👋 The fact that I still post on this blog MAYBE twice a year, and haven’t moved to any of the more current fancy-schmancy platforms… does that make me a boomer? 😂 If you’re here reading this, welcome… or welcome back!

School Year 26 – 27 is my 25th year teaching middle school full-time… and I’m still having fun, feeling fresh, and truly LOVING my students, whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know for approximately 2.5 weeks!

This is also year 2 of being part of Texas’ T-TESS evaluation system, so I thought I’d share a new goal, a little humble brag about being named Teacher of the Year at my campus, and something new I’m trying in my classroom this year.

🏆 A Little Teacher of the Year Brag

First, if you would like to see a brief 2-minute video that I got to see for the first time in front of my 1,000+ colleagues district-wide at our annual convocation, check it out! I was THRILLED that students were working on their Desmos Pet House projects at the time of filming late last spring, so you’ll get a peek at that, too!

What? You’re not familiar?

Check out the Desmos Pet House project here!

This project has become a nationwide norm in math classrooms (credit to the genius Fawn Nguyen, who started the idea as a Puppy House before Desmos/Amplify Classroom even HAD a learning platform as we know it today!). Anyway… this 2-minute tribute to my teaching life was a pretty special moment, and I couldn’t be prouder of this honor.

Thanks for celebrating with me! ❤️

🎯 On to a Goal I’d Like to Share!

Last year, my amazing appraiser noticed my students seemed ripe for the ready to embrace more opportunities for student LEADERSHIP in my classroom. She suggested considering student roles, especially since my students are already seated in groups of 3 or 4.

While I have used very informal roles like, “Each group, please choose a spokesperson to share out about…” whatever math we’re working on, or a Stand and Talk we just experienced, I hadn’t ever given EVERY student a role. Plus, I was kind of confused about what this could look like…

My brain went straight to math roles first. I went to ChatGPT to ideate, and I felt the math roles idea was falling flat. My appraiser nudged me away from considering MATH roles and toward thinking about how things run in my classroom. Were there things STUDENTS could be in charge of that would empower them to lead while also taking some things off of MY plate?

OHHHHHHH… !!!!

I started considering all the day-to-day things that, frankly, annoyed me.

Wiping smudgy desks covered with eraser crumbs.

Occasional food wrappers on the floors.

iPads that weren’t charged and I had nowhere to remedy that.

Students would ask peers to borrow a charger, then proceed to sit in an extra cushy chair with wheels at a spare desk near the front of the class… it was almost like a REWARD to get to sit in that chair. And I hadn’t really stepped back to think about how much instructional time was being compromised with charging dead devices.

Or how about the curious middle schooler who perpetually blurts out unrelated questions during lessons? “When is our next 3-day weekend?” “Is this graded?” “When is this due?” Ahhhh…. I needed some sort of expert at each group – a point person for this, too. It was all coming together!

There were inefficiencies in my classroom that I had become BLIND to. Areas where thoughtful systems could really help the flow of learning… and they didn’t all have to fall on ME.

🤔 Back to ChatGPT!

After we ideated and landed on ideas for roles, I decided I wanted a catchy, alliteration-laden acronym to help students remember them.

We (Chat and I) landed on GETS!

🔵 G — Group Guide
🟢 E — Environment Expert
🟠 T — Tools Technician
🟣 S — Source Specialist

Using (Apple’s) Keynote I created spinner sheets to place at the center of each group in a plastic protector sleeve, with each role facing the student who holds that role.

When setting up my classroom, I sent out an all-call email to staff to swap student chairs that matched the color-coding I’d established for each role.

I used Canva AI to create an introductory website explaining the roles, and Chat even created a one-pager document for students to sign and keep in their math folders.

And the best part?

I shared my ideas with my PLC, who immediately jumped on board and said they’d like to use the same roles and resources with their students!

WIN! 🎉

🛠️ What I’ve Learned in the First 12 Days

The challenge at the beginning of the school year is emphasizing these roles and continuously teaching them so they become automatic, and I’m not sure I’ve done a great job of that in the 12 days I’ve had the pleasure of knowing these students.

