Curriculum – noun – 1. The courses offered by an educational institution 2. A set of courses constituting an area of specialization. Cross – adjective – 1. Involving mutual interchange 2. Extending over or treating several groups, conditions, or classes. Maybe it’s because I’m an education nerd, or maybe it’s just because I think it’s…
Math
That Not-So-Smart Feeling
I am not a math guy. Just saying “I am not a math guy” is something that registers high on the Richter Scale of Understatement. Yet there are times when I must put this fact of life aside and apply myself to a mathematical undertaking. Whether it is helping my kids with their geometry homework…
The Shoes of a Marathoner
Writing an inspiring blog post is sometimes like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. In other words, it’s a piece of cake. Obviously. Spending a productive day in the classroom is the same thing. It’s easy to stay inspired and find creative solutions to classroom challenges whenever they arise. People think teaching is hard,…
Honk If You Teach Social Studies
Honk if you use GPS. Ring if your smartphone app gives you driving directions. Raise your hand if you go geocaching. Heck, raise your hand if you even know what geocaching is! Jump up and down until I call on you if you know which country has the largest volume and value of trade with…
Ideas for Summer Math Reinforcement
At 9 am, a train leaves a seaside resort, heading inland, at 50 miles per hour. Seven hundred miles away, at 9:45 am, in the mountains near a wide blue lake, another train leaves an alpine resort, headed toward the ocean, at 45 miles per hour. The first train makes three stops, each lasting ten…
Where’s the safety in numbers?
Like tuna noodle casserole and Cary Grant, math and your humble blog author just don’t seem to go together. Oh, we get along, grudgingly; but if invited to a dinner party, math and I will keep a cool distance from each other. Take your binomials and your complex numbers, take your trigonometry and your theorems….
Girls and Boys and Math and Science
Stepping into Mrs. G.’s classroom was like stepping into another dimension for me. By merely walking through our adjoining closet, I could appear at the front of her room and quickly get questions answered or share important news. Mrs. G. taught math. I taught language arts. Our classrooms connected. Our subject matter? Not so much….