One problem, 45 minutes later... understanding more.

I've dug my heals in deep into Twitter after returning from NCTM. Even though I've just celebrated my 6th twitterversary, I have underutilized this powerful social media platform. When I saw this tweet from Suzanne Alejandre, I spent an hour and watched the raw NCSM Ignite video. One presenter struck out to me: Brian Bushart.

Then, the 5 minute edited videos appeared in my feed and I saw it again with this tweet.  I've since watched it three times.

His main message was to do less. Less problems. Less words. Less numbers.  The results: More; More evidence of student thinking, more student sense making, and more understanding relationships.

Less problems - allow for student thinking to be documented. Allow them to show their work. BONUS! With less problems, they will have more time to share their strategies and discuss the problem. Hmmm.... Now, there's something to have in a classroom environment. 😂

Less words - make sense making the focus. Too often kids pull out the numbers and do some sort calculation with them without meaningful connection to the problem.  Without all of the messy words in the problem, students can focus on what the problem is about and making a model to help them connect the mathematics.

Less numbers - so students are not wanting to "plug and chug" <side note: I DESPISE this term, seriously - If I am just plugging and chugging with my math, then there is no meaning to what I am doing> When you take the numbers out, the students see the relationships forming in the problem, they will know what to do with the numbers when they receive that information. BAM.

So, bottom line: Do less to get more out of it. Ok. I'm sold. So lets try it.  (and if you haven't watched the video, you really, really should).

My class is working on populations and samples - (CCSS 7SPA1) and taking a random sample to apply to the population. We have not done this and I have not pre- taught any of this. We have talked about samples, populations and biasness; but not specifically how you would take a sample and make a judgement about a population based on the sample.

We started with a single problem (do less problems),  with the unnecessary language removed (less words) and no numbers (less numbers).

We had a conversation about the problem and talked about what they would do if they were the manager. Then I asked: 

They wanted to know sample size (🙌), how many were in the shipment (👏) and how many were defective (🎉). 

After I gave them the information they desired, I also gave them time to work independently, in pairs, or as a trio. I also provided them with a large sheet of paper to document their thinking. 

And so it began. Each group got to work (I 💙 my students). Some were more focused on the details of the problem then others, but I loved that each and every individual, pair, or trio was involved and documented their thinking.  

After they had enough time to get everything down on paper, we hung their work outside of my classroom in the hallway. I asked the students to walk around and take a look at each other's work. I asked - What do you notice, what do you wonder  - as you walk around? When they were finished and had a chance to look at it all, they sat down (right there in the hallway) and we had a chat. 

Students noticed which strategies were similar and which were different. They noticed which ones had the same answer and which ones didn't.  They wondered what the answer was (because they are so trained to get the answer and move on!) and why two different ways came up with the same answer. It was from this conversation that I was able to launch into mine. 

We talked about how two different strategies determined the same answer (and I did not confirm or deny that the answer was correct). We talked about what the 3,500 meant; what multiplying it by 3 resulted in, and what dividing that by 50 meant. We put meaning to each of the numbers.  (I ended up labeling this student work)

Here we did the same thing, but talked about the different strategy of dividing first, then multiplying. Again, labeling the numbers involved. What did this calculation model do as far as the manager was concerned?

Then we talked about this strategy (below), which afforded us to uncover some misconceptions.  This student worked independently and knew that dividing the fraction 3/50 would get him a percent... so we had a loooongggg discussion about this poster and clarified a few things here..... The student took the lead on the conversation, and actually chose to redo his documentation to correct his error when we were through. 🎊

My favorite (ssshhhhh.... I'm not telling the student) was this one, because he knew that he could set up a ratio. But he didn't quite realize it was a ratio until he did quite a bit of work. He just kept making a pattern until it became too time consuming. 😂. When he spoke, he talked about how he realized, he could double some of the work he had done, and add to it other work he had done to get the numbers he wanted (note how he went from 1,250 to 2,550 - he added the 1,000 'work' to 1,250). Unfortunately, he ran out of time to document all of his thinking on his large paper.... So we also talked about efficiency. 

