it to me.
Chris Shore shared his Ox Skin lesson.
Elissa (@misscalculate) shared her "two nice things" which I feel compelled to do next year. Anytime someone says something unkind, they must immediately say two nice things about that person. If they say, "But there aren't two!" then they get to come up with four. Elissa also suggested taking card sort activities and things that are similarly difficult to store and placing them in small plastic tubs labeled by unit. This needs to happen pronto in my room. I've hesitated to spend the money.
Sam (@samjshah) shared his school's math and science journal. packerintersections.weebly.com. If I thought I had the time to organize this next year, I'd be on it.
John (@jstevens009): "There is no right answer, no wrong answer, only answers that lack justification."
Finally, I had the chance to witness the world freehand circle champion in action. Thanks for sharing your skills with us, Alex.
Lisa closed the session with an emotional speech and announced that next year we'll be meeting up at Harvey Mudd College outside Los Angeles! See you in CA!!!
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
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