TMC 2017 – Reflections
For me, I went straight into pre-planning the day after
Twitter Math Camp 2017. Though I started
writing this piece about a week after school started, I am just now finding the
kind of rest and relaxation to give it proper air time and reflection. I would have liked a few days or so to
digest all the awesome ideas I got at TMC17 before returning to school, but the
energy I had from it was a huge plus for enthusiasm going into a new school
year. Now four months later, I am embracing
the chance to talk about my conference experience in an applied way.
Looking Back to the
Conference Itself with a Quick Glance/Reflection
This was my first year attending Twitter Math Camp, and a
lucky thing was that I live in the Atlanta area, so I did not have to travel
out of state to go. I did however, avoid
the Atlanta commute by staying at the TMC17 designated hotel. The benefit of that far outweighed just
saving commute time – it allowed for so much more opportunity to meet new
people, socialize, and enjoy meals and evening activities with new friends.
I had put in a proposal to do a morning session on Socratic
Seminars. I only had 2 people come to
the session on Thursday, so I went ahead and closed it because just needed a
few more than that for it to be meaningful, and I did not want them to miss out
on something else that could be really influential to their craft by
staying. The good thing that did come
out of Friday morning after I closed the session was meeting and talking with
Daniel Forrester, who was the point person from Holy Innocents for TMC17. I did share my materials with him and talk
about the Socratic seminars and how they worked. We are both teaching Pre-calculus this year,
so we extended our visit to swapping ideas for that course. We also exchanged contact email for sharing
throughout the year. He is an amazing person
and I am sure an awesome teacher. Had I
not needed technical help for my session, and then not had my session, this
conversation never would have ensued- one of many great things!
How TMC17 Enhanced My
Classroom Fall Semester 2017
One great thing that happened at TMC17 was seeing my student
teacher supervisor Christopher Danielson again.
I had ordered his turtle and pentagonal tiles, and he was kind enough to
bring them to the conference for me rather than ship them out. It gave us a chance to catch up and he shared
with me his latest passion of working with “Math on a Stick” at the Minnesota
state fair as well as his hopes to expand on it however he can. Christopher has always been a passionate
educator and champion for conceptual understanding, and I love that he has
taken this to the “ground up” approach with #tmwyk and tactile ways of letting
people of all ages engage in “Math Play”.
The tiles he delivered were the first step I took in creating a math
play table in my classroom. The kids
absolutely love it, and I have added to it as the semester progressed. My husband was not sure how this would work
in a high school classroom, but I was proud to report back with pictures of
football players “at play” on the table.
He was flabbergasted, but intrigued.
He became a believer in it as he progressed through his curriculum and
training for a second career math teaching degree. He wants to teach geometry, so I know when
the time comes, I will have to make sure he does not start stealing my tiles
for his classroom! Though it was my play
table, my husband was yet another pre-service teacher influenced by the ideas
and skills, and knowledge of Christopher Danielson.
Below are some pictures of the play table this semester: Thanks Christopher!
I absolutely loved Glenn Waddell Jr’s session: “Bridging Elementary Skills & Concepts to
High School & Beyond”. In this
session, he highlighted fraction work/exposure from early elementary on through
the bridging ideas of intermediate and middle school concepts of common factors
and multiples that lead to fractions in the form of rational expressions in
high school algebra. This year I am
teaching Honors Pre-Calculus, and in the beginning of the year our
pre-requisite work involved review of the operations of rational
expressions. I took extra time and used
Glenn’s approach and bridging of elementary, intermediate, and middle grades
concepts to build for a deeper understanding of rational expression work for
review. Since the application of these
operations would manifest itself in operations for verifying trig identities
later in the semester, I knew it was a now or never thing to get the conceptual
understanding as solidified as possible.
Wow did it work well! I have
never seen students at this level master this concept so well and with such
depth; especially the addition/subtraction work rational expressions. Further, their strength in mastery of that
operation carried through very well during trig identity proofs 3 months later. His ideas and work with connecting concepts
across the grades is a winning addition to our craft-Thank you Glenn!
Our classroom play table in various stages this semester:
Elissa Miller shared a classroom management practice she
uses for a “My Favorites” presentation. I
believe she calls it “Two Nice Things”.
The ideas is that she uses this when kids say unkind things to their
peers in her classroom. For every unkind
thing a student says towards another, she then expects them to share two nice
things about that student. This really
resonated with me as a great way to turn negative comraderie into a positive
act in a classroom. I started this
immediately into the semester, and it worked so well. Double-edged sword is this: I stopped having to do this early on in the
fall, which was great in that it meant students were more respectful of each
other, but I did like giving them the experience to think about the balance of
positive and negative feedback as it is an important life-skill and such a
necessary one to our craft. Thanks
Elissa!
