Also not surprisingly, I found Steve’s presentation to be a wonderful blend of encouragement, challenge, and inspiration.

Resisting urge to tweet EVERY slide of @steve_leinwand’s #CMCN15 talk. Good thing there’s this: https://t.co/wENawxLXkR (cc: @mmmaaatttttt)

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 13, 2015

A Challenge

Toward the end of his talk, Steve invited everyone in the room to identify their 2015-2016 instructional shifts to-do list.

I’m still wrestling with the contents of my own list (and am pretty sure that’ll be the next post). In the meantime, let me pass my own version of Steve’s challenge along to you:

Before the week is out, write down your own instructional shifts to-do list for Spring 2016.

Don’t try to change everything all at once; you’ll likely end up with no change at all if you bite off more than you can chew. But commit to changing at least one (or maybe even 2-3) of your instructional practices in the next semester. Write them down. Pursue them. Use them to make a difference for your students.

Go one step further and share them. In the comments. On your blog.* On the Twitter. Better yet, share them with your colleagues and develop your practice together!

*What’s that! You don’t have a blog? Sounds like you have a great idea for your first post…

Some Inspiration

Coming up short on ideas? Get started with something here:

• Summary of Leinwand’s Accessible Mathematics (or just grab the whole book)
• Executive Summary of NCTM’s Principles to Actions (or download the e-book for $5)

Onward!

Good luck with your goal-setting, and your goal-pursuing! I’ll be back soon with my own to-do list, tweaked for my own current role at Desmos.

Which reminds me… If you’re not in the classroom, but you still interact with teachers on a regular basis, you’re not off the hook! Consider how this challenge might translate into your current setting.

Postscript

Have you been thinking about reading @NCTM's Principles to Actions? Here's a fantastic opportunity! #MTBoS #NCTMp2a https://t.co/b7EVaCULlG

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 14, 2015

I’m presenting twice this year:

I’m also co-presenting with a former colleague (Katie Reneau) who did an amazing job presenting at CMC South in Palm Springs. Here are her session details:

• Rich Discussions and Rich Tasks in the MS Math Classroom
• Saturday, 11:00 am to 12:00 pm
• PC Middle School, Room 29

The One Conference Non-Negotiable

What you attend throughout the day on Saturday is up to you (though of course I’d love to see you in one of the sessions I’m involved in). However, there is one non-negotiable here:

No matter what, make sure you attend the IGNITE talks.

Saturday evening, get yourself to Merrill Hall. I promise you won’t be disappointed. The “party” starts at 7:30 pm, but you might want to get there a bit early.

Still Game Planning?

If you’re attending and still figuring out what sessions to attend, or you’re just lurking from a distance and want to add a little fuel to your #CMCN15 jealousy fire, you can access the full conference program as a PDF right here.

P.S. Sometime before the conference is over,  I’ll post session slides and resources on my speaking page.

The event was organized by the wonderful folks at The Math Forum. They’ve begun posting video of the talks on their website. I’ve embedded mine below for your viewing and/or heckling pleasure.

Technology and the Curious Mind

Postscript

I wrote a few words about the experience (and posted the slides and manuscript) in a previous blog post.

I gave a 90-minute presentation on Desmos, the “free and fantastically beautiful online graphing calculator.”

I had a blast during the session and received a lot of positive feedback, but something felt a bit off. This is more or less the same Desmos presentation I gave twice in CMC South, but after those sessions (particularly the one on Saturday morning) I felt like I was on top of the world.

After this session at CMC North, I had a nagging sense that I need to make some core improvements. I spent some time reflecting over the rest of the weekend and the first half of this week, and (with the help of a few online math friends) have settled on three things to address:

1. Do a better job nailing the “why” of Desmos. Let’s say someone attends my session. And another half dozen sessions over the course of the weekend. Then rapid reintegration into family life on Sunday afternoon/evening, and rude awakening/come-down-from-the-mountain re-entry into school life on Monday. Why would anyone—even those who enjoyed the session and were momentarily impressed or inspired—deviate from their longstanding routine to spend time and energy changing the way they teach and their students learn? That’s the question I need to answer, whether in relation to Desmos, Posers + Solvers, Twitter as My PLC, Technology and the Curious Mind, or any of the other sessions I’ve been about lately. And whatever the answer is, it needs to bleed through in every part of the session.
2. Less is more. I think I crammed too much into this one. My goal was not to provide an everyone-watch-me-and-try-to-do-the-exact-same-thing experience. Those almost always explode into frustration within minutes (at least for me as a presenter) when working with a group of that size. Instead, my aim was to inspire participants with some new ideas for how Desmos could be used. I assumed some previous Desmos experience, which was a safe assumption for many (though not helpful for those few who were new to the tool). However, I think everyone wins if I slow down, take a few more breaths, and invite people to try a few things along the way instead of just near the end.
3. Bump regression to the middle or end. Regression was launched literally the day before CMC South. It was like candy, or a new toy, or… I don’t know, something entirely awesome. So what did I do? I crammed it into the beginning of my session, since that’s the piece of I was most excited about. But I derailed an otherwise fun and engaging lesson—Hundred (Thousand) Meter Dash—with some rapid-fire regression keystrokes and a few rounds of “don’t worry about how to do this, just watch me do it.” The result? More than a few lost (and/or bored) participants. The fix? Push that piece to the end, and/or modify it considerably. In particular, I could “fast forward” through the keystrokes and instead load a pre-made graph to show off some already-built slider-based models, then some regression-based models. I think I’ll better understand how to revamp this portion of the session after I nail down the “why” of my presentation.

Speaking of the why, I’m debating between one big takeaway, or three key ideas. Whether the list includes one item or three, this will definitely be on it:

The whole point is to get to the math conversation.

Desmos paves the way to that conversation better than any tool I know.

Your Turn

With that as the backdrop, I have two questions for you:

• What is the “why” of a session you’ve given recently? If you haven’t nailed it down, how could you?
• What is your “why” for Desmos? If you had 15 seconds to convince someone that they cannot live without Desmos in their classroom moving forward, what would you say?

Note

I decided to pull my own session out of my two-part CMC North Sessions Recap series because it was less a recap of my session and more a reflection of how to improve the material for a future conference or workshop. If you’re interested in reading more about my experience at CMC North 2014, check out these posts:

• CMC North 2014 Recap: The Sessions, Part 1
• CMC North 2014 Recap: The Sessions, Part 2
• CMC North 2014 Ignite

Session 5

Video Games and Making Math More Like Things Students Like
(Dan Meyer • Saturday, 11:00-12:00 pm)

If you’ve never seen Dan Meyer present, you’re missing out. Great content, great delivery. His slides are polished, there’s always something worth pondering, and the audience usually ends up in stitches once or twice. This session was no different.

I sat next to a woman who was a little skeptical at the beginning. Based on the title, I think she expected to hear about math-based video games (i.e., a thin veneer of video game painted on top of drill-and-kill practice). This was my first time seeing Dan give this particular talk, but after reading a few related posts from his blog I was anticipating another message, and suggested as much. Turns out my suspicions were correct, and my neighbor (and I) thoroughly enjoyed the session.

The major takeaways from the session:

Six Lessons from Video Games

1. Video games get to the point.
2. The real world is overrated.
3. Video games have an open middle.
4. The middle grows more challenging and interesting.
5. Instruction is visual, embedded in practice, and only as needed.
6. Video games lower the cost of failure.

I’m struggling a bit with how to incorporate all of these ideas into my classroom. But one that I think will make an immediate and positive impact is #3, “video games have an open middle.” As it turns out, this phrase from Dan’s talk is what inspired Robert Kaplinsky and Nanette Johnson to create openmiddle.com. Whether you take problems directly from the website, or simply draw inspiration from what you find there, I highly recommend checking it out.

A few more tweets from the session:

Perseverance Q: "How many min do Ss spend on math problem before they decide it’s impossible?” – Alan Schoenfield, via @ddmeyer at #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

"Don’t make games more like math class. (e.g., Destroying zombies, then stapling mathematics to it)." – @ddmeyer #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

“Instead… Make math class more game-like. Don’t impose the worst of our stuff on them. Steal the best stuff of theirs.” – @ddmeyer #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

Session 6

Desmos: Infinite Graphing Power on Every Device. For Free.
(Me! • Saturday, 1:30-3:00 pm)

Selected resources from my session are available here: bit.ly/rw-cmcn14

A reflection on my session (less a recap, and more a few thoughts on how to get better) is coming soon.