And then there was this group, who knew right away, they could use a ratio. They set it up, found a multiplicative relationship and used it to solve for the defective units in the shipment.  This was intentionally the last set I talked about and used it to solidify and anchor the thoughts that had surfaced through our conversations. 

Because I let the students struggle through this one and only problem and gave them the information only when they asked, I believe these students had become attached to the problem. I never had to explain (direct instruction) that samples and population have a relationship with ratios - they self discovered that through our conversations.

This was one problem. I allowed students to document their thinking, and used that to spawn our conversation and solidify our lesson understanding. And in my classroom, to me, this proves that you can do less and get more. Thanks Brian.

Recovering from Burn-out

If you read my last post, you know I recently went to the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) Annual Conference held in San Antonio, Texas.  I came back with so many thoughts in my head, that my head hurts. Truly really hurts. Just ask @BridgetDunbar how much I've gone back and forth with her.... Then I realized why: I am recovering from burn-out.

I'll spare you all of the deepest details, but suffice it to say that until I recharged by hanging with my people and reconnecting with my purpose did I not realize how I had started to rely on pre-created materials and stopped creatively thinking about crafting quality activities that would actively engage my students in purposeful learning.  UGH. I fell into the burnout trap. I did what was easily available with minimal modifications.

I am no where near where I want to be, but I recognize that I don't want to be where I'm at; if that made any sense to anyone. I plan to move forward by making small manageable changes for the remainder of this year (it is the end of April already) and thinking through ideas and searching my favorite places like

• Math = Love by Sarah Carter 
• Finding Ways by Fawn Nguyen
• Divisible by 3 by Andrew Stadel
• Cheesemonkey Wonders by CheesemonkeySF
• MathyCathy by Cathy Yenca

just to name a few....

This past week, I started with this.

I saw a series of picture tweets from Christopher Danielson and used this specific one where he asked "How Many? #unitchat". I threw that picture alone on the board.

And just asked my students - How many? My 7th graders seemed a little puzzled at first,  one quickly yelling out "obviously, 6". When I asked him to explain more, he went on to document because he saw six hexagons. But another student quickly went on to say, 36 documenting each side piece to which another countered with 72 because of the round dots they saw - this conversation went on for several minutes. We even included how many as 1, as we could consider the entire piece a unit. This lead into a fantastic & messy unit chat.

I then moved on to a clothesline activity. I was recently introduced to the clothesline instructional activity by attending the NCTM session lead by Andrew Stadel (you can see more here) where students are given numbers on a clothesline and asked to make sense of them not only in their correct placement, but in the correct space.  Since we are working on 5 number summaries and box plots (my students need a review of this, it was not something they have shown a good grasp on) I used the materials I found here from The Math Project Journal.  I tweaked the card set and added a Q3 and Q4 and did not use the standard deviation cards.

I printed the number cards on white card stock and the summary cards in pink. I hung two clothes lines on the wall.

I asked students to come and make two changes. Until the only changes they could make were slight movements in spacing. Then I asked, how closely does the numbers on the top line resemble a number line?  Within a few minutes, they realized, some of the numbers were double, but they couldn't be doubled on a number line.  They tried to put them on top of each other: 

But realized that wouldn't work because then they lost some of the data. 

Then they ASKED for paper clips. SCORE. 🙌

Once they were happy with their arrangements for both lines and we were down to just discussing the little discrepancies on placement of the numbers on the clothesline, I asked how we could ensure their spacing was correct. And they said - let's measure it - so we did. We used a non-standard unit of measure (a piece of string) to measure the distance they had deemed worthy of a space between 61 and 63.  We called that one unit that was worth two spaces. We used some variation of this unit to help us properly space out the other numbers and then aligned the pink cards below them accordingly.  

