AMTOPV and Math Conferences

Had a lovely morning with some terrific teachers yesterday morning at the AMTOPV (Association of Teachers of Mathematics of Philadelphia and Vicinity) at Germantown Academy in Plymouth Meeting, PA. First, what an absolutely beautiful town and school. Second, what a great group of teachers, dedicating their Saturday to learning more about how to improve math education for their students. Met some wonderful teachers and the presentations that were going on were so exciting. It's a shame that the media can't capture things like this conference, where dedicated teachers are giving up their day off to do something to help students learn. Might bring to light that there are amazing teachers out there working hard to educate our students.

Anyway, just wanted to mention what a great time I had doing my short little presentation - I learned some new things about whiteboards and Sketchpad from the teachers and hopefully they got some ideas and help from me as well. It was a fun session and gratifying to hear stories of teachers in the classroom and how they are using Sketchpad.

I do have to share one story that just absolutely made my day, if not my entire week. There was a high school student in the session - sweet girl. I was sharing various activities related to teaching slope, and in one activity, Mellow Yellow (an activity available in The Learning Center of Sketchpad5 under Sample Activities), I was demoing how to show a contextual understanding of positive, negative, no-slope and undefined slope. At the end of the session, she came up to me and said - "I have never understood what undefined meant until you just showed us now" (it had to do with the inability of Mellow Yellow to 'teleport'). How great was that?!!!

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