2017 SDCTM Conference Proposal

I just submitted a conference proposal for Jarrod and I to present at the SDCTM conference in Huron on February 3-4, 2017.  We are planning a two hour session where participants will explore the Desmos activities and activity builder features.

I held a Desmos training session earlier this summer at BHS, and since then Desmos has made some major changes and literally hundreds of new activities have been created.  I'm interested to see what else will change between now and February.

The NEED for High School Math Teachers to Be Integrating Statistics Into Our Classes

I attended a class last week @ South Dakota State that focused on deepening the understand of what the CCSS expect students to know in the realm of statistics.  The class was great for two reasons.  First, my statistics content knowledge needed some dusting off -- this class provided the cleaning.  Second, the class has really made me think hard about how our department can do a better job of integrating these standards into the lessons and activities that we're already using.

But most of all, I really started thinking about the NEED for students to be exposed to lessons in statistics.  The greatest need is for students to be made aware that they need to think critically when presented with statistics found in the real world.  I get the feeling that a majority of adults don't understand the different ways statistics can be manipulated to show different angles of the same story.  Just yesterday, I saw this video on CNN of an interview between CNN's Don Lemon and Sheriff David Clarke.  

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/18/us/wisconsin-sheriff-david-clarke-i-predicted-this/index.html

I'm not here to pick sides on this issue.  I don't follow politics enough to shed light on the data that Lemon is referring to.  I don't know if the President was lying about it, nor am I implying that he was.  I am simply using this four line discussion as evidence that there is a lot of gray area in the realm of statistics.  

What I do know is that there ways that statistics can manipulate the truth about what is really happening.  Students need to understand how things like sample size and random sampling can have an effect on data.  They need to analyze different data sets that hold relevance in their world, whether it be things such as shoe size, height, or average sleep time.  Students need to understand why the median is resistant to outliers.  They need to understand how we determine if a data point can be considered an outlier.  They need to see how graphs can be misleading.

All of these skills (and others) are needed in order for our students to be wise consumers of statistics.   I am afraid that many people hear statistics on the news or read statistics found in newspapers, but never really consider the process of how the statistic was created or how the statistic was represented and what message it is intended to support.

REMAST wrap up

A couple of weeks ago I presented a session about Desmos at the REMAST Conference in here Brookings, SD.  The presenter speaking before me was Matt Miller (@jmattmiller), author of "Ditch That Textbook".

I feel honored that Matt listened to my Desmos 101 talk, and also that he decided to take some of his famous sketch notes at the same time.  I would love to be able to sketch notes like this!

The Word about Desmos is Getting Around

The ISTE 2016 conference is currently taking place in Denver, and until today I have never heard of the ISTE conference.  It looks like I need to take a long look into this one for the future.

Based on what I'm finding on Twitter tonight, two gentlemen (Bob & Jedidiah) presented a session on Desmos today.  Two reasons for this blog post:

1. It amazes me what social media is doing to my personal professional development.

2. The word about Desmos is spreading like wildfire.

Last November, my colleague Jarrod and I attended the NCTM regional conference in Minneapolis.  We crudely estimated that easily more than half of people we talked to had never heard of Desmos (or simply thought that it was only an online graphing calculator).

That led us to feel the need to start spreading the word around our region.  This February, Jarrod and I presented a session on Desmos at the SDCTM conference.  Anywhere from 25-40 people attended our session.  Once again, the theme was many had never heard about Desmos or the Desmos teacher website.

Based on what took place in Denver today via Twitter, another batch of math educators were exposed to Desmos and here is what some had to say:

I couldn't agree with these folks more.  The word is out.  Desmos is revolutionizing the way we can engage students in our math classrooms.  I can't wait to see what 2016-2017 has in store for math education!

South Dakota Counts Instructor

Today begins my journey as an instructor for a class offered for graduate credit.  I am teaching a course titled ED 611: Algebraic Reasoning for K-12 Educators through the South Dakota Counts program.  I've experienced three summers of these type of classes as a student and I'm excited to be a part of the process again.

Nerves are present (like any "first day of school") but I am confident things will go well all week.  

Geometry Field Trip

This semester, we are having our geometry students complete a floor plan project.  Students were given a blueprint of (part of) a house and were required to find the area of the floor and the walls in each room.  We made some of the rooms a bit irregular to draw in more concepts than simply finding the area of a rectangle.

To increase the real-life element of the project, we also asked students to find prices of flooring and paint and calculate what it would cost to pay for the carpet / tile / vinyl and the paint.  Students needed to provide price quotes and samples of colors they would choose.

We didn't want students to simply to and look online for prices.  Instead, we took a field trip to Barrett's Design Center for one class period.  Students were able to see the various flooring and paint options, talk with the interior designers, and ask questions about our project.

Overall, our field trip was very successful.  A load of thanks goes to Angie and Cindy for helping us and allowing us to come and visit.  And how cool was their little wrap up speech advocating for math!

(I used to do a project similar to this one where students were asked to remodel their bedroom and one other room in their own house.  They needed to then calculate the actual cost based on what types of materials they would purchase.  I never had the chance to integrate a field trip into the project!)

One Good Thing Part 2

Just a quick post here... the school year is cruising along.

Today, something happened that doesn't often occur for me.  I was able to clear out my Outlook inbox!

Always a happy day when the inbox is clear!