Feeling good about how I tied in non-standard units together and reviewed a five number summary, it was now time to move on. I do what I hardly ever do & I let the students pick their partners. Shocking... right? It is Friday. Let's live on the edge. 

Having recently read this blog by Sarah Carter, I adapted her activity slightly to meet the needs of my seventh graders.  Her original task was about identifying outliers while I wanted my task to focus on constructing box-plots and determining the IQR.  So I adapted slightly. I gathered the materials - and a quick, HUGE shout out to Sarah for the affiliate links to for the dry erase pockets - THOSE ARE AWESOME..... and set my kids out to work. 

I placed the value cards in a brown paper lunch sack, had the kids draw out 12, put them in order and complete the box plot practice template before having it spot checked by me. 

After two pairs had been spot checked by me, I had them fill out a comparison sheet to compare the two sets of data. Each group had to do a minimum of one. 

This is just a start of what I want to do with my students and where I want to go. Years ago, I used to be able to think up these types of activities on my own. Then I burned myself out.  It wasn't due to planning these types of activities for my students. It was due to the fact that I am a mom, a wife, a department chair, a team leader, a tutor, a friend, a good neighbor - and I tried to do all without letting anything go. That's not going to work. Something has got to give. And what's not going to give any more is my creativity.  I also need to realize it takes a village and to rely on my village more. 

Interested in the materials? Sarah's originals are linked to her blog where you can find the numbers. My adaptation of the work mat is here and my comparison sheet is here. 

DitLife Post 4/11 Spring Break & Digesting #NCTMannual

*Warning*       *Long Post*

Today is my 8th DitLife post and it's the 5th non-school day post because we are enjoying spring break. But honestly, I need this time. Last Wednesday, I flew to San Antonio Texas with 5 other colleagues from my district to attend the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Annual Conference.  While we flew home on Saturday, I spent Sunday catching up on laundry and yesterday in a daze of where to start. I unpacked my items from NCTM, and woke up to my living room like this, at 7:30 this morning:

I also unleashed the power of twitter yesterday, where I spend time lurking. Sending myself even more resources from the conference, filling up my inbox quickly: 

Well now that I am completely overwhelmed and don't know where to start, I decided to shop. I had this idea while listening to a session of overhauling how I do Open Middle Tasks. Typically, I let students write out the problems using dry erase markers on their desks. But during the NCTM conference I thought - why not make number tiles and have students manipulate the problem using the tiles, while keeping track of their trials on their desks with their dry erase markers? So I went to Amazon and I bought the following: 

• 500 scrabble tiles
• black spray paint
• small stickers
• gold paint pen
• lacquer spray paint

What I plan to do when they come tomorrow is paint the letter side of the tiles black, number them 0-9, and place stickers on the back noting the set they would belong to in case one gets dropped on the floor. I will also place the same sticker notation on a ziplock baggy so the students and I know which set goes in which bag. Then I will spray the lacquer on them seal them up.  I envision something like this, but 32 sets of 0-9, without the operators.  Now that those are ordered, I have decided to clear my inbox. This. Could. Take. All. Day. 

One of the sessions I missed and am kicking myself dearly for it, is Mathematical Mindsets; Creating a New Future for Math Teachers and Learners by Jo Boaler . Fortunately, someone on my feed, shared a link to this article where a similar talk given to the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics a few days earlier. Just as I sat down to watch it, my computer decided it was an awesome time to update, so I switched devices. 

Reading the article and watching the video only further solidified other thoughts that had been rambling in my head since attending the conference. Math class is no longer about speed and procedures with homework consisting of page 456 #1-31 odds. It's about connecting with the math in meaningful ways and know that each student has their own way.  Sigh. I know I can do better. I know I need to do better. But where do I start? 

THIS:

One thing at a time. But what is that one thing? Then diving deeper into my inbox, I came across this We are Powerless Ignite talk from Megan and #7 hits me like a rock. "We humbly admit that no matter how hard we work in this profession, we will always have shortcomings" BAM.  I finish reading the rest, and I am so glad I have this linked. And even happier that she provided a pdf of the 12 steps. 