Session 7

Implementing Real World Problem-Based Math Lessons
(Robert Kaplinsky • Saturday, 3:30-5:00 pm)

I planned my session attendance this year entirely based on presenter names. I missed Andrew Stadel, Dan Meyer, and Robert Kaplinsky at CMC South in October, so I made sure to put them at the top of my list for CMC North. The one problem—unique to Asilomar, possibly—that such an approach brings, is that the physical distance between sessions might make on-time arrival difficult. For Dan’s session, that turned out not to be a big deal. He was in Merrill Hall, the biggest room at the event, and there were (thankfully) unlocked, unguarded closets full of chairs on each side of the hall, seemingly designed for latecomers like me to select a chair and find some open ground. (Surprisingly enough, front left had room for one more chair.)

My session ended at 3 pm, about 2 miles away from Robert’s session. A short walk, a bus ride, a light jog in the wrong direction (I really should learn to read a map), and a more intense jog in the right direction, led me to a packed-out room designed for 30 or 40. I was the 55th person to walk through the doors, and I found the last few square inches of unoccupied carpet halfway beneath the water table on the side. (Oh, and I had signed up to be the “presider” for Robert’s session, so I was supposed to introduce him. “Er, sorry Robert. Can you introduce yourself? I’m having trouble breathing right now.”)

Okay, traveling nonsense aside, Robert’s session was excellent.

Super impressed with @robertkaplinsky’s preso skills. He’s incredibly adept at facilitating discussion/reflection. Also, hilarious. #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

He led with his 100-by-100 task, and we actually lingered there for quite some time. Despite the significant time dedicated to the problem, we seemed to change gears regularly, swapping our student hats for our teacher hats, and back and forth for a few rounds. (As a teacher trainer and conference speaker, I took a few mental timeouts to note the way Robert led the group of teachers through the session. Aspiring presenters, get thee to a Kaplinsky session! And put Stadel and Meyer on your bucket list, for that matter.)

I remember telling Matt Vaudrey after attending his La Cucina Matematica presentation in Palm Springs (recap) that the highlight for me was the way he showed participants just how far/deep one of his tasks would go. Rather than seeing a rapid-fire “best of” showcase of great tasks, I really enjoyed camping on one context for an extended period of time. I’m sure some teachers would prefer to see a dozen different tasks, but I think I benefit more from delving deep into a smaller set.

All of that “delving deep” and exploring one thing from multiple angles that I enjoyed in Vaudrey and Stevens’ CMC South session was alive and well in Robert’s session here in Asilomar. Seeing him launch the task, lead us through the turn from Act 1 to Act 2, drawing connections to the Common Core practice standards (all eight, if I remember correctly), adding problem based lesson commentary, displaying student work, and responding to some problem-based lesson FAQs along the way… All of those moves—anchored to a single rich task—proved very helpful to me as a teacher who appreciates this style of lesson, but hasn’t seen too many teachers take it from start to finish.

Toward the end, Robert talked for a bit about “The Four C’s.”

In his #CMCN14 session, @robertkaplinsky is rocking “The Four C’s.” Here’s his related blog post: http://t.co/0u3MQ40DrR

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

I’d suggest his blog post on the subject as required reading. Here’s a teaser:

As a district math coach, my challenge has been successfully demonstrating problem-based learning in academically diverse classes. I am frequently unsure of what to expect as I go into unfamiliar classrooms to work with a variety of students. An interesting problem that achieves wonderful results in one class causes frustration and anxiety in another class that appeared similar on paper. These struggles have led me to come up with four C’s that I believe teachers should focus on to improve their success with problem-based learning: communication, curiosity, critical thinking, and content knowledge.

Session 8

Ignite!
(Lots of cool folks • Saturday, 7:30 pm)

Yes, the Ignite talks were recorded. No, the videos aren’t available. Late spring would be my guess based on last year’s release dates.

