The Future is Bright!

As I left a week of math conferences in Boston for NCSM / NCTM, my colleague looked at me and exclaimed, "The Future is Bright!" Amidst all of the pressures of teaching in 2015, the concerns about testing and evaluation, there is a ground swelling movement of optimism in the world of mathematics education. There is an opportunity at hand to embrace what math educators have known about good instruction for a long time, and I hope that we all reach out and seize this moment.

Among the exciting news is the brain research that supports ideas of a growth mindset. We know that the brain is plastic - that it is with use it continues to grow. Scientists have studied brain activity and noted that when students are asked questions and get them correct, no brain growth is recorded, however, when students make mistakes, brain growth occurs. You may want to read that again.... The implications for education here are tremendous. We have scientific evidence for challenging our students that can not be ignored. All students deserve to have every opportunity to make their way into higher level mathematics. As educators, our role is to push the boundaries of knowledge, to encourage those moments of struggle and confusion and then ultimately to shift overall understanding. We do this by using rich problems. This is not a new message, but what is new is the scientific research. It is time to embrace this information.

The explosion of technology and the ways in which we can all be connected as group of dedicated educators also illuminated throughout the conference. Video lessons, twitter, blogs are all ways to keep the information and the ideas flowing. In 2015 we have the opportunity to transcend the boundaries of our districts and share the bright moments in our classrooms. It is, indeed, an exciting time to be an educator!

Happy Math-ing,

Susan Looney, Ed.D.

Follow me on twitter @LooneyMath

Resources on growth mindset including a free courses and a week of free lessons for grades 5-9 called inspirational: You Cubed

Resources for rich problems: Math Forum , Yummy Math , NRich

An example of a video lesson on ratio: Math Snacks