Episode 011: Dan Meyer, Desmos Dan Meyer has been revolutionizing math instruction for years, and in this episode he shares with us the importance of mentors in his life, a few of his favorite teaching mantras, mathematics as storytelling, and how to notice and develop perplexity. Connect with Vrain Waves Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb Connect with Dan Meyer Twitter: @ddmeyer | Website: blog.mrmeyer.com | Desmos Links & Show Notes Math is a (usually poorly told) story (02:22) Put students in a place to experience new learning through a need Dan’s math journey & mentors (4:20) “Be Less Helpful” (6:58) Let students do the interesting, important work of the thinking about the problem Thanksgiving dinner task example - by giving all the information necessary you’re making the problem less interesting, losing the opportunity for deeper thinking, and blocking some students out Discovery learning in the math classroom (9:52) You can always add, you can’t subtract (11:08) Once you add information, you change the nature of the challenge 3-act math (Dan Meyer’s spreadsheet; Dan Meyer’s ‘How-to’ / Graham Fletcher’s EL resources (12:39) Bucky the Badger task / Blog write up One 5th grade student: “While we were figuring it out, our ideas changed and it changed the question we were asking.” Subtract stuff from the problems in your curriculum (18:38) Popcorn container task Benjamin Baxter (20:23) “Never assume anyone even cares.” Teach math as though it were an elective Perplexity / Curiosity: Teaching as a science - reproducible (24:23) “Developing curiosity in ourselves and capturing those curious moments and presenting them in curious ways for other people, that has to be an ongoing discipline.” Benefits of being a connected educator (27:31) Quick growth; posing open questions and semi-formed ideas Memorization in math (30:26) Driving analogy Having as much as you can in your long-term memory makes more interesting work possible Practice with purpose, mix frequently with purposeful activities (not memorization drills) Offer them pictures of where their memorization will be used Math assessment (35:07) Break learning objectives down into smaller grains of learning and assess on each Standards-based Grading Talk to him more about this @ddmeyer Desmos (38:04) Free calculators Polygraph game If [vocabulary] is the aspirin, what is the headache? Students solve problems created by each other Teacher.desmos.com for more free resources Dan’s TED Talk tinyurl.com/vrainwavesfeedback Lots of other videos of Dan’s keynotes, ideas, etc… Sign up for Dan’s newsletter on his blog