By Matthew Rector If you’ve ever looked around your math classroom and wondered why some students seem to disengage the moment numbers appear, you’re not alone. For many students—especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and communities of color—math often feels like a wall rather than a bridge. But what if we could change that? In […]
Conundrums: Non Curricular Bell Work Are you ready to start your class with Bell Work that activates student thinking, builds connections and student confidence? Then give these a try! Assign them through Google Classroom and they’ll auto grade as long as students click on the affirmation. Here’s how I do it: I put the video
(5-min Non-curricular tasks that motivate, activate and engage Math students) If you want to read the research on why these are effective go here ENTHUSIASM MATTERS – There is enough info in each slide for students to figure it out. Start the timer and say “Go!”. Use your words to encourage them to persevere and
I developed the three read (self) assessment system prior to COVID and as great as it turned out to be at helping students take ownership of their learning and become awesome problem solvers it always took longer than I wanted for them to understand and truly embrace the system. This year I wanted to shorten
How to make every activity a low floor high ceiling high cognitive demand activity
I talk and think a lot about our art. As a scientist I also think and write a lot about data and research. I know some people think these are mutually exclusive but, in my opinion, anyone that says that doesn’t really have a good grasp of either. Last Formative Friday, the Team Test I
Google’s Project Aristotle Building a Better Team “Working in a team is cheating!” “I don’t like working with other people because I do all of the work!” “I want to be on a team with all of the smartest people!” Over the years I have heard it all when it comes to students’ mindsets about
Check out this little video on I do this thing
The last year has thrown us a lot of lemons!!! Fortunately, for our students, we dedicated professional math teachers have risen to the occasion and made millions of gallons of lemonade!!! One of my latest lemons came with our new High School hybrid schedule that has us teaching six ten minutes periods on Zoom with
During distance learning (DL), I have decided to stop giving tests whose sole purpose was to rank and judge students. Experience has taught me that, no, poor grades do not motivate students; in fact, it usually does the opposite. And typically, my students did not go back over their test to find out what they
