I had the honor of both attending and presenting at my national conference today, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics. I have so many takeaways that I’d like to share. Honestly though, I’m so overwhelmed by being surrounded by incredible educators. I’ve had this naive belief that I’m at the forefront of some frontier. But I’m not. And it took NCSM 2018 to show me how little I know. You know the old adage, “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know”? Seeing presidents from decades past present about the history of math education is both inspirational and disheartening all at once. My son is in kinder. My son deserves better. This is personal and urgent and feels insurmountable. There is so much work to be done and you have the power to change outcomes for our students.
So we’ll take this one step at a time…
My takeaways from Day 1:
- NUMBER LINES!!!! I’m going to argue that we need to be using Number Lines in damn near every lesson! Stop avoiding them! They are not the exception, they are the rule!
- Stacy Reeder & Juliana Utley presented about some amazing ways to support student’s basic fact fluency. Stay posted for a new section on my blog dedicated to Fact Fluency which will include the games they shared! #nomoretimedtests
- Tim Hudson (@DocHudsonMath) never fails to inspire me with his messages of growth-based assessment and conceptual learning. Today he shared a video from Daniel Schwartz from Stanford. Take ONE minute to watch:
4. DocHuddy also shared some online resources that have somehow escaped me! Maybe I knew and forgot, or maybe I’ve had my head buried in sand. Regardless…
5. MATH FLIPS!!!!
No Seriously. Just go spend an hour downloading all of these resources and planning how you’ll incorporate them into your lessons for the next 3 weeks!!!
6. Wondering how to encourage Growth Mindset with your students? Let them play MasterMind. Simple. Easy. Done! My suggestion? DonorsChoose 15 of them so you can let students play when they first get to school in the morning. They play 1 game, then join you at the carpet for morning meeting.
7. Post your takeaways below!! Keep it going! #NCSM19
Mathie Momma 