I love lesson study. I recently finished another cycle and I was thinking back to when I first learned about it. I remember talking with Sadie about my frustration of doing workshops and having some teachers say, “That sounds great and all, but I can’t do that with my kids.” Sadie pushed me to use lesson …
This year was the first time I’ve presented at the NCTM annual meeting. In one session, I talked about my work on helping students build justification with fractions. In the other, I presented with Megan Gundogdu about how we have been using lesson study to build capacity at a middle school in the Bronx. I really …
I’ve spent the past 6 years working toward my PhD. And I’ve wanted to quit more times for more reasons than I ever could have anticipated. But I’m in the final stages now. I’m editing my dissertation and getting ready to send it to my committee. I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. …
For those of you who think I spend the summer sipping pina coladas on the beach, you’re right—I do. Don’t be jealous. However, I also spend some of the summer going to and running professional development. I had the chance to work with some amazing teachers this week on the fair share task I talked about last …
I’m planning a PD for a group of elementary math teachers that I’ve never met before. This makes things difficult because I don’t know anything about what they know or what their experiences are. I was told that one of the sessions should be about engaging students in doing mathematics–which is what I think all …
This may sound like a no-brainer, but I find it’s really important to engage elementary and middle school math teachers in doing mathematics during professional development. The experience of doing math in a different way than the way it was learned is critical before we talk about how to teach it in a different way …
The school year is wrapping up for me. Like most of you, the end of the year is a time of reflection for me. I’m thinking about the professional development and coaching work and I did this year and what revisions I want to make for next year. In doing this, I started thinking about …
I sat in one of the worst PDs ever this week. It didn’t build on what those of us in the room knew. It didn’t engage us in conversations or activities that were relevant. It shared products and not processes. At times, it treated us like we were no different that the children we teach. …
A strange thing has been happening in my workshops. People are getting really excited about solving problems. Now this isn’t really a surprise when I’m talking about workshops with math teachers. I would hope they would be excited to do some math. No, I’m talking about the non-math teachers—those that teach something boring like social …
. I’ve been hearing and reading about lesson study for a long time, but I never had the experience to be part of one. Luckily my work this year involves getting lesson study off the ground at a handful of schools. It’s been an amazing experience. In fact, I think it is the …