As with any new school year, SO MUCH time is dedicated to establishing EVERYTHING.

EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

Add to that our district’s implementation of Canvas district-wide… students (AND teachers) are learning a brand-new-to-us LMS, teaching campus expectations, classroom expectations, how to use a TI calculator, and logging on to new-to-students platforms to find all the things.

For us, that’s Socrative for tests, ThatQuiz for learning checks, Wayground for each unit’s test review – which runs the entire unit and gives students unlimited attempts to ace it – and Amplify Classroom for the majority of our instructional lessons and notes.

Which, I might add, was the worst experience I’ve had with a platform… that initial login to the platform was a literal disaster last year, and this year was no better.

But we’re good now. But I digress… 😆

So, all that blabbering to say that I do need to be more intentional about reteaching and reinforcing these roles.

I will say, simply having an Environment Expert to check each group’s trash situation and push in the chairs has kept my classroom in MUCH BETTER SHAPE than in the past!

And having a Tools Technician to gather supplies, put back supplies, and take a peer’s iPad needing charging to the charging station and leave it there (versus rewarding an unprepared student with a cushy wheely chair) has already brought efficiency to the mix!

I need to empower my Group Guides a little more to facilitate within their groups, read directions to the groups, and help redirect or manage voice volumes rather than stepping in myself.

And the same is true with my Source Specialists. I have begun to respond to questions for which answers can be found in Canvas or simply by referring to a calendar with:

“That’s a question for your Source Specialist.”

Not rudely.

Kindly and matter-of-factly.

I’m trying to teach them to fish, not just with the math content, as I have for 25 years, but with the day-to-day stuff, too. And THAT is the part of this new goal that I think I’m most excited about.

❤️ Sharing What I’m Learning

Anyway, I’ve shared the resources I created and co-created, thanks to AI tools.

Do you use student roles in your classrooms?

I realize this is not a NEW idea, but it’s truly new to ME and to my TEAM – and… it’s taking off across our campus! Many of us who have been doing this for awhile are trying student roles for the first time this school year. And that’s one of the things I love most about teaching.

It’s amazing to have colleagues all around me who strive to grow and improve annually, and it fuels and inspires me.

I don’t mean to sound so Pollyanna about teaching, but I’m truly blessed to live and teach in an absolutely amazing community.

My students and colleagues keep me fresh and excited to come to school every day.

And maybe that’s the real takeaway from 25 years of teaching middle school:

I’m still learning, too.

I’m still trying new things.

I’m still finding ways to make my classroom better.

And I’m still ridiculously excited to share what I’m learning with anyone who might find it useful.

If I can help YOU in any way across the miles, please reach out.

Helping others is like food to ME.

Thanks for reading, and comment below if there’s anything you’d like to share! ❤️

One of my goals for the 25-26 school year is to incorporate structured movement and peer dialogue into at least one math lesson per unit by implementing the Stand and Talk and Four Corners strategies. These activities will provide opportunities for students to physically engage with math concepts, verbalize their reasoning, and consider multiple perspectives, supporting conceptual understanding and classroom community.

If you use any of the Amplify {Desmos!} Classroom activities organized into collections by unit shared in the sidebar here, you may notice I’m intentionally adding Stand & Talks screens as we progress through the curriculum this year. It’s amazing how effective such a simple-to-implement strategy can be to encourage students to talk math! I’m having fun gleaning these activities for opportunities to add a new visual prompt for students to talk about. As always, credit to Sara VanDerWerf! Though I adore this strategy and will stick to my goal commitment this year, middle schoolers can sometimes be resistant to talking to another peer one-on-one, even for a short time, especially as I’m asking them to partner up with someone new every time. #AWKWARD

Which is why I’m also using a low-stakes formative assessment strategy regularly to my repertoire – my version of a “4-Corners” strategy! 

