I love having a 3 day weekend, because I can catch up with a blog post or two.
Came back last weekend from a wonderful weekend of sunshine, the desert, and math. Yes…I’m talking about California Math Council’s conference in Palm Springs. Haven’t been in 2 years so I was anticipating some amazing ideas.
First of all, I had the honor and pleasure of co-presenting 2 sessions. The first session was about the Progression of a Clothesline with Chris Shore, Andrew Stadel, and Dan Luevanos. We had a packed house of participants who wanted to look at how Clothesline Math could not only impact the students in your classroom, but also you entire school (or your entire district). Participants laughed, engaged, and were completely excited by the possibilities of the clothesline. Heck…I even noticed (& wondered) Annie Fetter sitting in the audience (and she used it in the classroom immediately after).
And then it was Stacy’s and my turn to lead our own K-6 Clothesline session to a room that help 140 people. ***Gulp*** No pressure. I have to admit that we are used to presenting to groups of 40, so this was a daunting and thrilling experience. I wondered if our stuff was good enough. I wondered if we would get anyone in our room. Well…when I soon saw our room filling up to the point that we were at capacity (they closed the doors for fire codes)….then the nerves really kicked in. Alas, we did well. It helped that word got out that we had free giveaways for the elementary peeps. Saturday morning, I woke up with what I’m calling my #sexymathvoice. Didn’t realize how much I had to project til I was hearing my groggy voice the next morning. I’ll take it! It’s all good.
I went to other impressive presentations as a participant.
Robert Kaplinsky – Math Modeling Can Make you Filthy Rich. Robert stressed the importance of real authentic math modeling. And most of all, how do we make sense of math modeling?
Megan Franke – Student Participation & Learning: Explaining and Engaging with Others. Megan asked the question of “why do we care about young people explaining their math ideas?” As teachers, do we allow our students the opportunity to engage and explain?
My big AHA! moment in Megan’s session was —we shouldn’t expect all our kids to participate in the same way.
Jeremiah Reusch – I adore this guy. He’s been a big supporter of mine with clothesline math and with my 3 act lessons. He sat in on my session with a big smile on his face. And to be fair, I sat on a few minutes of his session on Desmos vs. Geogebra – the Smackdown. This guy is so full of energy and had the entire room in fits of laughter. Thanks Jeremiah.
Dan Meyers – talked about #mathematicalsurprises. He discussion led to how we create order from expected order….and also how we create order from expected chaos.
A magnificent experience. I love going to conferences because they always leave you full up hope, excitement, and new ideas to help our students.
Onto the next conference in Seattle (NCTM regionals).
Until next time,
Kristen