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Switchers and Stayers

I often read suggestions about competitions and other games to get students working “to speed”. But direct competition doesn’t work unless you’ve got truly homogenous abilities–the same students always...

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Getting Engagement

I once got in a bit of trouble with someone who, after an observation, expressed deep concern that my students had been “off task”. Had I any sense, I would have nodded sagely and agreed, asking for...

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Teaching Humanities, Part I

I got lucky my first year out and was able to teach math and humanities. Were I ever to get a full-time job teaching either English or history, I would feel guilty for abandoning math and taking the...

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Discovery Doesn’t Work

I had trouble in ed school because (well, at least in my view of it) I openly disdained the primary tenets of progressive education. I am pro-tracking, anti-constructivist, and pro-testing, all of...

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I am very Barbie about math*

Why are High School Teachers Convinced that White Girls Can’t Do Math?: apparently, high school teachers rate white girls lower than boys when they are matched in grades and test scores. Therefore, sez...

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The false god of elementary school test scores

Rocketship Academy wants to go national. Rocket Academy is a hybrid charter school chain that focuses solely on getting low income Hispanic elementary school students to proficiency. (Note: Larry Cuban...

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Best Movie About Teaching. Ever.

Cheery news: Won’t Back Down had a hideous opening. Here’s a hint, folks: teachers are a big piece of the audience for simplistic, feel-good teacher movies, so it’s a terrible idea to make a simplistic...

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Boaler’s Bias (or BS)

I began this piece a week ago intending to opine on the Boaler letter. However, I realized I have to confess a strong bias: I read Boaler in ed school and nearly vomited all over my reader. And that...

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Push the Right Buttons

Since my school only has four block periods, teachers often sub for each other during their prep periods. Cheaper than hiring an outside sub, and with an experienced classroom manager running things,...

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Modeling Linear Equations, Part 3

See Part I and Part II. The success of my linear modeling unit has completely transformed the way I teach algebra. From Part II, which I wrote at the beginning of the second semester at my last school:...

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Who I Am as a Teacher

As I thought about writing specific disagreements I have with reformers, I realized that time and again I’d be having to break off and explain how my values and priorities differed. So I thought I’d do...

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Dan Meyer and the Gatekeepers

I have at least one more post on reform math, but I got distracted while looking for examples of Dan Meyer’s teaching (as an example of his math in action) then realizing that many of my regular...

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The Release and “Dumbing it Down”

I’ve said before I’m an isolationist whose methods are more reform than traditional. I try to teach real math, not some distorted form of discovery math, but I also try to avoid straight lecture. I...

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Illustrating Functions

Function definitions aren’t usually tested on either the SAT or the ACT and since I never worked professionally with math, functions were something I’d barely considered in algebra a billion years ago....

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Understanding Math, and the Zombie Problem

I have been mulling this piece on the evils of explanations for a while. There’s many ways to approach this issue, and I highly recommend the extended discussion at Dan Meyer’s blog, as it captures...

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Realizing Radians: Teaching as Stagecraft

Teaching Objective: Introduce radian as a unit of angle measure that corresponds to the number of radians in the length of the arc that the angle “subtends” (cuts off? intersects?).  Put another way:...

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Not Really Teaching English

The last time I wrote about my ELL class, I had six students: two from Mexico (Marshall and Kit from the story), two from China (Julian and Sebastian), one from Africa (Charlotte), one from India...

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Killing My Own Snakes

When I was hired to teach at Southeastern in May, 1979, the Academic Dean at the time gave me only two pieces of advice: “Make your own way,” and “Kill your own snakes.”-Steven Fettke One of the most...

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Teaching with Indirection

Technology is a great illustrator and indispensable for presentation. But as a student tool? Eh, not so much. Certainly not laptops.   I found laptops very useful in my history class, but primarily as...

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Teachers and Smart Kids

Note: This was originally the opening of a larger essay I abandoned. I published the draft in The Things I Don’t Write and someone mentioned it was a nice anecdote, which it was. So I’m just...

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