Session 9

Erasing Mathematics Failure Through a Growth Mindset and Multi-dimensional Mathematics
(Jo Boaler • Sunday, 9:00-10:15 am)

In Part 1 of my CMC North recap, I mentioned that tweeting during a session forces me to focus, process, and remember what I’m hearing. Then there’s the added side benefit of making a dead simple recap. With that in mind, I’ll let my tweets do the recapping for Jo Boaler’s outstanding session.

Anyone have an open seat next to them in @joboaler’s session at #CMCN14?

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

"The myth of mathematics: Being good at math is a gift—some people are good at math, some are not.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Wow: "Biggest group of fixed mindset students is high achieving girls.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Paraphrase: "Biggest contributor to fixed mindset: Focus of praise (‘smart’ vs. ‘effort’)” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Another wow: "A #growthmindset eliminates all gender gaps.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

In response to #growthmindset: "Students of color show sharpest increase in grades and valuing school.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Paraphrase: "Hard to maintain a #growthmindset when math class consists of a series of closed questions.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

"Rachel Lambert’s 6 year old son: 'Math is too much answer time and not enough learning time.’ “ – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Regarding this comment from @joboaler (http://t.co/bUPFojMWNo), I highly recommend @robertkaplinsky’s open http://t.co/RRd837YMQN #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

A great start to #visualpatterns style conversations with Ss, via @joboaler: "How do you see the shapes growing?” #CMCN14 (cc: @fawnpnguyen)

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Re: @joboaler’s #visualpatterns segment, I’m wondering how often I ask Ss “how do you see it” vs “find how many/find the rule, now!” #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

.@joboaler’s “How do you see it” is a great way to get Ss to engage w/ rich context before “confronting” them with a math question. #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

This approach (http://t.co/XzCKg1Rv1e) reminds me of @themathforum’s #noticingandwondering (which I LOVE). #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

“We ask teachers to be designers. Take tasks, and make them much better.” – @joboaler at #CMCN14 pic.twitter.com/OyupeUmpfX

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

"Muti-dimensional mathematics: Ask a Q, connect methods, use logic, represent ideas in diff ways, use/apply methods.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

"Math should never be associated w/ speed. Timed tests cause early onset math anxiety.” – @joboaler Instead: http://t.co/x3SW9Sd2iY #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

"Every time Ss make a mistake, they grow a new synapse… Mistakes are good. They are the time your brain is growing.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Find your own way to express this: “I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you.” – Geoff Cohen via @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Some resources/articles from @joboaler’s #CMCN14 talk: http://t.co/ZS3QAERx58 • http://t.co/1qIb8LDHIB • http://t.co/DvMUjNUYkJ

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Paraphrase: "Teachers are most important resource for students… What you can do: Promote #growthmindset. Open up tasks.” – @joboaler #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Books mentioned during @joboaler’s talk at #CMCN14: http://t.co/Mz07tfk7vr • http://t.co/syDEbE9MGJ • http://t.co/QUnzN1YDjn

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

@joboaler Thank you for your inspiring talk, and so much more for your inspiring work.

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Looking for a great followup resource to @joboaler’s #CMCN14 talk? Go here: http://t.co/yNTNRLpImR #growthmindset

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Great #growthmindset mathematics resources from @joboaler for teachers, parents, students, administrators at http://t.co/ZS3QAERx58 #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

Dear Twitter friends: For those not interested in CMCN14, my apologies for the last hour. I’m done flooding your timeline.

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 7, 2014

You made it past all those tweets? You deserve a cookie! (Unfortunately, I’m fresh out.)

Session 10

Stepping Stones
(Phil Daro • Sunday, 10:45-12:00 pm)

Phil is outstanding, however… I’ve seen him present before, and I hadn’t yet set foot on the beach. I planned to head home as close to 12 noon as I could, so I skipped this last session and wandered down to the water. I’m sure Phil’s talk was characteristically excellent, but I have no regrets.

Last weekend turned out to be one of my favorite weekends of my teaching career. I haven’t exactly been at this for decades, but 11 years is no short span either. The weekend was that enjoyable, at least for me.

CMC North (a conference I’ve attended several times before) didn’t disappoint, even in comparison to my weekend in Palm Springs back in October. My Saturday session wasn’t nearly as strong as in socal (more on that in another post), but we had some fun nonetheless, and several people shared some really positive feedback. On top of that, Saturday evening’s Ignite sessions were a crazy whirlwind of terror and joy.

After CMC South, I promised a two part recap: One focused on sessions, one focused on “everything else” (with an emphasis on people and community). My game plan for this post is to provide a quick recap of each session I attended. Later in the week (if I have any energy left), I’ll drop a combined “Everything Else” recap of CMC North and South.

On to the session recaps!

Session 1

“Does That Make Sense in the Story?”: Launching and Exploring Rich Problems
(Max Ray • Friday, 1:30-4:30 pm)

I kicked off my CMC North experience (scrambling into the session just minutes before it was about to start) with a hello/handshake combo from Max Ray. I’ve more or less turned into a Max Ray superfan over the past 12 months. From his book to his blog to his numerous Ignite talks… I’ve been soaking up as much of his writing and speaking as I can. It was a pleasure to meet him face to face, and great fun to sit in his low-key, problem-rich, thoughtful session to kick of what I hoped would be a great weekend.

I’ve discovered that Tweeting during a workshop or presentation helps me focus, process, and remember key ideas. There’s something about the 140 character limit that forces me to distill ideas I’m hearing into more memorable nuggets. At any rate, I put this into practice at a few sessions this weekend, including Max’s. You can find all of my Tweets related to Max’s session right here.

If you’re, notes I took during the session are available here.

Session 2

Math in the Movies
(Tony DeRose • Friday, 7:30-9:00 pm)

I planned on attending the keynote, but was (a) going to be late, (b) growing more nervous about my Ignite talk, (c) less-than-inspired by the session title. So I went back to the Pacific Grove Inn and spent the next couple of hours talking to myself on the porch.

Session 3

Get Students to Argue Through Number Sense Activities
(Andrew Stadel • Saturday, 8:00-9:00 am)

I’ll take the lazy way out and summarize my experience in Andrew’s session with a few tweets:

Breakfast? Check. Getting students to argue in class? It’s up next with @mr_stadel at #CMCN14. 8:00 am in Heather.

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

Two minutes into my first #CMCN14 session with @mr_stadel and it’s clear: Amazing presenter with solid, engaging ideas.

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

Watching @mr_stadel sit back and let the room erupt into spontaneous argument at end of his Beatles #estimation180 task. Beautiful. #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

That certainly doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a start. My favorite things  from Andrew’s session were seeing him in action for the first time (I’ve been stealing his estimation and three act tasks online for about two years) and his framework for number sense activities:

Ingredients

• A framework for number sense activities, and constructing viable arguments
• Simple visual and/or question
• Competition or guessable answer
• Students create a representation
• Students assess each other (accountability)
• Students define what is important, vocabulary

I scribbled a few other notes down during the session if you want to have a look.

Session 4

Calculus Adjacent: Designing Math Electives Accessible To All
(Bree Pickford-Murray • Saturday, 9:30-10:30 am)

After Andrew’s session I hopped on a yellow school bus and rode over to the Middle School for a session from a fellow Igniter (@btwnthenumbers):

Next stop: “Calculus Adjacent: Designing Math Electives Accessible To All” with @btwnthenumbers. 9:30 am in PGMS Room 6. #CMCN14

— Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) December 6, 2014

I walked in the door a minute before the session was supposed to start, a little out of breath. (Did anyone else run from the bus to a session or two this weekend? Just me? Oh well…) Luckily, I found an open seat—next to @cheesemonkeysf, no less!—and we were off. (As the “presider” I had the honor of introducing Bree, something made a little more awkward by my out-of-breath-ness).

For years I’ve thought about enriching our math department with some non-calculus electives, but I’ve never pulled the trigger. Sitting around a group of people who were in a similar position, and quite a few who have already journeyed down that road with courses like Cryptography, History of Math, Topics in…, Topology, and Game Theory, was a great way to spend the middle of the morning. Bree did an excellent job leading the discussion. There were about 25 people in the room, and I believe almost every chimed in at least once during the session. I left with some peer-inspired inspiration, quite a few ideas to explore, and a slight increase to the number of math titles on my Amazon wishlist.

Also, there was a woman in the session (her name was Laura Hawkins… and I’m thinking this might be here) with a handful of amazing comments/quotes. I wrote them down in my notes, which are here. I also created a Google Document to collect “Courses Offered” and “Courses Considered” ideas from everyone in the session. I never ended up sharing it since it wasn’t my session. (It seemed like it might have been rude to jump in like that.) Anyway, this is my blog, so there’s no need for restraint. If you’d be interested in contributing to it, have at it!

Intermission

Well, that’s enough typing for a bit. I’ll share some thoughts/notes from Dan Meyer, Robert Kaplinsky, and Jo Boaler’s sessions very soon.

I gave an Ignite talk (5 minutes, 20 slides, ready-or-not auto-advance every 15 seconds) at this year’s CMC North conference in Asilomar. (Video of the talk is here.) It was quite possibly the most fun I’ve had at any math conference. In the hours leading up to the event, I was more than a little nervous. Then I saw the speaking order:

Gulp.

Just before we went on, one of my co-igniters asked whether it was possible to ruin one’s career in just five minutes. We hoped not. As it turned out, we did alright. In fact, from where I sat, the other nine presenters were all amazing.

To Script or Not To Script

After preparing my slides, I wrote out a script of what I intended to say. I’ve never scripted anything before, but then again I’ve never done anything with such an unforgiving format. I imagined myself falling silent for an entire slide or two. That make-believe mental picture wasn’t pretty, and scripting seemed like the answer. I struggled to get past 80% memorized, so I abandoned the “word for word” approach, didn’t look at my notes at all on Saturday, and made it my goal simply to drive home the main idea of each slide. For anyone who skipped the Ignite talks (shame on you!), or for those who attended but are curious how my live presentation (and occasional bumbling) compared to what I originally had in mind, here are my slides along with what I would have said if I had been able to stay 100% on target.

Slides and Script

Here’s my goal for the next five minutes: To convince you that some of what passes for innovative use of technology in the classroom is actually dehumanizing and therefore destined to be ineffective. And what better way to kick things off than to waste two slides on a blue police box.

For those not addicted to Doctor Who, that’s the TARDIS. An amazing box of infinite potential. It’ll take you anywhere in space, and any time in history. It’s basically a time-machine-powered promise of total freedom.

Here’s another set of boxes with a similar promise. Bigger on the inside? Check. Ability to take you anywhere? Well, sort of. Time travel? Not so much. Anyway, a few years ago one of the box-makers spent billions of dollars developing a shiny new box.

Then they announced that they were going to change the world. In particular? Education. Their game plan? To revolutionize the textbook. Well I watched the seven minute infomercial. And I’m not going to lie. I was stoked. The future looked amazing. And seemed like it was just around the corner.

But then I watched the video a second time. And a third time. The shine wore off. The promise disintegrated into a few gimmicks. “Textbooks got you down? You need some pinch-to-zoom action. And flash cards. And sorting activities where students don’t actually sort anything.”

Needless to say, I was bummed out. “You and me, Apple, we were going to change the world. And all you did was tech-wash the idea that teaching consists mainly of sending the right sequence of letters and images, or in this case, 1s and 0s.”

The problem with this approach is that it treats students as passive. As consumers. Worse than that, it actually trains them to be that way. And what we end up with is more of what we don’t want. Indifference. Apathy. Isolation.

But there’s one part in that video that still resonates with me. They said that if we can stimulate curiosity, we’ve got the spark for learning. Amen to that. But what is it that stimulates curiosity? Digital flash cards? Using a stylus instead of a pen?

Or maybe this: A grid of more than 900 skills begging to be mastered—with on-demand help from Uncle Sal whenever you need it. If you weren’t inspired the first time, just pause, rewind, and play it again. That should do the trick. Did you know you can play YouTube videos at quarter speed? As if normal speed wasn’t painful enough.

I’ve seen one version of our tech-saturated future, and it terrifies me, because it looks like this. All headphones and no heart. Everything that makes us most human just put on pause. This isn’t the revolution I want for my students.

It certainly isn’t what I want for my own kiddos. When they come home from school I want to ask questions like: “What made you curious today? What did you create? What inspired you?”