Using 4 different sets of similar problems, students FIRST work individually on their own brief set of problems. Students may not realize that there are 4 different versions of the problems floating around the classroom just yet! Then, after a few minutes of independent work, I send students to each of the 4 corners of the classroom (or 4 specific areas I’d like them to meet) according to the emoji pictured in the top corner of each warm-up sheet. These randomly-grouped students compare and discuss solutions with one another, making corrections as needed. I check in with each group, and we come back together as a class to discuss solution strategies and questions. Meeting with a random small group seems more to students’ liking than being asked to talk to a peer one-on-one.

I love that this sort of activity promotes both MOVEMENT and STUDENT DISCOURSE.  It’s a variation on “YOU DO… Y’ALL DO… I-DO-or-intervene-as-needed”. 

4-Corners can be a pre-assessment… a warm-up… a review… a lesson closure activity… a great way to start a Monday morning to see if Friday’s math is still in their brains… literally ANY TIME.

For an even more detailed run-through of the various ways I use the “4-Corners” resources I create, read this super-thorough blog post, which also includes a FREE “4-Corners” activity addressing circumference. (⬆️ pictured above ⬆️ )

Also, check out a few more of these linked below. Every time I use one, I see and hear students’ work and dialogue and I think, “I should do this more often!” 

Well, by creating all of these, I’m committing to that! ❤️ Join me!

4-Corners: Order of Operations / Simplify Expressions

4-Corners: Classify, Compare / Order & Represent Real Numbers

4-Corners: Scientific Notation & Standard Decimal Notation

4-Corners: Solving 1-Step Equations & Inequalities

4-Corners: Solving 1-Step Equations & Inequalities With NEGATIVES

4-Corners: Solving Multi-Step Equations

4-Corners: Slope From a Table and Graph

4-Corners: Write a Slope-Intercept Form Linear Equation Given Two Points

4-Corners: Linear Proportional & Non-Proportional Relationships

4-Corners: Identify Functions

4-Corners: Angle Sum & Exterior Angles of Triangles

4-Corners: Pythagorean Theorem and its Converse

4-Corners: Volume of a Cylinder

4-Corners: Surface Area of Similar Solids

4-Corners: Transformations Using Coordinates

4-Corners: Statistics: Measures of Center & Spread

4-Corners Financial Literacy: Simple and Compound Interest

4-Corners: Add & Subtract Fractions and Mixed Numbers

I just wrapped up week 4 of the 2025-26 school year, and year 24 for me is off to a strong start. I’m pretty sure I say this every year, but I truly love my students—and it feels like this could be the best year yet!

This week, I was so honored to be featured in Amplify’s newsletter! Seeing an activity Steph Reilly and I worked on together YEARS ago is still generating so much engagement was both affirming and surprising. In fact, it made Amplify’s curated list of the Most-Taught Community-Authored Lessons, EACH of which was joined by over 20,000 students in the past school year!

So yes, the transition from Desmos Classroom to Amplify Classroom has been a bumpy one. Even with all of their responsiveness through DMs and their Facebook page, I’m still running into tiny glitches here and there. In the spirit of sending a few 🧡orange hearts their way (instead of tomatoes), after 4 weeks with my new student crew, I’m not sure what I would do WITHOUT this platform.

The way I’m able to craft a journey for my students, and tweak it every single year, thanks to its features and capabilities… it’s STILL my go-to for differentiation, real-time inquiry, instructional pacing, error analysis, and formative assessment. It’s the place where I can create and do 98% of the things I WANT to create and do, giving my students rich experiences nearly every day of the school year. And the fact that I can improve my own work by remixing it with the work of others with a simple command-c, command-v… I mean, who else does that?! And at no cost…?!

