Expat Math Educator

As I come to the close of a Master's program for Leadership in International Schools, it is natural to start to envision myself in a leadership position. This isn't a stretch for me because I have had female leaders to look up to and learn from. In fact, I consider myself incredibly lucky to be in a school with a female superintendent, a female middle school principal, and a female high school principal. This is incredibly rare in international schools, and as we all know, representation matters . I am a high school math and physics teacher. I happen to be a woman. Research indicates that female students who have access to female math and science teachers are more likely to enter STEM related fields in the future. I have seen the numbers of females in my courses grow in the few years that I have been at the school, and I can confirm, that, again, representation matters . The exact same can be said for a school's technology program. In every school I have worked in, we ...

As I have been using the Mathematics Vision Project to support my teaching of quadratics, I have truly enjoyed watching my students discover key structures of quadratic expression and functions. They can complete the square with ease because they can actually visualize the squares they are attempting to make. They view factoring as writing the area of a rectangle in terms of its side lengths. They discovered the pros and cons of the three forms through experience. I told them almost nothing. I've just been asking questions. So many questions! My students have been incredibly frustrated by some of my questions, and it has been wonderful. Their perseverance is increasing, and their ability to think outside the box (or, rather, inside the square) has expanded dramatically. My favorite thing to ask has become "How else could you think about this?" My next step is going to be integrating more technology use into the lessons. I'm considering having my students...

Reflection is a large part of teacher leadership. Leaders must be reflective on their own practices before they can support their peers. With regard to technology, I have recently read the ISTE Standards for Administrators , an article called " Supporting Effective Technology Integration and Implementation ," and the " 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tech-leading Principals " in order to reflect my current use of technology. Student Centered Learning is a key component to a quality technology integratio n program, as it is to all aspects of a good educational system. If I am to be an effective teacher leader, I must lead by example and put student centered learning at the forefront of what I do. As a math teacher, how can I use technology to help me get away from Teacher Centered Learning? Although I have been pushing myself toward discovery-based learning, I would like to find more ways to get students to drive the lessons. I have found that  Desmos is an...

How can I encourage an innovator’s mindset to further enhance the learning experience for students in my school? Technology integration can sometimes feel like a very individualized activity.   Naturally, when I started learning more about current technology integration, I was first focused on my own learning. Now that I have immersed myself in articles and Twitter Feeds, my goal for learning about technology has shifted some. I am now more interested in how I can use my learning to impact learning in the whole school. @gcouros and @sylviaduckworth I am interested in discovering how I can help other teachers in my school become more comfortable and confident with technology. I have found that while I may still have a lot to learn with regards to using technology in my classroom, I am open to trying things. As described by George Couros, it seems I have an innovator’s mindset , and I would like to help my colleagues embrace this mindset as I believe it will help us all...

The most frustrating change initiative that I have seen was an attempt at 1:1 integration at a public high school that I worked for in the States. Staff were given iPads and told to see what they could do with the devices. The next year, all students in the high school were given iPads as well. Textbooks were removed. Teachers were told that iPad use in their classroom was optional, but were scolded for not using the expensive tool. Very little training was provided, and the school ended up losing several good teachers who just became frustrated and left at the end of that year. Personally, I was thrilled to have the iPads in the classroom. I had been wanted to tried a flipped approach to my Algebra II course but found that the Khan Academy videos weren’t exactly what I wanted for my students. I recorded all my own micro-lessons using my iPad, and my students would watch these lessons for homework each night. Then, during class, we were able to spend time really getting into the...

After a lovely visit from Erma Anderson , my math team has decided to try out the curriculum provided by the Mathematics Vision Project (MVP) for our unit on quadratics. After just two days of diving head first into the material, I am seeing a significant growth in the engagement level in my students. They are already making some spectacular connections to our first unit on functions and modeling and previous geometry they had from middle school course. The courses appear to be aligned incredibly well with the CCSS, and also very close to what we have been doing in the past few years. We have grouped the first three "modules" of the Year 2 Integrated Math course into one unit of study that mirrors what we have done for quadratics in the past. I am excited to see the results of using this curriculum and will post about my observations on this blog. For now, I can say that I am incredibly impressed with the level of engagement my 22 sophomores had doing the very first acti...