So here’s what I propose: Let’s use technology in ways that foster—rather than stifle—what is most valuable and most human in us and our students. Here are four ways we can do that. #1, let’s replace indifference…

…with curiosity. Let’s break out our smartphones and capture strange, thought-provoking things we find in the world. In the kitchen, in the checkout line, a dying battery on your phone, or just aimlessly wandering the Internet… Keep your eyes peeled for the things that hook and engage and provoke.

#2, let’s replace consumption with creativity. I have never had a student email me to say “Hey, I just spent a week binge-watching Khan Academy videos. And it was awesome.” But out of the blue, a student of mine did send me this boat he made with an online graphing calculator. He was so proud of what he’d done.

And not because he earned some boat badge. He was stoked because he made something. And making things is awesome. You know paint by number? How about paint-a-minion by equation. All 424 of them!

#3, let’s replace competition with collaboration. I’m less interested in energy points and clicker quizzes, and more excited to see students using things like Google Drive to create and revise and collaborate.

#4… If I ever write my own young adult dystopian novel, it’ll include a scene from a K-12 classroom with 109 students. At one point the hero (an amiable hacker named Eli) will redirect every kid’s browser to student.desmos.com…

In other words, let’s replace isolation with conversation. Headphones and computer cubicles isn’t progress. We need more discourse and more arguments in math class, not less.

If you want to flip the classroom, here’s my model. Let’s flip tech-induced indifference, consumption, competition, and isolation, and replace them with tech-inspired curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and conversation.

In the end, technology is just one tool among many. It’s as powerful or as useless (or worse, as damaging) as we make it. Let’s wield it well. Thank you.

Image Credit

Slide 2, Slide 3, Slides 4-6, Slide 7, Slide 8, Slide 9, Slide 10, Slide 11, Slide 12, Slide 15a, Slide 15b, Slide 16, Slide 17, Slide 18, Slide 19

Whether you’re attending and want to keep an eye out for others in the MTBoS, or you’re not attending and you’re interested in stoking your math conference jealousy, here’s where you’ll probably find me:

Friday, 1:30-4:30 pm [Pre-session]

Max Ray • “Does That Make Sense in the Story?”: Launching and Exploring Rich Problems

Friday, 7:30-9:00 pm [Keynote]

Tony DeRose • Math in the Movies

Saturday, 8:00-9:00 am

Andrew Stadel • Get Students to Argue Through Number Sense Activities
Steven Leinwand • Shift Our Mindsets from Remembering How to Understanding Why
Jennifer North Morris, John Berray • Do the Math: Like Your Life Depends On It

Saturday, 9:30-10:30 am

Bree Pickford-Murray • Calculus Adjacent: Designing Math Electives Accessible To All
David Foster • The Decisions and Shifts Required by the CCSS
Michael Serra • Martin Gardner and the Mathematical Practices
Patrick Callahan • Mathematical Reasoning: Why We Are Bad at It

Saturday, 11:00-12:00 pm

Dan Meyer • Video Games and Making Math More Like Things Students Like
Brad Fulton • Designing and Implementing Performance Tasks

Saturday, 1:30-3:00 pm

Michael Fenton • Desmos: Infinite Graphing Power on Every Device. For Free.

Saturday, 3:30-5:00 pm [The stacked hour]

Robert Kaplinsky • Implementing Real World Problem-Based Math Lessons
Andrew Stadel • Modeling Mathematics Using Problem-Solving Tasks
Annie Fetter • Noticing and Wondering, a Vehicle to Understanding a Problem
Nanette Johnson • Fostering Perseverance with Interesting Math Problems
Elizabeth Statmore • Talk Moves & Task Structures for Productive Mistake Analysis

Saturday, 7:30 pm [Ignite]

My talk is called Technology and the Curious Mind. Here’s the flyer for the event:

Sunday, 9:00-10:15 am

Jo Boaler • Erasing Mathematics Failure Through a Growth Mindset and Multi-dimensional Mathematics

Sunday, 10:45-12:00 pm

Phil Daro • Stepping Stones

P.S. Hey Twitter folks… Whether you’re at the conference or not, keep an eye on #CMCN14.