Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

 I have been applying to jobs lately for a couple of reasons. Mainly, being an independent education consultant is really difficult in a pandemic, since most of that work involves travel to schools, conferences, or different states to support teacher professional learning initiatives and basically, most of that has dried up. Another reason, which almost seems the opposite reason, is remote positions are more prevalent now, so previous full-time jobs that required specific locations and hours are now going remote. I've been working remotely since 2007, and it's such a consistent part of my life, and important to my lifestyle, especially having to support and help care for my mother with dementia, and now there are more opportunities.  What I am finding as I fill out applications (all online) is the following: It's hard to have a 1-2 page resume/CV when you have been working for over 31 years in education, so I've given up on that! I am 'perfect' for quite a few j...

 I am embarrassed to see that the last time I posted on this personal blog was back in February, 2017.  That is quite the long hiatus.  No excuses other than I think I was hiding out until the DeVos era ended. I would love to say I have been hanging out at the beach and enjoying life, but in addition to that I have actually been working hard these last years. Teaching, supporting teachers, doing hundreds of presentations around the country and world (Italy, Germany, Japan, England to name a few), and working on new technologies for math ( ClassPad.net ) and doing webinars and creating lessons and how-to' s to support technology integration. Never a dull moment....with occasional beach days thrown in! Anyway, back in action on the blog. Going to try to be a bit more present in this personal blog. I've been blogging non-stop on the Casio Education blog , but it's time to get back to my individual voice and messages as well. I can do both!!  I am working on a couple ...

I read an article this morning from Nira Dale  entitled "Why Instructional Design Must Focus on Learning Outcomes, Not Learning Activities" . While the article was focused on edtech tools and making sure the games, devices and activities used to engage students also focused on learning goals, the message actually pertains to all education activities, whether technology is involved or not. It reminded me of when I was working in Virginia Beach, where the whole district was working with creating lessons using the Understanding By Design framework from Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins.  The key message, that I have continued to utilize in all my work, is that engaging activities for the sake of having a 'fun' thing to do with students does NOT enhance student learning unless the activity chosen connects directly to the learning goals and desired student outcomes. Seems obvious of course - but, you would be surprised at how many teachers create wonderful, fun, engaging exp...

My daughter sent me this article, Parents are Freaking Out Because They Can't Answer a 7-year Olds Exam Question,  the other day concerning a Twitter posting about a math problem that was frustrating students, parents, and lots of people on Twitter obviously. Here's the problem: The issue is there are two answers that could be correct: 65, if you use the 'work backwards' method, subtracting out the 17 that just got on from the 63 and then adding back the 19 that got off.  The other answer is 46, which results from simply subtracting out the 17 that just got on from the 63 currently on the train.  The teachers exam rubric/'test key" stated the correct answer as 46.  Hence - all the confusion, because that would mean the 19 was an unneeded number. The real problem here, and it is NOT an isolated situation, is that this question is very poorly worded, and thus open to both interpretations. The work-backwards approach assumes that the question is asking ...

I have read a couple articles of late that have kind of pissed me off.  Mainly because they perpetuate the ideas that 1) The Common Core State Standards are handed down from the Federal Government, and 2) that the CCSS are the driving force behind Standardized Testing.  While there are connections, both claims are a complete disservice to the purpose behind and the reason for The Common Core State Standards. And they completely ignore the fact that Standardized Testing is actually controlled by testing companies and publishing companies. I've already posted on this before - " What People Think Is Common Core ISN'T"  and "Common Core, It's NOT the Devil"   so I apologize now for being repetitive. One article I read last night, entitled " What's the largest number you can represent with 3 digits? Nope. It's not 999."   is a great article. I agree with everything the author said and applaud his sticking by his daughter, the second teache...

"Speed ISN'T important in math. What is important is to deeply understand mathematical ideas and connections. Whether you are fast or slow isn't really relevant." - Laurent Schwartz, mathematician If you haven't seen the video by Jo Boaler and some of her Stanford students entitled "How to Learn Math: Four Key Messages", you definitely need to. Besides the four powerful messages (which I will list below), it has some great stories and quotes, one of which is the one I have above.  Jo Boaler has done powerful research and written some terrific books on mathematics and learning math (one of my favorites being "What's Math Got to Do with It?"  and the video about these four key messages in math is so interesting. Here are the four key messages about learning math (I highly recommend you watch the video to clarify and define each message a bit more): Everyone can learn math at high levels Believe in yourself (your beliefs about your ...

