Math Workshop

I've been so lucky this year to be able to attend a variety of workshops. This past Friday and Saturday I went to one in San Antonio given by the College Board. It's amazing to be surrounded by such excellence in teaching. It invigorates me and makes me strive to always improve.

Interesting notes:

One woman was obviously much loved and sought after for her teaching advice and talks (and it's obvious why). But. It was highly awkward when I was sitting there before one of her talks, and another teacher went up to her and was gushing about how she loved EVERYTHING this woman did. Gush, gush, gush. eek.

We were staying on the 19th floor of the hotel, and at 4:44am, a loud voice comes over the intercom indicating an alarm had been sounded and to stay calm and await further instructions. Then a loud alarm went off. These 2 things happened about 20 times each. My roommate and I were of the mind, "great, a false alarm", and waited for it to go off. Apparently, others started the trek down the stairs to the first floor only to come back up again. Hmmmm, who knows who was "right".

I'm not much of a teacher for "games" in the classroom. I can't manage it so that I think they're learning at the same time as just goofing off. I went to a "games" talk, and now I'm a convert. She explained it such that her "games" ... (one example is a polar coordinate version of Battleship) had the students doing basically 48 problems (or so) and having the information stick in their heads and having them remember it for the quiz and beyond.