math

8 Things I Learned At the NCTM (or Planet of the 8s)

April 15, 2008 Jose

I have to tell you, I definitely felt like I learned a lot at the conference I keep telling you all about. I discovered a lot about my own teaching and how I’m doing a lot more right than I thought, but also found stuff that I need to work on more diligently. I suppose [...]

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Abstracting the Concrete

February 20, 2008

Last week in the classroom, I started dreading the idea of the two worst words for any regular teacher in this country: test prep. I hate it because it’s a contrived barometer of what they’ve truly learned, and en masse, becomes the data for metrics used to evaluate student progress, teacher competency, school preparedness, and [...]

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The Message

December 4, 2007

Part 2 of The Hip-Hop in the Classroom Series: The mainstream rap of today continues to perpetuate the same themes of sex, drugs, and violence we’ve heard almost ad nauseam since the ealy ’90s. Yet, the gems that often redeem and exalt rap into the hood’s champion comes from the oft-ignored B-sides of the most [...]

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Penny Harvest Math

October 16, 2007

Ah, I’m taking a breather from politics. Not that I don’t like duking it out with different individuals on my beliefs, but because I like going over a variety of topics that find I find interesting. It was good to see how many of you responded to the last 2 posts (“A Synopsis on the [...]

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The Common Factor

September 24, 2007

“The mediocre teachers tell. The good teachers explain. The superior teachers demonstrate. The great teachers inspire.” – my good friend Indira, who quoted someone else, but thought about me when she read the quote I’ve grown more excited about the possibilities I have to nurture and inspire the kids I have. As I mentioned previously, [...]

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Crazy Eights

August 3, 2007 Jose

Borrowed from J. Dakar: The Rules: 1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts. 2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves. 3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules. 4. At the end of your blog, you need [...]

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The Divisibility Theorem

March 4, 2007 Jose

*** I thought maybe some of my readers wouldn’t know some of this number theory I’m presenting here with this poem. Basically, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic states that for any number greater than or equal to 2, one can rewrite that number as a product of a unique set of primes. While our lives [...]

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