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One of the things I think about is the relationship between teaching math and the physical stuff that goes along with teaching math. This relationship gets distorted sometimes. For a while, the elementary world got all kinds of swept up in manipulatives. All lessons became "hands-on" because somehow "hands-on" led ...
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I've been having fun playing around with lesson closes lately. It's something I've been meaning to write up or present on for a few years now, and one of Mike Flynn's awesome Mt. Holyoke classes gave me the reason to do it. I'll be giving a condensed version of that webinar ...
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Every year, I plan to get my slides and handouts done well ahead of time so they can be uploaded. Every year I plan to be prepared, organized, and rested before conference week. And then every year...#NCSM17 #NCTMannual pic.twitter.com/vDSviAhdC3— Tracy Johnston Zager (@TracyZager) March 31, 2017 And then, every year, I ...
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I'm starting to bounce back from conference week. I love it every year and this one was no exception. I'm still processing (and digging out from emails), but there's one thought I need to share now. Every year there's a certain amount of soul searching among the folks in the ...
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It's been so gratifying to hear from people enjoying Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had all around the world. After five years of work on it, I'm over the moon that teachers are finding it useful, approachable, and inspiring (their words, not mine, but oh boy do I love ...
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You've probably noticed some changes here at the blog. I decided to go through the hassle of moving platforms for one big reason: forums. Wordpress.com doesn't support the use of forums, and I wanted forums very, very badly. I think it's worth telling you why. The value of any professional ...
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You can now take a look at what I've been up to since 2011. The preview for Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms is live. You can flip through the whole book, if you like, before deciding whether it's a good fit for ...
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I got to make my first trip to Asilomar this weekend. The first of many, I hope. I found CMC-N to be just as warm and retreat-like as people have described. It's a special conference in a beautiful place with great people. What more can you ask for? I launched ...
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I had a great time at the California Math Council (South) conference in Palm Springs a few weeks ago. I went to lots of super talks, but the two that have stayed with me the most were Ruth Parker's and Megan Franke's. I'm still mulling over both, and want to ...
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My girls started school yesterday. Fourth and second grade. No idea how that happened!  Today, on the second day of school, each kid had her first day of math, which she spent taking a math test. By their descriptions, the tests were typical, elementary school, beginning-of-year-diagnostics: lots of questions, a whole random collection of content, ...
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