PSTs: "What I will do to make sure my elem students have a good math experience?"

I try to give my students plenty of opportunity to reflect on their growth as we approach the end of the semester. With that goal in mind, I had my students tell me what they remembered about their experiences with mathematics while they were in elementary school. You can read their responses by clicking the image.

Fast forward to the end of the semester. In our last week, I printed out those responses, cut them into slips of paper, and gave one slip to each student at random. They read their quote and talked about it at their table. Then they got up and found a partner ("find someone who has similar shoes") and read each other their quotes while discussing how they wanted their future students to say about their elementary math experiences.

TT-TNG (F14 edition)

Teaching Tips (from) The Next Generation

Presenting the inaugural edition of... Teaching Tips (from) the Next Generation: a summary of semester-end blog posts written by graduating secondary math teachers at Grand Valley State University.

They share their greatest areas of personal growth and their most powerful teaching strategies from their recently completed student teaching experiences.

• Mr. Snyder: http://snydermathgv.wordpress.com
• Mr. Burdick: http://mitchellburdick.blogspot.com 
• Ms. Jamison: http://learningtoteachorteachingtolearn.blogspot.com
• Ms. Rickard: http://lovetoteachgv.wordpress.com
• Mr. Taylor: http://dataylor92.wordpress.com 

(I will continue to add more as they come in. Last update: 12/1/14 at 12:55pm)

Guest Post: The Value of Social Media for Teachers

The following is a reflection written by one of my preservice elementary mathematics teachers (@hollikathryn14) in W14, wherein she summarizes what she learned from an hour of professional development time spent with #MSMathChat on Twitter.

For some background on the assignment, see my post: Professional Growth for (New) (Math) Teachers.

When I read her reflection, I was inspired. I thought she nicely captured the power of looking to social media for professional development, and I hoped that her experience and perspective (pre-service teacher, and Twitter newbie), might inspire others to give it a try.

She graciously granted her permission for me to share this with you. And so, here's Holli's reflection on her first #MSMathChat experience: