Annie Forest

Being a new Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics board member has me thinking about ways to connect more teachers across the state. I want to put my obsession knowledge of social media/blogs/Twitter to some good use! I've been the main editor of the Facebook page for ICTM for some time now (like the page, if you haven't yet!). I also recently volunteered to help with the Twitter account ( @MathICTM ). I really want to expand the use of these tools to help more Illinois math teachers feel connected outside of our annual conference. While there are some teachers that participate in #MTBoS, I want to bring more of that to our state. A Twitter chat might be one way we could do this. I'm still thinking on this because timing is important to help build momentum and make sure it is sustainable. Evenings are pretty busy for me right now with the kiddos, so I've not been participating in as many chats as I had in the past. I'm sure this busy bedtime phase will p...

There are days leading up to break when you want to do something: 1. "mathy" 2. low-tech 3. fun 4. engaging that will keep everyone's attention! It's that time of year when teachers need a math game idea. My post about  activities to do the last weeks of school  is one of my most viewed because of this exact thing. I wrote about this game, "Draw 10", in the post I mentioned above, but I don't think it got much attention, probably because I didn't explain it well or give examples of how it will look as you play it, so I wanted to fix that. This game is fun for grade levels 3-12. With younger kids you will want to play the whole numbers version, while older students will be more challenged by the decimal version. ((Speaking of older kids, it would be really interesting if someone adapted this into another base besides base-10!)) To play Draw 10 you will need: 1. The game boards printed for your students. I usually try to fit quite a f...

I'm excited to be back participating in a  #D100bloggerPD  book study! We are a group of bloggers in Berwyn South District 100 that read and blog. It's a great community of learners and a fun way to jigsaw our way through some great education books! This time, we are reading the book,  LAUNCH , by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani. Thanks to  Jenny Lehotsky  for organizing this study! Jenny is an amazing instructional coach with a passion for design thinking and personalized learning. She is also a  TED-Ed Innovative Educator  (impressive!). You can check out the  post about Chapter 1  on Jenny's blog,  Teaching and Learning Redefined . click on the " ThingLink " above to go to participating blogs & posts! Now it's on to my assignment, which was Chapter 2. This chapter was titled, " Finding Your Creative Approach ," and was all about recognizing and celebrating the fact that everyone is creative in their own way. ...

My professional life has been full of changes. I thought I would take a post to talk about what I've been up to! Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics I remember years ago, as a second year teacher, I turned to the ICTM webpage for some ideas for Pi Day. While looking around, I noticed they had awards and thought it would be so amazing to be honored with a teaching award some day. In 2014, I was lucky enough to fulfill that dream . Getting more involved with ICTM by presenting at the annual conference, managing the Facebook page, and then accepting the award made me think about becoming a board member. Again, I thought it would be so amazing to be able to contribute more widely to the math education community and this would be a great way. I am honored that I was elected to serve as Director of grades 5-8 on the Board of Directors. Recap Pioneer Another opportunity that I'm excited about is being a Recap Pioneer . I started using this tech tool in my ...

I added a new page at the top of my blog. It's called " Blog Highlights " and it is basically a collection of my favorite and most popular posts. After 3 years of blogging, it was a good time to stop and reflect on common themes I've written about. In addition, the highlights can serve as a peek into my education philosophy. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Differentiation. I probably don't need to say this, because you already know, but I want to acknowledge just how tricky differentiation can be. There are several reasons: 1. Different kids need different things 2. Different kids like different things 3. Not everyone has the same background knowledge 4. Everyone has different misconceptions or misunderstandings With all of these factors, in each kid, there is actually no way that two kids can be alike! Each kid is unique in their way or learning and seeing the world! There are infinite combinations in how those above factors play out in kids brains. How amazing ! But also, how hard  for teachers! No two kids are alike, but somehow we are supposed to differentiate?? Teachers ask me all the time, "Annie, I know you aren't a fan of tracking , but then how do we reach our top kids? Or struggling kids?" Here's the thing, even if we did have "tracking" and kids were perfectly placed...

Teacher confession time: I used to teach my students about keywords in math class. I did not create this poster, but I could have. In fact I had one very similar hanging in my classroom from 2007-2012. I even wrote one of my National Board portfolio entries about a lesson designed around keywords ! This brings be to CUBES. A problem solving strategy I've seen quite a few times in classrooms. I never used it, but mostly because I didn't hear about it. I probably would have been all over that. If you aren't familiar, here is the strategy: C- circle the numbers U- underline the question B- box the keywords, or math action words E- evaluate the steps you should take S- solve and check You might be wondering why I stopped using keywords in math class in 2012. Honestly, I was pretty stubborn. I mean, kids  got the right answers  when I taught key words! I thought I was helping them. Students liked them. Parents understood them. There are actually several reasons I...