On to the next item in my inbox.  This was a simple link to follow up on - more resources for Which One Doesn't Belong.  My students love these, and I have come to the realization that we sometimes only scratch the surface. There are days though, that I do feel I deserve a well meaning pat on the back for diving deep. This I what I need to keep in mind, and realize that it is time worth being spent. 

Something non-NCTM related that caught my eye was this tweet by Laura Wagenman. While I'm not sure the Graph of the Week is something I'm going to full embed into my classroom, it is an idea worth pursuing.  I particularly like the resources linked like the graph of the day from StatChat.

One thing that has to wait because I want to see the video is the NCTM Ignite session. I am stalking this page, waiting for the video link to be added.  I chose to go to the MathCounts Reception instead of Ignite so I could network with seasoned coaches from across the country, having just completed my first year as our school's MathCount coach. My colleagues spoke so highly of Ignite,  and while I was able to view Megan's slides from We are Powerless, many slides looked like you needed to be there to understand them.  - So I am tabling this resource. 

It's now 12:53, since this is a DitLife post. I've been consumed with combining through resources and pouring my thoughts out. I guess I should go get some lunch. 

1:25 - and I'm full and ready for a nap! And as tempting as it may be, I really want to go through, organize and find out what instructional impacts I am going to make in my classroom when school resumes next week as a result of attending the NCTM annual conference. 

The next item in my inbox is this Tweet from Annie Fetter about Notice and Wonder. It provided a link to this handout. Last year I did a book study on Powerful Problem Solving where Notice and Wonder was one of the instructional strategies. I have been hooked ever since. Unfortunately, multiple times during the NCTM conference several sessions were hard to choose from as many overlapped other ones that I wanted to go see. Annie's was one of them. Reviewing the handout, infused more ideas and got my thinking cap back on regarding the Notice and Wonder strategy, and I hope that the video of her session is posted soon too!

I went through a few other items I had sent to myself but I'll spare you the details of those duds. They looked more promising on my phone through a tweet. 

Something that caught my eye was this tweet by Alice Keeler who talks about feedback and having the students choose 3 to submit (it's the third bold faced item).  I found the strategy interesting to ask the students to pick three problems they want feedback on. Alice describes a way to do it through technology (her speciality) but I really like the idea of giving the students the power to chose which problems they would like me to give them feedback on. 

Another non-related NCTM tweet that caught my eye from Tony Vincent was this one about printing on sticky notes. I use sticky notes all of the time in my classroom, and this could just kick their use up a notch. 

WOAH. This Desmos Tweet. They have introduced a Geometry Tool in Beta that you can read about in their blog.  I spent some time trying this out, and can understand why it's in Beta version. I am hoping that it's not too long before a measurement tool is added so angles and line segments can be explored too. 

Going deeper into by inbox, I looked at this tweet from Donna Boucher which actually led me to this Youtube video from 2015 Ignite on Hidden Decision-Making in the Math Classroom, another Ignite by Annie Fetter.  I am glad I stumbled upon this one, and while not from this year's NCTM annual, the message is is very applicable to any classroom.  It's summarized in the pictures below, however, you should watch the 5 minute video to really get the whole picture. 

Next I moved on to this internet gold mine, from a tweet by John Stevens about the #MTBoS Google Search Engine.  This internet resource searches all of the blogs of the #MTBoS members on topics that you put in the custom search bar.  Amazing!

It's now almost 3 pm. I've seen a lot about 15/2 avocado's on twitter and found this tweet from Christopher Danielson that links to this post.  Hmmm. I've read this twice. A third time may be warranted.  What sticks out to me the most is the question he posed "What prevents attending to number structure?" His example illustrates the point perfectly. 

