Hello from Texas!

 The 2024-2025 school year ended a little over two weeks ago. Since cleaning out my classroom for our last day of school in late June, I have gotten a hair cut, taken my kids to our local pool five times (which is no easy feat when your kids are two & five and the pool is a 30 minute walk from home). I have had lots of ice cream and read five books just for fun. In addition to all of that, last week I attended my seventh MfA Summer Think conference. The theme this year was "Spontaneous Sparks: Embracing Growth & Innovation in Teaching" and I attended some fabulous sessions on making math visual via problem-solving summer camp, queering my classroom (supporting LGBTQIA+ students) and love languages in the classroom. All the sessions & connections were inspiring! Currently, I am coming to you live from Dallas, TX at the New Desmos Fellows Orientation! It is quite fitting that my last post on here in January was about applying to be a Desmos Fellow again. I had applied last year and didn't make it, but low and behold, on Pi Day, I found out that I was selected for the 2025 cohort! 

Fast forward to today, where I am an hour away from kicking off orientation with 30 other new Fellows! Aside from the MfA Summer Think, I had never presented or attended any sort of teaching conference (despite teaching for almost twenty years). I had some reservations (I am not a fan of flying, and I have never been away from my two kids for an extended time... mom guilt is so real!) but I accepted, booked my flight and was on my way to Dallas before sunrise this morning. I am proud of me for pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and trying something new that will help me continue to grow as a math teacher. 

Like Chilli, my brain hasn't quiet comprehended this idea of "relaxing," not that I am here to relax, per say, but being in another state (1500 miles away) and not having to be the main person responsible feeding/entertaining/keeping alive two other small humans is unusual. It wasn't easy saying good bye last night, and I cannot wait to hold them in my arms again, but for now, I am going to enjoy my time as a Desmos Fellow and am looking forward to the next day and a half!

What I Read This Month - June & July 2023

My favorite form of self care as a teacher and as a mom is reading. I love reading for fun but I also love reading to learn new things. Apparently I forgot to share my June & July book lists to here they are, as well as my five-star reads from each month, in no particular order:

Top June Books:

1. How Do I Un-Remember This?
2. Stories From The Tenants Downstairs
3. Fourth Wing

Top July Books:

1. Yellowface
2. The Better Half
3. Banyon Moon

In July, I also surpassed my Goodreads 2023 Reading Challenge goal of 52 books, which I am pretty proud of. I've done this challenge every year since 2015 and I hope to match (or surpass) last year's total of 100 books, but we will see. 

As I was walking around doing errands yesterday (and probably listening to the Bad on Paper Podcast (which I highly recommend if you are a reader) I was thinking about what is it that I like about reading so much and here are a few of the things that I came up with:

• I love all the lives & places that I get to explore and be a part of in books
• My over-stimulated mom brain loves the sense of peace and quite I get when I read
• I love having a small goal to read one chapter (or even one percent) and meeting that small goal every day
• It's relaxing & fun to me
• It gives my introvert-self something to naturally talk about since I am always reading something new

So far I have finished two books this month and neither have wow-ed me, but I am really liking my current read and am pretty sure that it will be my first five-star book of August. Happy reading!

Math Teacher Summer Reading List: Past, Present, & Future

One month ago today I gave birth to my son, so even though the 2022-2023 school year is not officially over, for me, it kind of, sort of is. The end of the school year is always a busy time, with field trips, Regents exams & graduation, so it's weird not being there, although I am grateful for the leave that I do have being a teacher in NYC (although it's sad that the US still has no federal laws providing a right to paid family or medical leave). I will go back for the last day of school so that I can get put back on payroll for the summer, but for all intents and purposes, my 16th year teaching is done, so I have been thinking a lot about this past school year... what went well & what I hope to do better for next year.

To kick things off I'll start with three books that I read last summer that really resonated with my and made me change up some things this year:

1. Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead)
2. Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools & Classrooms
3. Necessary Conditions: Teaching Secondary Math with Academic Safety, Quality Tasks, and Effective Facilitation

My biggest change this year centered around my grading practices. After reading Grading for Equity, I was really inspired the change up my grading policy so that my grades were more accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational. Some of the changes included optional homework, quiz retakes, standards-based grading, no late penalties, & no extra credit. Students & parents were mostly open to the changes, and my grading policy did evolve throughout the year, but there is definitely still room to grow. I hope I can reread Grading for Equity this summer and participate in Math for America's PLT in the fall so that I can continue to work towards more equitable grading practices in my classroom.

I also hope to reread Building Thinking Classrooms, which I read two summers ago, and inspired me try out using more thinking tasks with students in visually random groups (VRGs) on vertical, non-permanent surfaces (VNPs) and Mathematics for Human Flourishing, which always reminds me about the humanity that comes from doing mathematics.

Some new books that I hope to read for the first time this summer include:

1. Classroom-Ready Rich Algebra Tasks, Grades 6-12: Engaging Students in Doing Math
2. Brining Project-Based Learning to Life in Mathematics, K-12
3. Rough Draft Math: Revising to Learn
4. Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had
5. Productive Math Struggle: A 6-point Action Plan for Fostering Perseverance 

If you can't tell, I am a big reader in general, as it really is a form of self-care for me. Hopefully I can continue to use this space to reflect on each of these books and how I can use them in my math classes next year.

Khan Academy & Make it Stick

The last day of our Restore 360 training

I can't believe that there is only one month of summer break left!  My Instagram feed is full of fellow teachers (outside of NYC) who are busy getting their classrooms ready for the new school year.  I am definitely not there mentally yet, but I have been keeping busy this summer.  Two weeks ago I participate in a week-long professional learning on restorative practices in grades 9 - 12 on building belonging, Restore 360, through the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, which I cannot wait to do with my advisory this year.

