I have the best students: www.wtmacademy.com/student-show...

Did the Unit 2 test (integers, exponents (pos, neg, etc)) and got 80% of students passing with an 80% or better, and that is DEEPLY satisfying.

I get to talk about the theory of special relativity this week and class and honestly it's my favorite topic all week!

One of the parts of teaching I most enjoy is a weekly selection of an example of the excellent work that my students are doing and asking parental permission to share it. Reminds me that my work matters, and that I can share that joy with my students and their parents.

Pleased with this series I'm working on:

Love to show off my students’ work: www.wtmacademy.com/student-show...

Enjoyed this from Michele Caracappa during my morning coffee: michelecaracappa.substack.com/p/a-new-scho...

First day of class! No matter how many times I’ve done this, I always get a few jitters!

Four More Weeks

I've got some space left. Take care of next school year's math now and enjoy your summer break without having to think about it. I say this every year, but it's true—I have the kindest, hardest working students. Have your student join them and get ready for Algebra!

If we leave the acquisition of morphological knowledge to children's reading, what information is there in books to be acquired? @kathyrastle.bsky.social has answers (open). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wrote about my problems with that World Bank "ai tutoring" study. pershmail.substack.com/p/ai-is-mayb...

Running my end of year stats for my largest math class, and I'm feeling pretty good: - 80%+ made an 80% or above - 89% completion ratio - for the first time ever, every single student who stuck with it passed the class

WTMA is a WV HOPE Scholarship vendor! Have your student come learn with me: we go from decimals, fractions, and percents all the way to the Pythagorean theorem. Only five seats left for the August start.

Took my youngest to the Ramp and Rails festival (the indigenous allium and a tourist train ride in Elkins, WV), and snagged the last couple of seats on the train.

Courtesy of @pepsmccrea.bsky.social I saw this paper this morning: “ comparing the impact of in-person versus remote tutoring” “we find no statistically significant differences in students’ literacy outcomes by instructional modality” edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1176?ut...

Got my students excited about uses for box and whisker plots today. #winning

Just a few spots left in one of my all-time favorite courses! With a college-level textbook and other supplemental resources, we'll study astronomy ranging from the shape of the universe to magnetic fields! Add Monday to your schedule and make it a full-year lab course, as well!

Kicking it old school today: teaching students to find square roots by hand. Does great things for conceptual understanding of roots.

@palan57.bsky.social ‘s latest includes a point I agree with wholeheartedly: “Content knowledge matters. This is so basic to education, and tech shortcuts do not change it. All aspects of learning rest on Knowing Stuff.” open.substack.com/pub/curmudgu...

My teen just got her SAT scores back—she earned a tuition and fee scholarship for undergraduate at our local university. A celebration day at our house!

I'm teaching math fundamentals next school year, and I have seats available! Come join me as we go from long division to the Pythagorean Theorem!

We're hiring a Head of Professional Development. We've got BIG plans to help teachers to improve their practice - this is your chance to lead that work while working with a lovely and supportive team. Join us! uk.indeed.com/job/head-pro...

I'm always trying to level up in my skills, and one of the things I'm most proud of recently is teaching students with no prior experience how to knit, online. It's really quite difficult! Our current Math in Fiber Arts unit is on knitting codes, and the projects they've chosen are so interesting!

Really enjoyed my chat with @cultofpedagogy.bsky.social. Please check out the article and the podcast link. : )

Taking a break from doom-scrolling to get some writing done. Delighted to realize the E.E. Abbott, as in Abbott (1909) the first to conduct experiments on what we now call retrieval practice, was Edwina Eunice Abbott. So many pioneers of memory research were women!

So lovely to reach out to a family to ask if I can use their student's work as an examplar in future years and have them be happy about it. Sometimes, as an instructor, just being able to say that a student is doing well brings joy.

My eldest, taking her first university course, got her first graded assignment back, and it was a good score. Step by step!

Needs must!

One of my former students reached out to see if I'd tutor them 1:1 in a higher math class, and while I don't do tutoring, I'm so flattered that they asked!

still working on the distributive property!

My cousin teaching down South asked me for explicit instruction curriculum recommendations for grammar, and it was like I’d been preparing for this for a decade. 😂

Did you know percentages are reversible? #Math #ITeachMath #EduSky

Can interleaved retrieval practice enhance learning in classrooms? The unequivocal answer here is yes, especially when it comes to longer term retention. The results demonstrate a cost-effective strategy to promote classroom learning. #EduSky doi.org/10.1177/0956...

A good argument for allowing choices in a course: "One simple way to incorporate agency into your classroom is to offer some simple choices. These can often usefully be incorporated during more routine parts of the day."

I need one of those "are you human?" captchas, but for new followers.

Almost opened the wrong copy of my syllabus because it's the 9th year I've taught this particular course (the file name has the year on the end). I would have said it's my fourth or fifth year teaching it. Time flies when you're having fun!

I spend a lot of time on the distributive property.

🚨 New paper alert 🚨 The explosion of consumer-facing AI raise questions about who is more likely to adopt it. We examined how people’s knowledge of AI impact AI receptivity. Against most people’s expectations, it's not tech experts! And not for the reason you may be thinking🧵

"A powerful, beautifully written overview of what really matters to develop student learning.” -Dr. John Hattie "I recommend this book to all engaged in the teaching profession.” -Dr. John Sweller Find out more & preorder here: theeffortfuleducator.com/do-i-have-yo... #edusky

Recommendation: If you have children, a good thing you can do is to help them set up a "serious" email account as a young person. In other words, not "snowkingpopcorn678"

Incidentally, my 17-year-old is studying for the SAT in March, and one of the first problems missed was a distributive property problem disguised as a simplification problem. This stuff matters!! And it starts in elementary!!

Hitting the distributive property hard this week!! Starting with defining terms, so we can talk about it properly, and then extrapolating up from single digit and double digit multiplication, pausing at the area model as well.

On my list for this weekend: teaching my 10-year-old how to log into their Blackboard class that starts on Monday.

Finally did an end-of-year review for my oldest, a junior, and I'm very pleased. They're adding their first college class at the end of the month!

If you're curious to know more about the role of knowledge in learning and curriculum, download this free e-book, a collaborative effort by an international team of eight experts. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Three Things Your Ed Degree (Possibly) Got Wrong I recently had about ten minutes in a content meeting to give a talk on really any subject I wanted. I decided to introduce three myths of learning common in education. theeffortfuleducator.com/2023/11/01/t... #edusky

Went over my spring rosters and looked up the pronunciations for all the names I was unsure of.

and completed! one last sweep of the email inbox ✓ courses tidied ✓ out of office autoreply ✓ vacation mode enabled ✓

Next class (multiple sections), 94% completion, 89% average. Feeling pretty good!