Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

My 11th grade daughter just finished her last day of school today.  Guess that actually makes her a senior now.  Yikes!  Anyway, she had exams the last two days, which she didn't have to take because of her grades, yet...she had to show up and be there or she would fail.  So, she sat for 4 hours each day doing not much. Not a great use of time, but that I sort of understand.  Sort of.  (Though, in schools I taught at, if you were exempted from an exam you did not have to actually show up...different state, different rules I guess). What I really was concerned about was the last two weeks of school, particularly the last week.  My daughter watched more movies in that time than she has all year.  State tests were over, only thing left to do was kill time apparently. She was able to view the entire Star Wars saga in Astronomy (at least there was some far-fetched content relationship there).  But I find it hard to explain Finding Nemo in Engl...

I have been writing a piece about dynamic geometry® software, and have had a really difficult time conveying the power of dynamic mathematics environments in the static environment of the written word. Let me clarify what I mean by dynamic geometry software - I do NOT mean software that is just for geometry.  Dynamic geometry means the ability to take all sorts of mathematics visualizations (shapes, graphs, plots, functions) and drag and manipulate them to create infinite examples. These dynamic movements follow mathematical behaviors and allows for exploration, discovery of relationships and properties and allow students to interact directly with the mathematics because the mathematics is visual and tangible. Dynamic geometry software is specifically mentioned in the Common Core Standards of Mathematical Practice because of it's ability to be a tool that promotes reasoning, questioning, making conjectures, persevering, modeling, and communicating. Naturally, I have a strong bia...

Those of you who are teachers know what I am talking about - that moment where you say "oh, if I could only go back to 'first period' (or 2nd block - whichever  class was the first one) and reteach this lesson they would get it so much better!"  Practice does really make perfect (well...better any way), as I said in Tuesday's post . I did the second day of face-to-face with my middle school teachers (see related post ) , so basically a repeat of day one with a different content focus, and as is usually the case, learned from my first experience.  Spent more time on the software basics, cleared up some misunderstandings about the online course components - in general, fixed the errors made in the first night.  If only I could go back and do the first night over!  It made me think about all the years of teaching where I taught the same course for 3 periods - that poor first period class definitely got the short end of the stick! Let's face it, the more you do ...