New Bloggers: Week 4

We have reached the end of the new blogger initiation and I'm so proud of everyone who participated, whether they made it to week 4 or not.  I'm keeping track of the introductory posts on the #matheme page.  The prompts they have been getting are really great.  I will post a link to all of them soon, even if you're not a new blogger they are great to think on and share about.

Carl Edgren @carledgren has a blog named Teaching Systematically. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled I believe in public education and the author sums it up as follows: "This post deviates from the blogger initiation posts and instead talks about the Chicago Teacher's Union Strike. It's not about the money! Don't believe the media and the politicians that try to spin everything against the teachers. We are fighting to save public education and provide the learning experience the students deserve!" A memorable quotation from the post is: "I'm fighting for public education."

Mary Dooms has a blog named Curiouser and Curiouser. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Educating parents and students on standards based grading and the author sums it up as follows: "Parents and students are accustomed to a gradebook that captures the end result. They need time to digest the idea that a grade book can be thought of as a running record of student progress." A memorable quotation from the post is: (Continuing to educate students about SBG) "hit home today when a student said to me, “Rumor has it you are counting a pre-test as a grade."

Heather Kohn @heather_kohn has a blog named Growing Exponentially. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled You've Got It! and the author sums it up as follows: "In my classroom, I use two sayings frequently... one that I love and one that I wish I could stop saying. I explain why I love the one I do and why I need to stop confusing students with the other one." A memorable quotation from the post is: "When I say “You’ve got it!” students hear and feel that they know something well enough to explain it to others."

Chris Rime @chrisrime has a blog named Partially Derivative. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled NBI #4 — In which the intrepid blogger realizes that time flies! and the author sums it up as follows: "A lot of rambling, punctuated by possibly-meaningful insights. An awesome motorcycle ad is presented. A nifty psychological trick for inviting questions is provided." A memorable quotation from the post is: "This will come as no surprise to anyone in the room, but… a week goes by tremendously quickly!"

Mark Davis @graphpapershirt has a blog named Graph Paper Shirt. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled My students write commitments and the author sums it up as follows: "In this post I outline how and why my students wrote class commitments instead of class goals for the semester. I also provide a link to the document that the students used for instructions...something I created and shared, which is the whole goal of by blog...creating and sharing instead of just collecting ideas from others." A memorable quotation from the post is: "Students need to learn that actions result in what they desire, not simply writing down “I will get a 90% or better in class this year.”"

barrylewis @2ndarymathedist has a blog named Gleaming Number Rockets. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Downbeat Mathematics & Clever Ones and the author sums it up as follows: "Shining a bright light under the hood of mathematics is important if students are to have the chance to develop deep mathematical understanding. I think instruction should be as explicit a possible during introduction and discovery of new ideas and procedures, and only after that should students be acquainted with algorithmic shortcuts, if any exist. By explicit I mean that we and our students should roll up our sleeves, meet the math head-on, and see how beautifully it works." A memorable quotation from the post is: "I think there are ways to teach important aspects of number theory to students even though they are lurching through the developmental moors that lie between concrete and formal thinking."

If you have been reading all of these new blogs, I offer you a heartfelt thanks and some serious kudos.  If you have been a new/returning blogger, congratulations!  You are now initiated.  I have been slacking on blogging lately, but have many posts brewing and now that I've moved and am getting over my start of the year cold I should be back to sharing my own stuff, not just cheering on others.

Next time you are at a loss and need blogging inspiration, check out all the posts and prompts from this month.