Anna Vance’s “Make it Stick” session was solidifying for
me. I had read the book and loved it,
but the ideas of spacing, lagging, and spiraling were still seemed like such a
blended concept to me rather than separate intentions. Her session helped me to develop them as
separate entities in my mind and figure out which ones I had implemented and
what I wanted to add in the future. Last
year I started to spiral homework, but it fell by the way side early. This year I decided to continue work with
this concept first and got further with it this semester, but the cramming in
the end due to missed weather days off set the attempt in the end. I will continue with spiraling of concepts
next semester, but in a way that probably mirrors more of the spacing concept. I want to keep students working on concepts
that need strengthening and reinforcing as they venture toward Calculus next
year. Even though I have not seen this
practice through consistently, I believe it has really helped students in the
times that we were able to do this.
Thanks Anna for straightening these concepts out for me!
Clothesline math presented by Chris Shore is an incredible concept – the proof is
concrete in that there was demand for a second session of it at TMC17 AND the
room was packed to the gills! I
integrated this concept into my fall Unit Circle Socratic Seminar, which will
be a separate blog to follow this one. I
did not actually use the string, but the concept of it was there and played an
important role in the development of radian use on the unit circle for the
students. There is so much great work
that can be done with number sense across all grade levels involving this
strategy, and I would love for our new Algebra 1 team to learn this method, but
time and lack of funding for professional development got in the way for first
semester. I am hoping we can find the
time to show our new team this at some point this semester. Thank you Chris!
Ideas from TMC17 that
I Plan to Drive My Second Semester Instruction
I attended the Desmos session on the Wednesday before the
conference began. At this session, there
were break-out sessions developed for the afternoon. I attended Chase Orton’s session on calculus
concepts for early ages. In this session,
he talked about the concept of area in early grades extend into non-vertex edge
images/curves in an estimation sense; further, to use concrete area calculation
to drive the estimation. I had never
thought of connecting this idea so early and in parallel to usual area concepts
and calculations. As I look to second
semester with my Honors Pre-Calculus class and think to our algebraic units
this coming semester in preparation for Calculus, this will be a concept I
embrace when looking at graphs of functions.
We have the time to do it as I have just “functions” penciled into the
calendar, so what a great way to enhance the study of the curves of functions
they know and lose redundancy that is typical in this practice. Thanks Chase – I cannot wait!
Lastly, I went to a session on standards-based grading given
by Tony Riehl and Jennifer Brackney:
“Standards-Based Grading in a Traditional Setting”. This was so informative for me on the ideas
of implementation of this practice as our district is and has always been a
traditional grading district. A
beginning contradiction to that, our district has started piloting
standards-based grading practices in a few of the elementary schools with
intent to expand into all grades at some point. I had always come across standards-based
grading on a 4-point scale when exploring it, but I really liked the
presenters’ 10-point system that they developed to bridge the transition from
traditional to standards-based grading.
This semester, I am looking to utilize the information and resources
they provided in working on my data collection and analysis skills; I need work
in that area. Our department chair is
already implementing the practice of posting our standards on our tests this
semester, so it seems like a natural pairing.
This will be a big challenge for me, but I am committed to at least
developing it along with her request. I
really like the objectiveness that it brings to the table of evaluation of
student skills, and I am hoping I can find enough success with it to share in
further development of our Algebra 1 and Geometry initiative for next
year. Thank you Tony an Jennifer for providing
this valuable information for traditional-based classrooms to involve
themselves in a more growth-orientated mindset!
In closing, there is so much more I experienced at TMC17,
but I would be writing for days and days; I wanted to highlight the experiences
that have and will receive real-time application this year. Though I wish my session at TMC17 would have
come to fruition, I realize it was pre-mature of me to try to speak at a first
Twitter Math Camp being a newcomer. I
wish I had allowed myself the opportunity to be a participant at one of the
other morning sessions given how much I drew out of the shorter afternoon
sessions. Those sessions have driven my
instruction thus far this year and fuel my excitement for more implementation
for 2nd semester as I sit here and write 2 days before going back to
semester 2 pre-planning. I am hoping I will get the chance to experience
a thorough and in-depth morning session as well as more afternoons sessions in
Cleveland as I do plan to enter the registration lottery in February. With holiday festivities over for all of us
and a new semester in the dead of winter ensues,
I am hoping the timing of my
reflection of TMC17 can help boost the yearly excitement we all feel for TMC
this time of year because the professional development and relationships we
form at TMC are priceless!
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