Being a meaner teacher

March 22, 2011
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A recent change I made in my teaching style came about when I realized that my students weren't working as hard in my classes as I thought they should be, and I decided that it was at least partly due to the fact that I was being too nice to them.  I became aware that [...]

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Another Mathematician’s Lament

January 16, 2011
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There's a fascinating little book called "A Mathematician's Lament," written by research-mathematician-turned-math-teacher Paul Lockhart, in which the author bemoans the sorry state of mathematics teaching today and offers his thoughts on how it could be done better.  In some ways, it's similar to a lot of other books and articles that complain about how math [...]

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You’re gonna have to learn your cliches

December 18, 2010
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There's this great scene in the 1988 movie Bull Durham where Kevin Costner, the older, more experienced baseball player, tells Tim Robbins, his inexperienced young protege, that it's time to work on his interviews; specifically, he tells him, "you're gonna have to learn your cliches."  Costner has been teaching Robbins some of the things he's [...]

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Ms. Carpenter’s classroom culture

October 9, 2010
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One of my favorite teachers when I was in 7th grade was my math teacher Ms. Carpenter.  And the interesting thing is that I can't really recall anything in particular that she did that was unusual or innovative or exciting.  What I most remember is that Ms. Carpenter's class was always quiet and orderly, that [...]

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Another black president

September 17, 2010
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In my Advanced Functions class I've been teaching a unit on Probability, and I wanted to illustrate the difference between permutations and combinations.  I set up four chairs at the front of the classroom and told my students I needed to form a four-person committee with a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, and I was [...]

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I’m not here to entertain you

September 11, 2010
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Every once in a while one of my students will suggest that I should make my classes more "interesting" or "fun."  "You should write us a class song, and then you could sing it for us" one girl told me recently (most of my students know I'm in a band).  Or just the generic "Why [...]

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Teaching and boxing

July 21, 2010
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My wife's a boxer. She's been doing it a few years and has gotten good enough at it that she now helps with the training of some of the newer boxers who come to her gym.  The newbies are young and old, male and female, large and small.  Many of them begin with the idea [...]

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The class from hell

June 16, 2010
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A while back I was discussing one of my classes with Mr. A, another teacher at my high school, and asking his advice on some classroom management issues, and he began telling me about the worst class he'd ever had. This was a few years ago, he said, and he'd been teaching about 5 years.  [...]

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Dr. Rob’s classroom culture

May 31, 2010
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When I was in grad school for my teaching degree I took a math course called Modern Geometries (aka Non-Euclidean Geometries) and I enjoyed it a lot.  The subject matter was fascinating (e.g., situations where the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line, triangles whose interior angles don't add up to 180 [...]

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The 5 best things about my first week (back) in the classroom

February 25, 2010
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Last week I started a new job teaching high school math after several years being out of the classroom.  The first week went pretty well.  Here are the five best things about it (in no particular order). Meeting Jimi Hendrix - No lie, James Hendrix works at my school.  He goes by Jimi.  (Wouldn't you?) [...]

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