Author Archives: Fawn

Growth vs. Proficiency

By Fawn | Published: August 10, 2016

I usually take copious notes when attending conferences. It’s more of a self-discipline gesture to make me sit up straight and pay attention. I even try to sit in the front row. (The only time this backfired was in Psychology 101 when the professor had to talk about herpes and I was sporting a gargantuan one of the simplex 1 […]

Posted in Teaching | Tagged measuring growth, measuring proficiency, teacher challenges | 32 Responses

irrelevant

By Fawn | Published: July 7, 2016

these narratives all lives matter black on black shootings he shouldn’t have resisted arrest he had a criminal record the police just doing their job best that you do not speak to me today about any one of them tomorrow is not good either because these narratives are all irrelevant

Posted in Teaching | Tagged justice | 12 Responses

Jewish Mother

By Fawn | Published: June 2, 2016

I had some friends over for dinner a few evenings ago. I made pho, but 2/3 of my guests had never had pho before, so I made another soup to make sure no one went home hungry. (We would later have pound cake and four different flavors of Ben & Jerry’s for dessert.) As I got up […]

Posted in Cooking, Shallow Thoughts | Tagged childhood, fat and happy, hunger, shame | 11 Responses

WBT

By Fawn | Published: May 30, 2016

Under the Goodies tab at Whole Brain Teaching: A WBT classroom is a constantly rewarding, no failure environment. Rewards without threats of failure are good for brains! When Timmy doesn’t know the answer to a question, or answers incorrectly, quickly say, “Tell Timmy ‘it’s cool!” Your class says, “it’s cool!” Tim isn’t embarrassed; you quickly […]

Posted in Teaching | Tagged seriously, Whole Brain Teaching | 6 Responses

dudamath.com

By Fawn | Published: May 29, 2016

Ethan Hall, teacher and web entrepreneur from Israel, emailed me this morning asking me to check out his visual patterns generator on dudamath.com. There’s a lot of cool graphing tools other than the VP generator. I’m kinda blown away. Go play! Go do math!

Posted in Algebra, Course 1 (6th Grade Math), General, Geometry, Math 8, Problem Solving | Tagged Ethan Hall, visual patterns, visual patterns generator | 5 Responses

Half Century Plus One

By Fawn | Published: May 27, 2016

I remember reading Shireen’s wonderful post last year when she turned 50 and thought, We’re the same age, and I want to celebrate turning 50 too! Well, I missed my chance to write something last year, but it’s never too late, so I’m stealing Shireen’s prompt “50 things I’ve learned about teaching” and broadening it to “51 […]

Posted in Shallow Thoughts, Teaching | Tagged #MTBoS30, older and wiser | 8 Responses

Making a Difference

By Fawn | Published: May 27, 2016

Why it’s so hard for me to leave the classroom. I’m making a difference here and now.

Posted in Teaching | Tagged love, student feedback, thank-you cards | 5 Responses

Dividing Fractions

By Fawn | Published: May 26, 2016

My 6th graders have been working with dividing fractions for the last two weeks. We explore these four ways, in this order: Number line Rectangles — I wrote about this here. Dividing by one Common denominator It’s completely intentional that we work with the number line and rectangles first. I want my kids to see the answer and that it should […]

Posted in Course 1 (6th Grade Math) | Tagged common denominator, dividing fractions, number line, rectangles | 8 Responses

They Save Me

By Fawn | Published: May 23, 2016

Like all mornings, the alarm on my cell phone pays no attention to my slumber and goes off anyway. I’ve changed the default ringtone of Radar to Ripples — it’s still annoying and elicits the same expletive from me. Another Monday. Just three more Mondays. Like going to the gym, the hardest part is getting there. Once I arrive […]