I am now down to my last email link from NCTM. This is actually a blog post from MathyCathy about her highlights at NCTM. I enjoyed her session and reading this blog. She and I attended many of the same sessions and it's interesting to me to read her take on the same presentations. It's like hearing the same thing but revoiced. She also attended a few sessions I did not, so that added to my list of items to follow up on. One thing I want to dig deeper into is the PBL CCSS maps from Emergent Math. I briefly clicked on the 7th grade map, and found the resources they have linked to - I see that this is could be a go to resource.  Another resource linked was this one from Henwood Math. I've linked to the resource page where topic folders are arranged. This is something else I will need more time to dig into. 

Whew. My inbox is finally cleared. 

But I have yet to dive into the resources I brought home. I think I'll take a short break and vacuum the house. 

Now 5:02 pm and my break was enough to give me time to vacuum, fold a few loads of laundry and dust the pollen off of my furniture (one of the many benefits of living with your windows open in the spring is dusting often).  My husband sent a text saying he is going grocery shopping, so I am going to postpone trying to make a magically delicious dinner out of the few remaining items in the pantry and refrigerator since grocery shopping hasn't been done since before I left for San Antonio.  This means I can dive back into what I brought back from the #NCTMannual and further think through instructional implications of my attendance. 

First, I take a look at my session notes with the goal to pull together cohesive thoughts and complete any to-do items I listed as a follow up in my notes. 

• Making Connections Between Proportional Reasoning and Algebraic Thinking

This session used the Ti-Nspire to show the progression of proportional reasoning through evaluating patterns made either through cuisneaire rods or pattern blocks. We were given a laminated card with three designs on it and asked to draw the next two. Then we were asked to identify the number of rods or blocks used to create each design. Once completed, we broke out the Ti-Nspire and created a spreadsheet that created a graph and eventually moved through to making a line and equation. Since I don't have access to a Ti-Nspire, I thought about ways to modify this task with Google Sheets and Desmos. I also began to look into funding sources for the Ti-Nspire. 

• Monitoring Your Classroom Canvas with Formative Five - You Can Do This!

Broken down into these five categories: Observations, Interviews, Show Me, Hinge Questions, and Exit Tickets; the speakers (who included past NCTM president Skip Fennell) detailed each of these. They provided this link to resources.  This is something that I need to dig out and spend more time going through.  One thing that stuck with me is the idea of hinge questions - are the students ready to move on? I know I have always asked these types of questions, but have I framed them in a way to give me the correct information? Have I used them often enough?

• Boost Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Fluency with Rich Number Sense Tasks

Trying not to be #MTBoS star struck, I arrived at this session in order to get a good seat, not because of Andrew Stadel, but because the session write up. Although, coming back to class to tell my students who routinely do a Estimation 180 task that I was in a session given by Mr. Stadel would help elevate my coolness factor.  There were several things that struck me through this session. The first was that students have a "lack of access to opportunity to banter with numbers" and we need to "not blame the students and their previous teachers". Just pick up with what we've got and go from there. We do this by using visuals. When we don't use visuals, we rob students of a sense making opportunity.  Andrew showed several visuals to include a clothesline. He combined the Estimation 180 task with a clothesline, to include a too high and too low, and measures of center. An ah-ha moment was when I realized this one task could be done over multiple days.  Another ah-ha moment came when he showed the video answer up until just before the answer - and asked us to revise our answer. Math is a rough draft. We can revise. Moving on to talking about Place and Space - making sure that students know there is a place and a space for all of math before talking about how to design the tasks using 2-3 colors only, being walk in ready, and labeling each number line using units. 

• Promoting Classroom Discourse Through Open Middle Problems

This session talked about Open Middle tasks to promote student discourse to deepen student learning. We discussed and tried our hand at several Open Middle tasks. These tasks are something I use in my classroom and I was hoping to kick them up a notch or perhaps learn a way to create a few on my own. 

