#ClassroomMath #Prompt2 This year was all over the place, but my kids were really great. One day I was clearly frustrated, and when the kids asked I just said I had a disagreement with some of my colleagues, and then they surprised me with a note that was admittedly inappropriate but well-intentioned about how they liked my class and that they had my back. It was a really nice moment that made me laugh.

My small story about one of my favorite moments from this past school year:
Me and a math teacher at a nearby elementary school started a partnership last year between my math team and his 5/6th grade Math Olympiad math team. I traveled with my students every 3-4 weeks to the elementary school so my kids could work with and help his kids complete problems, develop problem solving strategies, etc. So cute and heartwarming to watch them work together.
The big end of year event was a district-wide fun math competition at my high school for all 5/6th graders in the district. My students helped me create a middle-school friendly, pump-up playlist to blast as all the buses arrived with the middle schoolers (lots of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars lol). Watching the high schoolers yell the lyrics and cheer for the younger kids and greet them with a huge high-five line as they got off the buses was so fun to see - an amazing end to the school year!

#Prompt2 #ClassroomMath

@Cmmteach CASEY!!!! I'm so so happy you are here with us! We have prompts!! Click on #prompt1 #prompt2 #prompt3 You can read and join in on the fun! #classroommath #mtbos

@samjshah @jreulbach
#ClassroomMath #Prompt2

Here's a small story:
My first year teaching, we did a review game the day before the final exam in Algebra 2. The class was split into two teams; students conferred with teammates and raced to answer each question before the other team did. One team was way ahead, so when we got to the last question, the other team wasn’t even going to try, because they couldn’t win (the prize was an extra point on the final exam for everyone on the team). In the heat of the moment, I declared that the last question was “winner take all” and either team could win the extra credit. What happened? The “behind” team answered first and the “ahead” team revolted in howls of protest. I had pulled the rug out from under the “ahead” team which really wasn’t fair after their good efforts during the review. I decided to backtrack and grant everyone the extra credit.
Lesson learned: changing the rules midstream isn’t fair to those who’ve been working with the old system (and there’s other ways to motivate students to review besides a zero-sum game).

-- I wrote about some lessons I've learned in a post last fall (this was an excerpt): https://karendcampe.wordpress.com/2022/09/09/lessons-learned/
#MTBoS #iTeachMath

Small story….I was a math major in college. I tutored algebra and logic and high school geometry while in college. I was NOT going to be a math teacher. I fought that battle for 20+ years and finally gave into my destiny. I started teaching in 2006. This is the longest job I have ever had. I am about to start my 19th year of 8th grade if you count 1975. #Prompt2 #ClassroomMath

#ClassroomMath #prompt2

My story is also my favorite day in my class. I was teaching a Calculus BC class in a problem-based style (ala Exeter) at an independent school in Southern California. Every day the students would come in, post their work on the problems from the night before, present them, ask questions, and then we'd summarize at the end. One day as the students were starting to present the head of admissions brought a group of about 15 prospective parents into my class. The next student started to present, and I knew from the beginning that she had done something wrong, but I kept quiet. After about a minute of explaining her work, she steps back and says, "That's wrong - I have no idea what I did or what to do next." Before I could say anything, the rest of the class began asking her questions and got her back on track and she finished the problem successfully. And then we went on to the next problem. I didn't say one word. I was never more proud of a group of students for their actions and that they had internalized the process I worked so hard to teach them.

Later I caught up with the admissions director, afraid that perhaps my lack of obvious involvement in what happened played poorly with the parents, and she told me they thought what they saw was outstanding.

I've been chasing that moment again ever since.

#ClassroomMath #Prompt2

Nothing too crazy but definitely something that sticks with me from my first year of teaching...