My understanding is that all of the goodies we’ve created and shared on this platform over the past decade will be Google-able again soon. In the meantime, you can check out my own curated units in the sidebar here. ➡️➡️➡️ And in the spirit of sharing some potentially just-in-time first-quarter faves (the ones where I wake up that morning so excited to see how students will respond and what kind of discourse will unfold) check these out:

• Zero and Negative Exponent Patterns

• Real Number Sort: ALWAYS, SOMETIMES, NEVER

• Squares and Square Roots

• Open Middle: Rational and Irrational Numbers

• Slopes, Triangles, Graphs

• Slopes, Tables, Points

• Slope-Intercept Form Intro With Marbleslides! 🟣 ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Do you have some favorite activities that get you out of bed on a Monday morning with a little extra pep in your step? Share them in the comments – I’d love to hear!

And here’s a little blessing to send you off: May your 🧡Amplify experiences be smooth, your Google searches fruitful, and your school year the best yet. Here’s to lesson plans that land, tech that actually works, and Monday mornings that feel like Friday afternoons – you’ve got this!

It’s the Saturday morning after the first 3 days of the 25-26 school year. I’m sipping coffee, reflecting on the week, and recovering from that classic first-days-of-school sore throat we all get… riiiight? It’s my 🎶golden hour (love that song) – the house is quiet, the relentless tick of the lesson-plan clock is paused until Monday, and I can finally think and breathe a little.

I woke up today with a burden to help anyone stopping through here who is an at-no-cost user of Desmos Activity Builder… er… Desmos Classroom… um… Amplify Classroom! I had a HECK of a second day of school and I want to proactively share what I’ve learned so your sailing is smoother… not necessarily smooth, but smoothER.

First of all, I am SO GRATEFUL that the changes that have been happening over the course of the last several years with Desmos Classroom / Amplify Classroom have not impacted our access to the free resources we’ve been creating and sharing and REFINING for a literal DECADE. We’ve come to rely on these teacher-created resources to enhance student learning, designing math journeys that only years of classroom experience can inspire. Those in the trenches creating and sharing resources? POWERFUL.

H O W E V E R…. I’m looking out for YOU, teacher-whose-school-year-has-NOT-yet-begun, to ensure your students can access their new Amplify class and subsequent activities in 25-26. Here’s what I learned this week (and for real-time stories and advice, you should also head on over to Facebook and join the group Amplify Classroom Educators (formerly Desmos Educators).

Before my students arrived, I created classes in Amplify and simply placed each Amplify class link (with the join code as a part of the link) in Google Classroom, assuming students would just click it, login with their district-provided Google account, and life would be peaceful and happy. NOPE! The trick was to go to the BOTTOM of the list of log-in options (ie. Log in with Google, Log in with Amplify, and so on) and keep selecting 👍🏻SIGN UP rather than ❌LOG IN. This establishes their new Amplify account. EVENTUALLY they did log in with their district Google account. It was cyclical and redundant and slow and not intuitive and ultimately… successful! 

I learned all of this the hard way! Thankfully I heard back from the folks at Amplify SWIFTLY with the advice below after a troubleshooting day that was a bit of a *ahem* show… not a great look on the second day of school. I hope this helps you! 

On my students’ iPads, some STILL had issues after doing everything here. I had them close EVERY browser tab (some had a TON of tabs open, including open tabs to failed attempts to get into Amplify, which I believe muddied the process even more) and close every app they had running, AND do a hard restart, and start AGAIN. Do you feel the class time slipping away…? Yup. That was us! After closing everything and restarting, some students FINALLY had success.

ALSO, I had a HECK of a time trying to locate a list of Amplify Activities I had assigned to each class (that used to be so easy to access, but I digress…). Here’s how you find it now:

• Log in to Amplify and select HOME (upper left)

• You’ll see “Recently Visited” at the top and “Stream” just underneath. On the right side of the screen, select “See All”.

• VOILA! You can use the drop-down on the left side to sort by class!

❤️ To end on a positive note, on day 3 of school, my 8th period (last class of the day) who was working together on an Amplify / Desmos activity audibly moaned when I told them it was almost time to pack up and go… they actually wanted to STAY and KEEP DOING MATH.

On a FRIDAY.

I hope this honeymoon phase lasts through May 2026!

Pinch me! #iteachmath

👋 Howdy! Long time no blog, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been trucking along, loving the teaching and traveling life. Post-Covid, I feel like I’ve learned how to maintain a little more balance in my life, establishing healthier work/life boundaries. Sometimes that means I have the *BEST* of intentions to share here, and then… I never do… which is a shame because I do think about this dusty ol’ blog often (you should see my unpublished drafts…!) These days, I’m the mom of a college student, I have more gray hair than ever, and I’m about to celebrate 25 years married to my love…! During the work weeks, we work hard… and when we’re not working, we play hard. For us that usually means a trip to Orlando to eat, play, and even cruise. The middle-aged life is good!

The reason I’m passing through here today is to prepare a quick PD to reference when I return to work on August 1. AUGUST 1. UM, THAT’S EARLY…! I’ve been asked to share about a few ThatQuiz updates at our first math department meeting, so… why not share that info here too? Plus, it’ll be really easy for me to find in August! 😂

ThatQuiz is a free and fabulous tool for assessing students. I’ve been gushing over this simple green-gray UI for over a decade, but if you need a refresher or introduction to this unassuming, self-grading tool that quietly keeps getting better and better, check out this and this and maybe even this first. Or, go straight to the source here.

Early in the 23-24 school year, ThatQuiz added a new featured called “Observe“. While students are quizzing, the teacher (logged into one’s own ThatQuiz teacher account) can select Observe and see a thumbnail of each student’s screen in real time – amazing!

ThatQuiz has included something valuable under the “Observe” area! I thought this feature was only useful while students were actually quizzing live and in front of me, but there’s SO MUCH MORE here! There’s a history hiding under that counter-clockwise clock icon! When the teacher selects the clock, each student’s observation / screen has its own history icon… and the teacher can literally scroll through every screen of every assessment that student has done within the most recent 30-day range…!!! Every keystroke, timestamped and able to be seen for 30 days! This can be especially helpful if you set a threshold for students on assessments. For example, there are some ThatQuizzes that I set at 80%, so students who earn less than 80% are prompted to retest. I *thought* the data for previous attempts was lost and inaccessible, but under OBSERVE they can be seen for 30 days!

Do you hear me cheering over here?!? YAHOO!!!

A second improvement I’m THRILLED to share is in the Slides area. I could write about ways to use Slides for hours (check out those aforementioned hyperlinked posts to see more love for Slides) but in this post, I’m focusing on a new feature – ALTERNATE CORRECT ANSWERS!!! In the past, teachers have only been able to create open-response questions with ONE correct answer noted in the self-grading “key” we establish. Now, Slides provides space for teachers to add up to 4 alternate correct answers… which is super-handy for a self-grading tool in a math class where equivalence should be celebrated. Below is my attempt to show y’all how to create a basic slide with some text on it, as well as a field for students to type an answer. Now we can include UP TO 4 ALTERNATE CORRECT ANSWERS TOO!!! ❤️

Finally, the kind ThatQuiz folks have updated the way teachers can schedule assessments. In the past, we could only begin and end an assessment using increments of 5 minutes. Now, we have the ability to align assessments with our unique bell schedules. Watch this quick video to see how to begin and end an assessment at exact minutes.

I am infinitely grateful to the folks at ThatQuiz who are ALWAYS open to UI suggestions and ALWAYS ask for ways to improve and ALWAYS implement any suggested improvements that help teachers and students! They are the best!!!

What’s your favorite free, self-grading math assessment tool, and why is it ThatQuiz? 😉

Greetings! Though blogging as a means to reflect and share seems to have died, I like to pass through these parts every now and again and share something potentially useful and timely! Perhaps you’ve already met your new crew of 22-23 students – if so, I hope your year is off to a fabulous start! Here in Texas, I’ll get to meet my new students this week, and I can’t wait! 😃

No Texas math teacher wants to think about our state test (🌟STAAR🌟) now… in August… but we must! This year, students will experience a plethora of new item types, and there’s no time like the present to plan for this, especially when there’s already a free assessment tool that can help!

ThatQuiz.org isn’t new. It’s lacking in bells and whistles, but it sure does a lot of amazing things! I’ve been a ThatQuiz user for 10+ years and I’m still stumbling upon features that I never knew existed! I’ve come a long way, and feel confident that I can create assessment questions that look very much like what our students will see on this year’s STAAR for the first time. Thanks to ThatQuiz.org, my students will experience these item types all year, and by the time STAAR arrives, they’ll be ready! I appreciate that there’s a new level of rigor coming to STAAR!

I’d love to share my ThatQuiz learning curve with you through a few resources I’ve created. Firstly, if you’ve never heard of ThatQuiz, here’s a 10-minute intro video that will get you started.

If you’re most interested in learning how to create a few assessment questions that function like the new 22-23 math STAAR questions, here are some brief ThatQuiz video tutorials.

Drag and Drop Using ThatQuiz

Create a Text Entry Question Using ThatQuiz

Create Graphing Assessment Questions Using ThatQuiz

Finally, if you’re dedicated to a ThatQuiz LONG HAUL, I created a sort of self-paced “course” using Desmos Activity Builder. This is not designed to be a sit-down-for-an-hour-and-learn-all-the-things experience. This Activity/Course is more of a guide to explore at your own comfortable pace, and consider a reference when you need a refresher. Shoot, I even come back to it and reread my own tutorials to remember some of this stuff! It’s a LOT, so don’t get overwhelmed, friends! Take your time, do a little here and there, and try some things out with your students in bite-sized chunks.

Would love to hear about your journey using ThatQuiz with students!

🎉Happy New Year, Teachers! Have a fabulous 22-23!

It’s been (at least) 7 years in the making!

Next month, when students across Texas take an online state STAAR test, they will also {for the first time ever} see an *embedded* Desmos graphing calculator option in addition to a TI emulator. A “both-and” graphing calculator situation! Woot! Years back, we clunked our way through locking students into the original Desmos Test Mode app on iPads, but that only worked because students took paper tests. As state testing shifts to an online platform, having Desmos embedded was the hope, and here we are! I hope Desmos is also on your state test.

I wanted to stop through the ol’ blog to share several resources that might be helpful before STAAR (or may at least give you ideas to modify if you’re not specifically in Texas).

“Griddables”

To help students feel comfortable with “griddable” questions (that will now be more type-able than griddable using an online testing platform) I created this Desmos activity. During my time proctoring STAAR, I have never seen directions mentioned that remind students how to correctly grid their answers to open-response problems. Even leading up to STAAR, one has to Google in order to find these directions, and having students understand the flexible syntax before panic strikes mid-test is necessary. This activity provides directions and practice for students in Math 6, Math 7, Math 8, or Algebra 1. (Note: If I am missing an updated set of directions, please let me know! The directions for griddables I found online are the ones I included here.)

STAAR Chart Scavenger Hunts

Students take comfort in knowing they have access to a reference sheet during testing! Here are two activities designed to help students get reacquainted with EVERYTHING that’s on the “STAAR Chart”. It’s important to know which concepts are *NOT* on the reference sheet as well, and I’ve included a few ideas in the activities below. Math 8 and Algebra 1 are represented here, and if anyone decides to create or modify these for Math 6 or Math 7, please share back! ♥️

Additionally, the test review template Desmos activity shared here can be modified to include released STAAR questions for practice and student presentations. If you’ve never used it, I’d also like to introduce you to Problem-Attic as a question-bank resource. Having a free Problem-Attic account provides access to many released test problems that are sorted by topic. However, there’s a way to gain access to released STAAR questions too! Our curriculum and instruction department at the district level had to communicate with the fine folks at Problem-Attic for access to released STAAR questions aligned to TEKS through the Problem-Attic platform. Have your admin get in touch with Problem-Attic too! One can organize released questions to create resources in all sorts of ways (2-column PDF, a page with 4 problems in blocks, warm-ups), and the plaform allows one to change fonts, spacing, and more! Free access! Check it out!