• Proportional Reasoning - The Building Blocks of Linear Thinking

This session discussed ways we discuss proportional reasoning with students and how we can uncover misconceptions. A few things that I took away from this session - the handouts, so I can reflect back on them - what makes a proportional task worthy? The idea to make several number lines - one side blank with no intervals, one side with lines that are roughly a thumb width apart from each other to create 25 un-numbered intervals and the idea of a process column. A process column is a column between the input and output columns on a table that show the process of the function. This helps to show the students the relationships. 

• The Winning Equation: How to Get More Students to Love Math

Given by John Urschel  who talked about how his teachers never talked to him about becoming a mathematician. And to become a mathematician, especially with his ethnicity isn't at all expected. He wants to get his message out that without mathematicians many things are not possible, and as teachers we need to inspire students to look towards this as a legitimate outcome of education. 

• Illustrative Mathematics - Open Educational Resources: Designing a Middle School Curriculum

Here's another session where I tried not to be #MTBoS star struck with Kate Nowak providing background information on Open Education Resources.  This resource is made with the most broad copyright license so even a textbook publisher can take it, tweak it, and sell it. They want it that way so that it ensures there is quality materials making it out there. We were able to log on and take a look at it as it is in a pilot stage readying for a release this summer. The one thing Kate said that resonated with me was "Set up dominoes in 6th grade that you don't want to knock down until 8th grade" - that's why you need coherence. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was struck by that statement, because I saw it show up on twitter several times. 

• An International Perspective on Modeling: Implications for What We Teach

An interesting session where the presenters talked about their ICME Conference experience. One thing that I walked away from this session was how perspectives frame modeling. For instance - how much water do you need to make pizza? It depends - are you camping, and need to consider water for hand washing? Washing vegetables? Are you a farmer in charge of growing your ingredients and therefore need to look at water for animals and crops? Or are you making pizza for a family in your kitchen? If so, how big is your family? So many things to consider when you pose one problem without any specific constraints. 

• Middle School Number Talks - Shifting the Classroom Culture

Given by Sherry Parrish she talks about how understanding needs to come before procedures and number talks are 5 to 15 minutes of classroom conversations around purposefully crafted computation problems that are solved mentally. I have done number talks in my classroom before, but I feel that I haven't done them with the proper coherence they need. Listening to Sherry, I realized that I can restart these talks and still get the benefit. I need to start small, with dot cards, moving on to basic facts, then whole number computation and then on to fractions. I also need to be aware of my moves to support risk taking and record student answers without names and posts.  By using number strings, I can move into more complex problems and carry this number talk into several days. But I must always provide a safe environment, allow wrong answers (and encouraging proving/disproving with another example), strategies & modeling (attached to one another) and misconceptions. Then comes where do I start?

• Rich Real World Problems

Here's another #MTBoS member where I tried not to be star struck. Given by Robert Kaplinsky, it was nice to work through one of his problems with him as a leader. We switched back from our teacher hats to our student hats as we worked through a task. I've used several of his tasks in my classroom and was able to pick up some ah-ha items to take back. One thing is to give students alone time to fill in the "What do you know/What do you need to know" on the graphic organizer he handed out and then give the students time to collaborate. When we give time for students to work alone we make sure the alpha student doesn't just take over.  One slide that really stuck out to me was the Level of Convincing.  When we have students who need to turn and talk to each other, this is what we need to strive for. 

• Using Digital Tools To Give Every Student a Voice

I ended my #NCTMannual experience with this session, and again was trying to keep my giddiness in check. This session given by MathyCathy of #MTBoS and I thought about introducing myself a couple of times when I saw her over the few days. Maybe next year.  She used NearPod to deliver her session, a platform I am very familiar with. Through her session, I realized I don't utilize it nearly the way I should.  Throughout her session, she gave us a voice. And I began to wonder, how often do my students feel they have a voice? And she kept us anonymous - that's a nice feature. That creates a safe and open environment. Everyone participates but it's okay to answer incorrectly - it gives us a base to start a conversation. I just cancelled my $120 subscription because it was self funded and under utilized. I may need to rethink that decision. Things that make you go hmmmm...