S: "Mrs. Eiland, can I tell you something and you won't get mad?"
Me: "Um, I guess so??"
S: "You know who you look like?"
Me: "Oh Lord."
S: "The Statue of Liberty!"
😂😂

#Prompt2 #MathClassroom

I need to start writing down the funny things that happen in my classroom as I have a terrible memory for such things.
I don't remember the whole story, but there was a very awkward trigonometry lesson when I was talking about the side opposite angle P. I somehow caused a great deal of laughter target at one student who could tell me how to find, "little p." 😂

#prompt2 2/n

There was something about this 9th grade class. Maybe it was the combination of Name Tents and my home room group. Maybe there were some other factors—but I clicked with this group. We laughed. We learned. We occasionally had math joy. I even got to teach them again in Geometry the next year…ya know, the year with Spring 2020.

I knew by end of spring 2020 that I couldn’t leave until this group graduated. This group has brought healing to my teacher heart.

#Prompt2 #ClassroomMath

My worst year was 2017-2018. But this isn’t about that year.

I started off Fall 2018 having anxiety attacks all through year start stuff. But I had also just started my Master’s program and was excited to try some ideas from the MTBoS network—such as Name Tents (Sara vanDeWerf I think?)

I was back to teaching Algebra I after a few years of A2 and still teaching Geometry. I was also given a group of 9th graders for our home room like period.

1/n

#ClassroomMath #Prompt2

Okay, small story. I had a student last year, complain about the assignments all semester long. He struggled, but he was getting it...putting the pieces together. Slowly making progress in his understanding a few times he told me my class was the one he hated the most. (I delighted in that).

At the end of the semester he handed me a note that said something to the effect of 'Thanks for teaching me math.'

He was in the next class the following semester, hating every minute of it again.

Bonus second story:
I had a class, in an attempt to avoid doing any work that period, create a full timeline of my past and future. Very little of it was accurate, but it was creative and they were passionate about creating the story. I didn't make them do any work.

#ClassroomMath #prompt2

First-year teaching shenanigans: My still-favorite student evaluation of all time is from my first semester teaching at U. Michigan, going on 30 years ago. It started: "What a s***** class" and went on for an entire page about how difficult I made everything (probably true in retrospect), what a terrible person I was, how I didn't teach anything and made the students learn everything on their own, etc, etc. And then the last sentence: "But I learned a lot."

@jreulbach
#ClassroomMath #Prompt2

I was selected to be part of the 1994 TIMSS video study for 8th grade math. I was teaching in a wonderful, public, middle school in Spanish Harlem, NYC named Academy of Environmental Science. I was also in graduate school at Bank St. College and I loved Marilyn Burns' books. I adapted one of the lessons for the video. My implementation was not great and it was not an effective lesson. They gave me a VCR tape of the lesson. Fast forward twenty-some years later, I am now a math teacher educator working with preservice teachers. I had the tape digitized, add it to my LMS and show it in my methods courses so students can see a lesson, hear my reflection, and revise it to make it a high-cognitive demand task. Plus, it allows students to give "the teacher" feedback as we practice "Post-Lesson Discussion" one of our Lesson Study phases. They will teach a "Math for Elementary Teachers" lesson later during the semester using an adapted Lesson Study protocol.

@samjshah #Prompt2 #ClassroomMath #MTBoS

Here is a shenanigan from my first year of teaching. Smart boards were brand new tech and I had learned that if you write a word on the board, the software could translate your writing into typing “so the kids could read it” better. So off I went graphing a rational function and labeling the asymptote. Then I tried to convert the word asymptote into text and there in giant letters it became ASS@$!!?@&$$. My students thought that was hilarious. 🤣

#ClassroomMath #prompt2 when things happen as a new teacher, you don’t always understand the impact of your action or inaction. This was NOT a story I shared with anyone until I read the book “So You Want to Talk about Race”. And even after reading that book, I didn’t write this blog until after George Floyd’s life was cut short. I share this blog entry with my college students. It’s a start. https://mathteacher24.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-writing-on-desk-apology-for-my.html?m=1

#ClassroomMath #prompt2

I have a terrible memory for stories. This past year, I archived one good moment from each day [https://onegoodthingteach.wordpress.com/author/samjshah/] so that I could keep looking for the positive in my life. I’m so glad I did because I have a whole repository of small moments!

