Category: conferences

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CMC North 2014 Recap: The Sessions, Part 2

Part 1 of this session recap is available here.

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:

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.

[UPDATE: My session reflection post is here.]

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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CMC North 2014 Recap: The Sessions, Part 1

Here’s how I started my CMC South 2014 Recap:

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:

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):

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.

[UPDATE: Part 2 is available here.]

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CMC North 2014 Ignite

An Extra Jolt of Fear

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:

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

ignite-01

[Suzanne Alejandre presses the space bar, and we’re off!]

 

ignite-02

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.

 

ignite-03

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.

 

ignite-04

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.

 

ignite-05

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.

 

ignite-06

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.”

 

ignite-07

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.”

 

ignite-08

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.

 

ignite-09

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?

 

ignite-10

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.

 

ignite-11

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.

 

ignite-12

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?”

 

ignite-13

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…

 

ignite-14

…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.

 

ignite-15

#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!

 

ignite-17

#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.

 

ignite-18

#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…

 

ignite-19

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.

 

ignite-20

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.

 

ignite-21

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

 

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Gearing Up for CMC North 2014

This Friday a host of passionate teachers will converge on Pacific Grove, CA for the California Mathematics Council’s northern conference. I’m presenting a session on Desmos (almost identical to the one I gave at CMC South in October). I’m also set to give an Ignite talk Saturday evening. (Super excited for that, and more than a little nervous.)

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:

ignite

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.

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CMC South 2014 Recap: The Sessions

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. If I’m going to do any justice to the recap, I’ll need to split it into two parts. So much of what was wonderful about last weekend was the sessions, and so much of what was wonderful about last weekend had nothing to do with the sessions. I suppose that means I have the breakdown for my recap:

Part 1: The Sessions

Part 2: Everything Else

Onward to the sessions-focused recap!

Session 1

La Cucina Matematica: Free Tools for your Math Kitchen
(Matt Vaudrey, John Stevens • Friday, 8:30 am)

After cramming down some continental breakfast (thanks, Comfort Inn!) and making the trek from our hotel to the Hard Rock Hotel’s basement, I sat down for a mathematical treat: John Stevens and Matt Vaudrey’s 90-minute version of La Cucina Matematica. They battled through some technical difficulties at the start and soon found their rhythm, taking turns running the show, moving the participants through a series of mathematical appetizers, entrees, sides, and desserts. If you don’t follow their blogs (here and here) you’re missing out.

My highlight from John’s segments was seeing how he facilitated a couple of Would You Rather Math discussions. I’ve been a fan of these since last winter (even contributing a prompt or two myself), but it was a delight to see John in action, leading teachers through a couple of mini-discussions, regularly zooming out to discuss the moves he was making and the opportunities inherent in the format so we might take these tools back into our own classrooms.

My highlight from Matt’s segments? Easy: Mullets. But maybe not in the sense that you’re thinking. I was already familiar with his mullet ratio work (as well as its popularity with teachers and students), so the highlight for me didn’t occur until about 20 minutes into the mullet conversation. It was then, near the end of this segment, that I realized how much work Matt has put into weaving this ridiculously-engaging context into a rich sequence of mathematical topics. I used to think of the mullet ratio lesson as a great one or two day task. Now it looks more like a swiss army knife scenario, useful in developing maybe a dozen key ideas in middle school mathematics. Well done.

Session 2

Reasoning, Discovering, and Critiquing with Networked Tasks
(Eli Luberoff • Friday, 10:00 am)

Eli Luberoff is a legend. (He’s like the Madison Bumgarner of ed tech startups. Minus the snot rockets. I think.) And Desmos is simply a math teacher’s dream. 90 minutes sitting in a room listening to Eli talk about Desmos turns out to be pretty fantastic as well. Highlights from the session? Three come to mind:

  • Regressions. Yep, it’s live. In fact, Eli and Team Desmos launched it around 4 pm the day before the conference began. Someone give that man a raise!
  • Desmos Activities. I’ve tinkered with all of these in the past, including briefly highlighting them in various workshops and conference sessions, but I’ve only tried one with my own students. Seeing a whole “class” in action at once was magical, and inspired me to bring more of these into my classroom in the near future.
  • Because I had been tinkering with the regressions preview throughout the week as I prepped for my own CMC South sessions (one of which featured Desmos), Eli dropped my name during his session. Something along the lines of, “He’s on there practically 24 hours a day!” All I could think was, “He said my name! He said my name! Okay, breathe… Calm down… But he said my name!”