It's been great to see all the posts on Twitter this week and the many articles focused on National Computer Science Education Week . The #HourofCode hashtag has been lighting up Twitter this week, which has been really exciting to see (and I have loved reading and sharing all the great links). Science and teaching students coding. All of course in response to this week being The idea behind #HourofCode is to expose as many people, especially students, to the basics of coding. The hope is by showing that anyone can learn coding, need for, interest in and involvement with computer science will increase. One of the many articles I read this week was one that suggested Computer Science courses should be considered math credit .  I think this is a great idea - it would provide a valuable math credit option for students, especially those not interested in the traditional Algebra II, pre-calculus, calculus path, which is usually the push for a majority of students. Often a path comple...

I participated in an interesting #edchat this past Tuesday, as I try to do every Tuesday at noon (Eastern time) if it fits into my schedule.  The topic for this hour long chat was: Education should reflect culture of the country, but do politics and religion have too much influence in American education? My immediate reaction and response was yes, religion and politics have way too much influence in  American education. Two prime examples are the current hot-button issues of The Common Core Standards  and whether the word "God" should be included in the Pledge of Allegiance. Here are my personal opinions on both: "God" in schools/Pledge of Allegiance -  First of all, God was not included in the original pledge, written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. "under God" was added in 1954 in response to the Communist threat of the times But, regardless of when "under God" was added, this is just a political & religious ploy to get everyone up in ...

I am often asked by teachers how do I engage my students? What questions can I ask? Questioning is a skill that many teachers struggle with, as we are often prone to ask simple yes/no questions or one-word response questions (i.e. what's the answer?).  It takes effort and practice to ask questions that help students think, analyze their thoughts, make conjectures, etc. But, as I often tell teachers, if there a few questions that you can ask that force students away from the simple responses or the yes/no answers. Questions such as Why? of Is that always true? or, my favorite's What if? or What do you wonder? Annie Fetter, of Math Forum fame, did an incredible Ignite Talk at NCTM one year entitled "What Do You Notice or Wonder" and it really opened my eyes to the power of observation & wondering. I share it here as a here as inspiration to help you ask the questions that will invoke wonder, inquiry and thinking in students. Additionally, Randall Munroe ...

Today is October 21, 2015 and Marty McFly is set to arrive this evening, so of course, a post about the technology that actually exists today compared to what the movie predicted is in order! Someone else has done all the work for me and gone through 22 things that the movie got both right and wrong - I will let you check that out on your own. Here's a movie trailer clip that shows the some of the "things" of the future:  What I find amazing to consider is that the writers/creators of the movie were making predictions about a future 25 years down the road in a time, 1989, where none of this technology existed.   Heck - the World Wide Web was just being born in 1989. And yet now, 25 years later, some of their predictions are in fact a reality. We have 3D TVs & movies, we have Google Glasses, digital cameras, tablets, talking computers who can do things for us (Siri), and while we don't have flying cars, we do have electric cars. It's like Star Trek t...

In my final in this Common Core Structure series, I want to just spend a little time discussing the three Key Shifts of the Common Core: Focus, Coherence, and Rigor . The CC are standards - states have always had standards. The difference here is a clearer set of aligned standards, throughout K-12, that ensured the standards built on each other within a grade, between the grades, and provided a cohesive set of understandings, skills and application. Hopefully the previous four posts have given a clearer understanding of how the structure of the CC was designed to support these shifts, so now lets actually look at these three shifts in depth. I am going to use some specific standards to exemplify each shift, as I think it helps make sense of them. Focus The CC is really focused on students conceptual understanding of mathematics and their ability to apply these understandings to real-world problems. So, within each grade, there are "less" standards, and more focus to help ...

In my last post , I went in great detail into the structure of the Common Core Math Standards for K-8.  Long story short, the picture at the right is a visual of the structure showing the funnel effect – where the standard itself is the end product of so much more: Introduction, Domain, Cluster. The gist of the last post was that it is important to look at all the components, not just the specific standards themselves, so that you understand how the standard fits into the learning progression. When looking at the high school content, the structure of the standards is the same, with an additional component, the conceptual categories.  There are six conceptual categories at the high school level: Number and Quantity, Algebra, Functions, Modeling, Geometry, and Statistics & Probability. Within these conceptual categories, there are the Introduction, Domains, Clusters and specific standards.  The idea behind the conceptual categories is that students acquire th...

In the first post of my Common Core series, I discussed the importance of really looking at the Standards of Mathematical Practices (SMP), because the title alone is not enough. You cannot assume that each title of the 8 SMPs gives enough information to truly know what students should be saying and doing to enhance their mathematical understanding. The descriptive narratives for each practice are necessary reading to clearly make good instructional decisions that will truly support student understanding of mathematics My last post focused on SMP #4, Model with Mathematics. In this post, I'd like to choose another of the SMPs, and be a little more explicit in breaking down the structure to show how both the title and the narrative help inform instruction. Then, hopefully, you can do your own investigation of the remaining SMPs.  This is a great exercise to do with collaborative groups of teachers - maybe your next team/faculty meeting?! All of this is from work I have done bei...