Annie Forest

I love the NCTM article, Never Say Anything A Kid Can Say,  by Steven Reinhart. I reread it often and it always reminds me of something to work on or try so that I can have a more student-centered math class. I have recently been sharing 3 of my favorite tips from the article at PD in my district. These three tips are small changes that you can make that have a BIG impact on your classroom. I vlogged about those three ideas. Enjoy! ;)

I'm sure we all can think of people (in education or not) that play it safe. They don't take many risks, but also don't really do anything noteworthy. Then there are the risk takers. Trying new stuff and sometimes falling on their face. But these people also sometimes succeed, and when they do they are doing amazing things. My husband might laugh if I told him that I identify more with the risk taker. That's because when it come to my personal life like finances, buying a house, buying a car, raising kids, I don't like to get too crazy. I drive a Honda CRV, for goodness sake! However, when I'm talking about trying new things in my job, I'm a lot more willing to "change it," "try it," "let's see what happens!" Does this look like the ride of a risk-taker? lol The thing about being a risk taker is you have to put yourself out there... and there have been plenty of times, some embarrassing, that haven't worked out...

I'm happy to be participating in another #D100bloggerPD book study! This time we are reading Start. Right. Now. by Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul, and Jimmy Casas. You can read more about our book study and find links to all the contributors here ! Our district's technology conference, iEngage Berwyn is coming up in a few weeks and one of our keynote speakers is one of the authors, Jimmy Casas! The portion of the book I'm reflecting on is the second part of Chapter 4: Go the Way. There are four sections in this portion of the chapter: Tell the Truth, Ask for Help, Stay the Course, and The Way We Respond.  Tell the Truth At first glance, this one seems obvious. I'm a truthful person and bad liar--although pretty good deadpan/dry sense of humor ;) But this section is also about being truthful and honest even when it's having a tough conversation. In reflecting, I can think of several difficult conversations that I just plain avoided instead of ad...