Sessions 3-5

Desmos: Infinite Graphing Power on Every Device
(Me • Friday, 1:30 pm)

Turning Students Into Posers + Solvers
(Me • Friday, 3:30 pm)

Desmos: Infinite Graphing Power on Every Device
(Me • Saturday, 8:30 am)

I was pretty excited for these sessions, my first conference presentations since joining the MTBoS. I plan on writing more detailed recaps in the near future. For now I’ll just say that I had a blast, and feedback was super positive.

Session 6

Offering a Thought-Provoking Experience Through Math
(Edward Burger • Saturday, 10:30 am)

I packed up from my last session, still riding high after showing off Desmos to a small-but-packed-room of teachers. I wasn’t quite sure what to attend next (I confess to not doing much homework in regards to which sessions to attend, as most of my time was spent in last-minute slide deck prep). After narrowing it down to two options, I saw Fawn Nguyen on her way to one of my two choices: Edward Burger’s session on “Offering a Thought-Provoking Experience Through Math.” I may have been one of only a few people in the room who hadn’t heard of Dr. Burger before, but after about 15 minutes I realized I was in for a treat. I gave the whole live-tweeting a session thing a try, so rather than recount the highlights anew, I’ll just drop a few of my favorite quotations:

One from Matt Vaudrey:

And the clear fan favorite, based on the fact that this received more retweets and favorites than anything I’ve ever posted before:

Session 7

Transformulas: Simplifying Relationships with Hi & Lo Tech
(Jedediah Butler • Saturday, 1:15 pm)

I met Jedediah Butler for the first time in Vaudrey and Stevens’ La Cucina session the day before. He was tinkering with something in Desmos, and I was blown away. (And a little nervous, since I was supposed to be wowing people with my Desmos chops later that day.) When I heard that Jed was giving a session on Geogebra—one of my confessed math/tech weak spots, despite my interest and affection—I knew I couldn’t skip it.

Jed didn’t disappoint. In fact, I was even more impressed with the sheer quantity (and the consistently excellent quality) of the Geogebra applets he’s created. It’s really a remarkable collection. Go check it out. Plus, it was loads of fun to sit in on a session of a MTBoS colleague who made the jump from “semi-make-believe Internet friend” to “hey, we’ve actually met in the flesh friend” just 24 hours earlier.

Session 8

Teaching Math Using Real-World Topics
(Karim Ani • Saturday, 3:15 pm)

What’s the best way to wrap up an amazing conference? With an amazing last session. And Karim Ani (founder of Mathalicious) certainly didn’t disappoint (even with all the hype being pumped out by the Mathalicious Twitter account). I was blown away by the presentation as a whole, and in particular:

The thought I couldn’t shake toward the end of the session, and one that captures what I believe to be the strongest feature of not only Karim’s session but also the lessons Mathalicious keeps churning out, is that a day (or better yet, a week) as a fly on the wall in the Mathalicious offices could literally change a math teacher’s life. If there’s ever a summer internship program, I’ll be the first one to camp out on the office doorstep in the hopes that they’ll let one more aspiring mathematical conversation-starter in the room. After listening to Karim for 90 minutes, I was hungry for more. And not only for well-designed lessons with slick visuals and applets and thoughtfully-crafted teacher and student resources… It’s the whole Mathalicious way of thinking through lesson design and student engagement that has me most excited. I hope to stoke that excitement spark into a full-fledged flame in the near future.

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