Long Time, No Blog

Call it writer's block, or a busy schedule... I don't know. No excuses, but I'm back.

Much good news to report, however! After the first round of district Benchmark results were scanned, there were gains at every grade level compared to last year. In some cases the gains were significant, such as 2nd (up 16%) and 3rd (up 14%.) If this trend continues, there is every reason to believe we will again post strong CST gains at the end of the year.

Amidst the celebration, we must remain mindful of our commitment to improve in all of our subgroups, and close the achievement gap for EL's in math. All of the KLLOV strategies applied in language arts are beneficial in math, especially when we consider that ALL students are "MLL"- Math Language Learners.
Keep up the great work, RUSD teachers!

Math Apprentice

Math Apprentice...games showing how math is used in different careers! Very cool; check it out!

Math Apprentice

Working SMaRTer

Hats off to RUSD SMaRT leaders. This group of talented and hardworking teachers are busy once again preparing to host collaboration meetings in their classrooms. They send invitations to everyone in their grade level at nearby schools, prepare practical information to support math instruction, and generally offer a forum for sharing of ideas. During this round, they'll talk about ways to improve student achievement on the first benchmark test, and all comers are encouraged to bring a "best practice" idea to share. Thank you, SMaRT Leaders!

Out of the Box

Do you enjoy playing games? Depending on the game, they have tremendous potential for building skill, vocabulary, and team work. Watch this short demo from Out-of-the-Box games. How could this be modified for classroom use?

http://www.otb-games.com/index.html

Non-PowerPoint Jeopardy

For those of you who enjoy building Jeopardy games for classroom review, check out this site. It's a cleaner format (no PowerPoint) and has an elementary math template already prepared. You'll love it and it's FREEEEEEE!

http://jeopardylabs.com/

Ideology vs. implementation

Ideology vs. implementation. If people voiced their agreement more on the ideology it would be easier to find agreement on implementation.

Careers in Mathematics

Ever thought of becoming a mathematician? Here is a nice audio slideshow of some number wizards.
http://seedmagazine.com/slideshow/mathematicians/