Last week I participated in two Algebra for All two-day electives, and am pretty sure I found my new 1st day of school activity for this year, Hashi Puzzles!  I need to flush it out a little more, but I think it will be awesome.

After two weeks of going to professional learnings, I am looking forward to sleeping in again - I mean, it is still my summer break after all.  I have also been working through the Edpuzzle Online Professional Development.  I finished Levels 1 & 2 and hope to start Coach & Flipped this week.  My principal also reached out to me this past week about helping out during our summer PD during the last week of August.  I will be leading the ice breakers during two of the days and a session on parent engagement.  The parent engagement session I am fine with, but anyone who knows me, knows I am not the biggest fan of adult ice breakers (insert eye roll here), but after thinking about it, I was able to come up with some ideas that I actually really like.  I haven't fully planned them out yet, but  hope to incorporate some of my Restore 360 practices, as well as some reflection from the MfA Summer Think a few weeks ago.     

My current summer read

In addition to Restore 360 and Algebra for All, I have also been keeping up with my summer goal of reading one math/teaching book for every two books that I read just for fun.  Today I started, Make it Stick.

The reason I decided to post just now though has to do with Khan Academy.  Since math teaching and learning goes hand-in-hand, I decided this summer to work through all the 8th grade and Algebra 1 math skills.  I have currently reached 81% mastery in 8th grade math and 24% mastery in Algebra 1 and hope to keep up with it and continue to work through Geometry, Algebra 2, Trig, etc as the school year goes on.

Just now, I was working through the Number of Solutions to Equations Challenge which basically

Khan Academy 

has to do with generalizing what you know about linear equations to determine if there are 0, 1, or infinitely many solutions to the system (I screen shot one of the questions on the right), and at first I hated the questions because I was going about actually solving them, but the more I worked through them, I realized that I didn't really need to solve them, but generalize what I know must be true for linear equations to have 0, 1, or many solutions.  Yes, this was something I already knew, but never really thought too deeply about.  Even though I understand and can make sense of linear systems of equations, working through these problems gave me the opportunity to really build on my prior knowledge and do some learning, which totally connects to what I have just started reading about in Make it Stick, that learning is "...acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities" (page 2).  Another connection I made from working though these problems just now and Make it Stick, is that it was an example of elaboration or "...the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know" (page 5).

I hope the next four weeks are just as full of relaxing, learning, and growing!

CMP3 Institute, 30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 3, and Summer Reading

Today was the first day of a week-long Getting to Know CMP3 Institute for Grade 6.  My new principal asked me a few weeks ago if I would be interested in attending, and although I have attended similar PDs before (and haven't always found them to be the most helpful), since 6th grade is new for me this year, I figured why not.

It was kind of slow-paced, but we went through the first four problems in Prime Time, and our presenters were actual current CMP3 teachers (not from NY, mind you, but I appreciate the fact that they are current teachers and not outsiders trying to sell me on Pearson).

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the freedom of summer vacation, but I did kind of, sort of get excited about the new school year.  Not that I don't get excited every year, but its different this year, since I'll be in a new district and school.  Lot's of good possibilities!

I also figured today was a good day for day 3 of the 30 day blogging challenge:

Day 3:
Discuss one *observation* area that you would like to improve on for your teacher evaluation.

Especially after getting back into "work mode" today, the two Danielson areas that I most want to improve on this year are 1E: Designing Coherent Instruction and 3D: Using Assessment in Instruction.  I still feel that there is a disconnect between how I want to teach my students and how I am assessing them.  It's that balance between good mathematical teaching and mastering all of the material for the state test.  I've already updated my test question bank with the released state test questions, but I still struggle with curriculum.  I want to go back to using CMP3, but like I learned in last week's blog post from EdReports, there are better curriculums aligned to the Common Core, like EngageNY.  I have lots to think about over the next three weeks.  

On a side note, I also downloaded this book a few weeks ago, and I want to read it before the school year starts back up, but I am in the middle of one of my book club books that I am really enjoying (A Man Called Ove) and don't want to put down just yet.  #summergoals 

#MTBoS and @TmathC and my ideal Summer reading list

Three posts in one day?  It must be Summer vacation.

Last post for today, I promise (mostly because I still have to plan for my SHSAT math prep classes that I am teaching this week).  But another reason for starting up this blog is to join the numerous math educators that are part of the mathtwitterblogosphere and TwitterMathCamp.  What are the MTBoS and TmathC?  Well from what I understand, it's basically a social media community for math teachers.  I first learned about it from my friend and fellow math teacher, James.  The more I read, the more and more excited I get about my own math blogging adventure!

In addition to joining the MTBoS and following TmathC, I have also decided to include my ideal professional reading book list for this Summer:

1. Driven by Data by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
2. The Power of Teacher Teams by Vivian Troen and Katherine C. Boles
3. The Math Coach Field Guide by Carolyn Felux and Paula Snowdy
4. Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess      
5. Learning From Coaching by Nina Morel
6. Putting the Practices into Action by Susan O'Connell and John SanGiovanni 
7. Teaching Problems and the Problems of Teaching by Magdalene Lampert

The first two books are required reading by my school, but the others I have heard about on my own and sound interesting.  Now, practically I know I will not be able to read and take meaning from all of them (and I know that this is a problem I tend to have - I love thinking big picture and end up often times getting in over my head and overwhelmed and not finishing what I start) but my hope is that I break up my reading into manageable chunks and use this blog as a way to hold myself accountable and to help digest the material.  Hopefully I will be able to avoid getting overwhelmed this time around.