So now it's 7 pm. And I've poured through the resources but I haven't thought about dinner. My husband came home and unloaded the grocery (and put them away, and acted surprised when he saw the dishes were clean....). He went out for a short run, so I guess I better take some family time, and figure out dinner.... 

Now that it's 8:30 and I have my son on dishes duty, I realized that I dedicated a good chunk of my time today in cultivating the resources from the NCTM annual conference. And I've barely scratched the surfaced.  And I think back to this tweet. 

So what is the 1 thing I will do? I don't think I am ready to narrow it down to just one thing. But here's a list: 

1. Have number tiles available for Open Middle Task so students can manipulate the math. 
2. Look further into Jo Boaler and YouCubed.org, changing my mindset about teaching mathematics. 
3. Continue to use Which One Doesn't Belong. 
4. Look into Graph of the Week and how can they relate to Graphing Stories, something I already do. 
5. Continue using Notice and Wonder, but look at how I can do this better, with more consistency. 
6. Have students choose 3 problems for feedback. Perhaps even add a spin - one you are proud of, one you are unsure of, and one you think you have an incorrect solution for. 
7. Print Sticky Notes - and use creativity. What is the purpose for their use? Can I add a graphic? Something visual that will help the students respond to the problem?
8. Stalk the Desmos Geometry Tool. Introduce it to students. Watch its impact on student understand. 
9. Stop saying "Right" and start saying, "Tell me more" or "How do you know". 
10. Start explicitly uncovering the structure of problem, when needed. 
11. Remember the Google Search engine for the #MTBoS. 
12. Look at Emergent Math and Henwood Math for resources. Could they be added to my go-to list?
13. Look for funding sources for a class set of Ti-Nspire. And Cuisaire Rods. 
14. Start helping students make explicit connections in their proportional thinking by having them look at visuals, then tables, then graphs and finally lines & equations. 
15. Look over the resources for the Formative Five and use hinge questions to assess student readiness to move on. 
16. Order rope. Lots of rope. Nice rope, the kind that won't give you splinters when you touch it. And think of ways of organizing my classroom so I can have multiple clotheslines. Buy 2-3 colors of card stock so I can make the cards for activities that I use the clotheslines with. The first activity I am think of is probability from 0-1 (decimal, percent, events, fractions, etc) This has the potential to be several levels!!
17. Make sure the proportionality tasks are worth while. Do they present students with the ability to reason with the mathematics while building their understanding?
18. Help students know that math is needed, and there really isn't a person type. Anyone can achieve and be a mathematician. Grow their mindset.
19. Dig deeper into OpenResources for Illustrative Mathematics. How can their scope and sequence help our county realign our pacing? What are my existing must do activities that I can embed, should I be able to use this curriculum? Where would I put those activities? This is a summer activity. 
20. Rework Number Talks in my math classroom. Remember it's okay to continue this over multiple days. This is where my flip chart paper can come in handy so other classes cannot see each others conversation. 
21. Use Robert Kaplinsky's problem solving framework along with time to work silently before working collaboratively. Also think about the levels of convincing.  
22. Revisit using NearPod to give students a voice. Compare and contrast this with GoFormative. What are the pros and cons of each platform?

If I had to choose just one thing, it would have to be #9, followed almost tied with #16 & #21. 

Now that it's 9 pm. I feel that my day is done. It's time to turn on some tv, perhaps catching up on an episode of Dancing with the Stars. For tomorrow, I need to take these items and think about how I am going to put them into my plans for next week. 

I am already excited to return to school and I am already looking forward to the NCTM annual conference in Washington D.C. next April. 

PS: Here's a screenshot of my open tabs... they are going to stay that way until tomorrow.... 

PPS: Here's a picture of my coffee table now. I have organized my materials into piles - free resources, student books from MathCounts, papers to grade, NCTM notes/items.