Approximating Normality

Yesterday I tweeted this: This time of year I have to fight the temptation to cut my losses and start living for next year. I Find self-doubt easy in April. — David Griswold (@DavidGriswoldHH) April 8, 2016 So today I’m writing this quick blog post for myself to help me get it out of myRead More

Today in class I tried a new activity I made. I had a lot of goals for this activity: Show that triangle midsegments are parallel to the non-touching side and are half the length of the non-touching side. Show that trapezoid midsegments/medians (I hate that my book calls them medians!) are parallel to both basesRead More

I have been reading about using the Critical Friends Protocol for improving teacher products (lesson plans, products, problem sets, whatever) and it seems really neat. The basic process is this: Critical Friends Process Presentation One person, the presenter, presents a product they would like feedback on. This can be anything. The presenter shows everything they haveRead More

I teach AP Statistics, which I find to be an incredibly challenging curriculum. I have a very heterogeneous group of math confidence levels (students who took Algebra II as juniors up through students in multi-variable calculus taking this as a second math), we do almost no probability and statistics in our earlier curriculum, and, frankly,Read More

I am watching the Democratic debate on PBS between Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And, like so many Democrats paying attention at this point, I am making a choice. I face this same choice in my life as a teacher. I do not work at a school where the “traditional way” of teaching is failingRead More

I am doing a few “Make it Stick” style experiments this semester (even though I’m only one chapter into the book; it’s amazing how things percolate through the PLN…). The biggest one I’m trying is regular low-stakes quizzes, combined with slightly lagged homework and assessment (which may not actually be from Make It Stick). IRead More

The title of this post is taken (partially) from a post on Colin Welch’s blog – a post which this is intended as an at least partial response to. I don’t know how I started following Colin on Twitter – a retweet from somebody caught my eye – but I’m glad I am. We have engagedRead More

I am two classes into a one-unit trial of the CPM geometry curriculum. I convinced the other teacher of the “standard level” geometry class to try it out with me; the next section of our usual textbook being similarity, we decided to implement CPM’s chapter 3, as close as we can without yet having copies of the textbook forRead More

My school has an amazing way of dealing with January. For the three weeks after winter break, we throw the standard curriculum to the wind and do a program called Winterim. During this time, two things happen. Juniors and seniors leave campus to travel (we have several trips, educational and service-oriented) OR intern, either hereRead More

In theory, I had a good semester. I have been more inspired and thoughtful this semester about my practice than every before, and I implemented several key changes that I am confident are good moves. In practice (meaning in measurable outcomes with my students) I think my exams will show that the semester was actuallyRead More