If I tried to recap everything that happened at the NCTM conference in Boston, you wouldn’t be reading this right now, because I would still be writing it! So in an effort to be concise, here are only three highlights from my personal experience of the conference.

1. Tracy Zager and Kristin Gray organized a #MTBoS Game Night on Friday night.  It was a great way for the #MTBoS community to meet-up before the hectic nature of the conference began in earnest.  Attendees were able to share plans for the conference, give updates from back at home, and play some math games against other keen mathematical thinkers!
    

 

2. Steve Leinwand gave an inspiring talk, which one attendee described as a math sermon.  Leinwand described the content of NCTM’s Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All.  One point Leinwand made was that math teaching should strive to be more than depositing knowledge into the brains of our students, but should instead develop mathematical thinkers.  Leinwand also pointed out that Principles to Actions describes in detail what access and equity would look like for students of varying backgrounds (i.e. race, culture, socio-economic status, disability, etc…)

3. Amy Lucenta and Grace Kelemanik from the Boston Teacher Residency gave another inspiring talk involving access and equity.  Lucenta and Kelemanik focused on equity for students with learning disabilities.  Their session was titled, “Fostering the Mathematical Practices in Students with Learning Disabilities.”  Since the Standards for Mathematical Practice are a vital part of high quality mathematics classes than students with learning disabilities deserve access to the same quality of education.  Lucenta and Kelemanik presented a lesson in which SMP.7 was the focus, but through accessibility modifications and strategies it met the needs of students with learning disabilities without lowering the quality of student thinking.

Written by Andrew Gael (@bkdidact)

NCSM 2015: Steve Leinwand

Insights on What I’ve Learned Coaching Teachers and Coaching Coaches

• Non-negotiables for coaching teachers:

  • building respect

  • co-teaching

  • debriefing

  • creating an action plan

• Ten-minute walk-through “observations” are unprofessional

• Why would you ever observe an entire lesson, and not provide oral and written feedback?

• Coaching IS co-teaching

NCTM 2015: Shadow Con

Connecting in Boston and Beyond

• A line-up of stellar presentations

• Very moving and inspiring messages can be found at #shadowcon15 or Storify

• We all have homework between now and NCTM 2016

• Our action plan can be found at shadowmathcon.com with videos of each presentation coming soon.

NCTM 2015: John Berray and Jennifer North-Morris

Do the Math: Creating Meaningful Tasks

• You can’t be fearful and creative at the same time.

• Don’t shy away from doing an activity again in which the previous teacher did last year. Extend it!

• Be hookers: Hook students with unlikely objects to arouse wonder.

• Create a one-minute pitch-off.

  • Have students solve a task and present it as news, social media, TV, games, etc.