An Introduction

You know how you sometimes interact with someone for a long time before you realize you have never been properly introduced. I said hello to the woman across the street for about five years before I finally broke down and asked her what her first name was. So, I realized I have never really introduced myself in his space or let you know why I started this site in the first place: 

I started this blog 6 years ago. Some of the best ideas I use in my classroom come from reading teacher blogs and I wanted to be part of that community. I have shared ideas that work for me and others that don’t. It’s fun to go back and read my earlier posts and see how my classroom has evolved since then.

I spent 10 years teaching in Florida and then moved to Missouri 3 years ago to be closer to family. My 13 years as a teacher have all been in secondary math - 7 years in middle school and this year will start my 6th year in high school. I have taught a handful of honors classes but the majority of my experience is with students who are not proficient in math ... yet. That growth mindset is something is work on with them all year - you can learn math, you can learn to like math, I can help.

My classroom is often loud - filled with the sounds of students talking about math together. I love circulating and hearing what they have to say, how the explain their answers to one another, how they question each other. They occasionally ask me to referee an argument, but I often do it by asking them questions to help them discover the answer on their own. I ask a lot more questions than I answers. At the beginning of the year, my students complain that I always answer their questions with more questions instead of just giving them an answer but I tell them I am training them to think like mathematicians and use what they know to problem solve. I always want to make sure they are solving more math problems a day than I am.

So that’s a peek into why I started this blog and what my classroom looks like. I’m making a goal to document more. This school year (2020-21) will be filled with a lot of unknowns and a lot of learning. I doubt it will look much like the rest of my years but I am determined to make the best of whatever hand I am dealt.

Here are some ideas for upcoming blogs:

• How I use student checkers
• Two years as a traveling teacher - teaching from a cart
• How distance learning got me thinking about flipping my classroom