Ringing in the New Year – Growth and Grit

For the past week-and-a-half, our district has been preparing for the arrival of a new crew of students, and we’re excited!  In-service trainings have focused on themes of innovation, grit, growth mindset and having a “GVC” (Guaranteed Viable Curriculum).  You can see some of the wonderful experiences we’ve had over on the Twitters at #eanesplc. Speaking of Twitter, I’ve found some inspiration regarding these in-service themes from fine educators who, from afar, have been shaping what will happen in my classroom to help set a tone of growth AND grit.

First, who hasn’t been inspired by the work Sarah Carter is doing to prepare her classroom for kids?  Because of her blog posts, I created a new art piece for my own classroom.  Credit is also due to Jo Boaler. 🙂

Additionally, Sarah has been interpreting a gold mine of Japanese puzzles that will enhance our curriculum to not only be sure students understand “Order of Operations”, but that they are challenged to understand equivalence with a fun twist.  Read more here and feel free to use this Desmos Activity version with students (featuring a somewhat recent Desmos feature addition, Sketch!)

I also *finally* read 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions and thoroughly enjoyed Denis Sheeran’s Instant Relevance: Using Today’s Experiences to Teach Tomorrow’s Lessons.  I love Denis’ easy-reading style, and I look forward to the #MakeItReal book study!  

Join me from Wed’s 9/7-10/19 for Instant Relevance Book Study Chat on #MakeItReal 930pm EST 30min Paperback/Kindle https://t.co/pCWYJ1Zx2n

— Denis Sheeran (@MathDenisNJ) August 18, 2016

I also created this Tackk as a home-base for my Day 1 activities.  (Inspiration from Kevin Honeycutt, Dan Meyer, and Kristin Gray!)  I also plan to share the URL for this Tackk with NEW students who will inevitably join us throughout the school year due to various circumstances.  Creating a “Welcome!” greeting card of sorts with a QR code to this Day 1 Tackk will be a friendly way to greet someone new and catch them up to our class culture.

August 22 is Day 1 for me – may your school year be awesome, full of GROWTH AND GRIT for your students… and for you!