Let me wind back, though. I remember something from my first year of teaching, when I knew nothing and had very little support. I was teaching out of a textbook at that point. I also was pulling some crazy late nights trying to prep for classes.

It was probably 8pm one night when I left school to go home. I thought I had brought the teacher’s edition of the textbook home with me. I opened my bag to do a little last bit of work, and *gasp* it wasn't there. I mean, I had been bringing it home with me every day.

I was sure it should have been in my bag. I thought I had lost it. I thought it was a *big deal*. What if a student had stolen it? What if I left it somewhere and it was forever gone? I was so freaked out by the thought that it was possibly gone that although it was past 9pm, I head BACK on the subway to go back to the school building to see if I had left it on my desk. I did that. I really did that.

Looking back, I see how crazy this was. At the time, knowing nothing, I didn’t know the difference between a mountain and a molehill.

It wasn’t there on my desk either.

I finally went home again. I passed out. Another first year failure. The next day, I went back to school. I told colleagues and they laughed at me. It turns out one had borrowed the book from my desk.

I was such an idiot. A neurotic neophyte baby teacher idiot who didn’t know anything.

I'm better now. Still scarred, fifteen years later, but better. :)

#ClassroomMath #prompt2

Superb! We’re introducing ourselves, we’re getting used to the platform! Wunderbar!

One thing we all have in common in this community, no matter how different we are (including in many of your terrible rankings of desserts from #prompt1), is that we have worked with kids in the classroom teaching math. We all have millions of stories inside of us that are hilarious, heartbreaking, harrowing, hopeful… When you rallied against the administration, when a kid said something wonderfully outrageous, when you accidentally had an answer to a start-of-class question be 69 and you were being observed…

So we ask you to share just one small story from your teaching life -- something you’re comfortable sharing! Something you’d share with friends over dinner after a particularly eventful week. (Remember if you use the mathstodon.xyz site, you can get 1729 characters in a post.)

In your post:

1. Share your SMALL story. No pressure… and remember this is a judgment free zone.

2. Tag your post with #Prompt2 and #ClassroomMath

Lastly, to practice using mathstodon, here’s the new challenge! In the next few days, go to your LOCAL timeline. That’s posts by EVERYONE on mathstodon.xyz (or whatever “instance” you’re on), not just people you follow. Find someone new to follow AND boost a post of theirs that you find. (Boost is like a re-tweet.) That will help others who follow you see something you find interesting… and maybe they’ll start following that person too.

#ClassroomMath #Prompt2

Superb! We’re introducing ourselves, we’re getting used to the platform! Wunderbar!

One thing we all have in common in this community, no matter how different we are (including in many of your terrible rankings of desserts from #Prompt1), is that we have worked with kids in the classroom teaching math. We all have millions of stories inside of us that are hilarious, heartbreaking, harrowing, hopeful… When you rallied against the administration, when a kid said something wonderfully outrageous, when you accidentally had an answer to a start-of-class question be 69 and you were being observed…

So we ask you to share just one small story from your teaching life -- something you’re comfortable sharing! Something you’d share with friends over dinner after a particularly eventful week. (Remember if you use the mathstodon.xyz site, you can get 1729 characters in a post.)

In your post:

1. Share your SMALL story. No pressure… and remember this is a judgment free zone.

2. Tag your post with #Prompt2 and #ClassroomMath

We also realized that if others are reading your story and want to find the prompt, they might not know how to find the original prompt. So if you can, REPLY to this post so others can see what the prompt is replying to!

Lastly, to practice using mathstodon, here’s the new challenge! In the next few days, go to your LOCAL timeline. That’s posts by EVERYONE on mathstodon.xyz (or whatever “instance” you’re on), not just people you follow. Find someone new to follow AND boost a post of theirs that you find. (Boost is like a re-tweet.) That will help others who follow you see something you find interesting… and maybe they’ll start following that person too.