Say Goodbye to Dear Aunt Sally

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I while back I wrote about a free, downloadable book called Nix the Tricks.  Feeling inspired by the idea of getting rid of "tricks" that we used to teach in math because they get in the way of students' understanding, I decided to present about it at the ICTM conference.

I was a little nervous to tackle this topic because I'm not an expert… it's just a topic that I've been thinking a lot about lately.  Luckily, a fellow ICTM member tipped me off to a great article by NCTM called "13 Rules That Expire," which gave me more material.  I also knew that I wanted to do some activities to I went to my old favorites: Math Talks and Get it Together Activities.  I also showed the video that I blogged about a few weeks ago, which went over well too.

I titled the workshop, "Say Goodbye to Aunt Sally," as a nod to the "PEMDAS" acronym some people used to help them remember the order of operations.  Math joke! :)

The workshop went great.  I love when I have an excited group of educators that are willing to participate, ask questions, and discuss.  That is just what I had and it was fun!

You can check out the presentation here.

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