“Teachable Moments,” and a Tale of Two Detours

27 Apr 2023

Throughout my preservice teacher program, there were many conversations about "capitalizing on the teachable moment." They were mystical -- cinematic, even. At some point, good fortune would smile on you,…

Preserving Equality — Algebraic Thinking Across Grade Levels

13 Feb 202313 Feb 2023

Equality is a fundamental concept of mathematics. The way that we can play around with values -- adjusting numbers slightly -- but maintain equality is fascinating, and differs between operations.…

Creating Practice Opportunities with Games

8 Feb 20238 Feb 2023

In my district, we are fortunate to have core curricula that provide meaningful learning opportunities, that have helped us build coherence in terms of both content and practices across K-8.…

Using Slow Reveals to Illuminate Tiny but Powerful Details in Graphs

2 Jan 2023

This blog post was originally published on SlowRevealGraphs.com Last week, a middle school social studies teacher and I co-planned a slow reveal graphs lesson to launch a project about current events…

Turtle Time Trials & Leveraging Creativity To Deepen Mathematical Understanding

13 Nov 202212 Nov 2022

What if...? In a lot of tasks that we give students, there's an intended answer. Okay, sure, yes, I guess you could interpret the problem in this divergent way, but…

One of Favorite Games: The Skip Count Game

30 May 20198 Feb 2023

This game is part of my "simple but high leverage" collection of games that are flexible, engaging, and easy to prep. Others include Number Boxes and the Answer Is... I've played the…

One of My Favorite Games: Number Boxes

29 May 20193 Feb 2023

This game is part of my "simple but high leverage" collection of games that are flexible, engaging, and easy to prep. Others include The Answer Is... and the Skip Count Game. I…

One of My Favorite Games: The Answer Is…

28 May 20196 Jun 2019

This game is part of my "simple but high leverage" collection of games that are flexible, engaging, and easy to prep. Others include Number Boxes and the Skip Count Game. I have…