NWMath Reflections

This weekend I returned from the Northwest Math Conference in Whistler. Overall I had a blast. If one were to sum it up, the whole event was an exercise in some combination of bravery or hubris for me mixed with a bit of impostor syndrome.  To set the scene, I originally found out about the conference a few hours before the deadline for speaker proposals. A drive up to Whistler sounded doable and I really liked the speakers listed so in a fit of poetic fancy I pitched a talk about Middle School and Math Circles:

“Just outside the curriculum is a world of really interesting mathematics but how do we connect it to students? Math circles can play a critical role in cultivating students interest in math and giving them a sense of the wider possibilities. This talk centers around my experiences running one and demonstrate some of the lessons learned during the process.” Then mostly I put it out of my mind until six weeks or so later when I was informed my talk proposal had been accepted. Now I had a dilemma: would I go through with it? Despite boldly engaging with people I find interesting on twitter I’m keenly conscious of not being a “real” teacher and worry about intruding on professional spaces.  I  remember thinking “Would I be received well?” or feel out of place the whole time.  I finally decided it was worth the risk to follow through.

So last weekend I found myself driving up the Sea to Sky highway with a slide deck in hand and a goal to meet as many people in real life as I could whom I’ve only known on the internet.  My talk was on the last day and other than each evening rehearsing I put it out of my mind and tried to make the most of what could probably be my first and only conference. This aim started well since I ran into Nat Banting right in the lobby as I was checking in and since I had offered him a ride up earlier  felt confident enough to introduce myself and start up a conversation. This set the tone for the next few days. Everyone I talked to was very friendly and I had some interesting conversations from the start.    I knew I didn’t want to hang around the edges so I tried hard to sit down at tables with other people, introduce myself and start conversations (not always a natural move for me).  What I like the most about these experiences is listening to other folks talking about their work. Its not so much that I’m going to use everything I hear but it gives me a better sense of what’s happening in aggregate. My best chance for insight into what’s happening at say Mercer Island H.S. AP Calc classes or at WWU with NGSS Science Standards was during these moments.

Moments Among others I met David Wees, Nat Banting, Jennifer Bell, Chris Luzniak, Graham Fletchy and Fred Harwood in real life.

Seeing Tracy Zager and Fawn Nguyen and having them remember our interactions online. I hugged Fawn

Cool Kids Especially in the big talks its was really obvious who the big online names were. There was usually a packed section of folks in the front right hand side animatedly talking and having a great time. Here I didn’t quite have the courage to break in and instead sat elsewhere and met more ordinary attendees. I did push myself to go up afterwards though and talk.  What was nice for me was that the conference grouped the speakers on the same floor and I ran into folks at the lounge there which was a lovely intimate space.

Sessions

• Tracy Zager Keynote: How will we know what they’re thinking?
• Nat Banting: constraint and freedom in math problems
• Fawn Nguyen: problem solving for everyone.
• Fred Harwood - Grid algebra
• Annie Fetter - Keynote on thinking in the classroom.
• Ignite - Saw Marian Small and Michael Fenton
• One on NGSS intersections with Math
• One on the book Making it Stick.

Talk Link: https://nw2018.sched.com/

Concrete Things I’m thinking about:

• A cool new activity to pair with map wars from Richar Hoshino: scheduling and the translation between node maps and regular maps: https://schd.ws/hosted_files/nw2018/c1/BCAMT%20Graph%20Theory%20Handout.pdf
• Fit function families to constraints  i.e. find a function that is only in Quad I, no maximum etc. (need algebra2)  So I can’t really do this this year but maybe someday and the idea has a lot of potential for other domains.
• Some cool problem solving riddles from Fawn Nguyen. See: Ghost Chain Riddle for the first one which I already have given out.
• Some ideas about moving around the multiplication grid that I want to develop from Fred. Basically you work on what is occurring algebraically when you go up/down/right or left on the table and then  use variables as well. There is the start of something exciting here. Link
• Explore the patterns in digits in repeating decimals ex: 1/19 or 1/7.  Note: Fibonacci like sequence in 1/19 with the 2 digit sequences.

Skewed Perspectives

If there was one dominant theme to the talks I think I would summarize it as focusing on student thinking. Over and over again speakers would talk about how to bring this out or to not shortcut building understanding.  I obviously don’t disagree with that sentiment.  One of my aims in any session is to broaden understanding and encourage student thinking.  But I realized while putting together my slides and thinking particularly about Tracy Zager’s talk that I’m not spending all my time trying to evaluate how this is occurring or facilitating it. That’s because fundamentally my main overarching goal is joy**.  *Understanding hopefully flows from there.  So I’m still informally assessing the kids all the time but often just as much to answer the question: “Are you excited about this task/math?***”

Another observation was that often unspoken but underlying most of the talks was the struggle to bring all learners to curriculum goals.  For all that folks rail at individuals saying “Math is Hard”.  Getting everyone to learn math is really hard. Since I have no curricular goals I’m also mostly existing outside this challenge. And I hope that my own talk was a small broadening of the overall conversation.

As you can also see from above, usually activities don’t directly translate to the Math Circle world. But often they are really close and you just have to  think about what needs to change to make them work. More general processes and philosophies usually remain true as the domain switches.  What I often found myself doing was thinking was “Do I do that?” and then “Oh yeah but it looks different in a Math Circle but its still there.”

And as a final call out, Tracy Zager had a series of bad over scaffolded and needlessly cluttered worksheets that shut down student thinking in her slides.

Her answer was to strip the sheets down to the core math problems which ended up looking a lot like an old fashioned worksheet from 30 years ago.   Is “bare” math the answer in this domain and how does that fit with an overarching vision of elementary math?   Thankfully I also exist outside any of these resources so its not my struggle to wage.

Final Thoughts

Meeting people in real life is great.  There is another cluster of folks in Europe I interact with on twitter. I would love some reason to visit and get together with them some day.