SSPI Announces 2021 PAEMST Finalists - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

SSPI Announces 2021 PAEMST Finalists - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces 2021 Finalists for Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching

SACRAMENTO—Even through the challenges of remote learning and the COVID-19 pandemic, California teachers continue to find ways to bring out the curiosity, excellence, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities in students. Today, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond honored six exceptional mathematics and science teachers, naming them as finalists from California for the 2021 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).

“This has been a year full of significant challenges for students—personal, economic, and social. The teachers recognized today are giving their students the tools to help them tackle difficulties, find creative solutions, ask questions, and be the problem-solvers we need for the challenges of tomorrow,” Thurmond said. “These incredible educational mentors are driving preparation in math, technology, engineering, and science, including computer science, that connect students with the world around them and help them grow their skills to persevere in any endeavor.”

The California Department of Education (CDE) partners with the California Mathematics Council and the California Association of Science Educators to recruit and select nominees for the PAEMST program. Each applicant must display subject mastery, appropriate use of instructional methods and strategies, lifelong learning, and leadership in education outside the classroom. Each candidate is also required to submit a 30-minute video lesson in support of their application.

Mathematics Finalists

Kristen Donovan, Woodbridge High School, Irvine Unified School District, Irvine

Kristen has been teaching for 13 years and has had experience teaching Math II, Enhanced Math II, Enhanced Math III, Advanced Placement Calculus BC, and Math Foundations. Kristen previously worked as a Teacher on Special Assignment, where she built relationships with secondary math teachers across the district and led district math teams in creating new math classes, implementing integrated math courses, and reexamining high school grading practices. She also mentored teacher candidates and two early career teachers. Kristen is a National Board-Certified Teacher and has presented at the California Mathematics Council—South Conference as well as the annual National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference in Washington, District of Columbia in 2018. The lesson Kristen taught in her Enhanced Math III Honors class was on students discovering the relationship between Cartesian graphs and their corresponding polar graphs.

Maria Garcia, Richard Henry Dana Middle School, Wiseburn School District, Hawthorne

Maria is a grade eight Algebra I teacher. She has been teaching for 20 years and is currently the Math Department Chair. Maria was a previous California PAEMST State Finalist in 2019. The lesson Maria submitted helped students discover patterns in quadratics leading to conceptual understanding of completing the square. In addition to her teaching schedule, she hosts Math Saturday Events for parents and students. Maria has created the Girls Who Code Club at her school and has led the Mommy and Me coding event. She also launched a Hack-a-Challenge in which students from grades five through twelve came together to work on building/creating a robot that could successfully clean the surrounding beaches in the community.

Stephanie Paris, Granada Hills Charter High School, Los Angeles Unified School District, Granada Hills

Stephanie has been teaching for six years. The lesson Stephanie submitted for her Algebra I class explored exponential functions and examined patterns of growth and decay. She is a Master Teacher Fellow with Math for America, Los Angeles. As a Fellow, she has provided professional learning to teachers across the district and state. She mentored student teachers and helped teachers develop Project Based Learning units. Stephanie also co-taught classes with a science teacher who helped create interdisciplinary projects that connected mathematics and science, specifically Algebra I and Physics. During 2020, she facilitated two professional learning courses where she helped teachers create virtual math lessons and build community relationships during distance learning.

Science Finalists

Garrett Lim, Walnut High School, Walnut Valley Unified School District, Walnut

Garrett has been teaching for 14 years. He helped develop and currently teaches the school’s first-ever International Baccalaureate Higher Level Chemistry course. Garrett was part of a district committee tasked with brainstorming how the Common Core curriculum could be implemented and integrated within the science classroom. The topic of his lesson was how different materials have different specific heat capacities and its relationship to how they feel.

Catherine Messenger, Los Gatos High School, Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District, Los Gatos

Catherine teaches Advanced Placement (AP) Biology along with a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Research class. She has been teaching for 15 years. She was the Science Department Chair from 2015–2020. Previously, she also led the Los Gatos High School team participating in a multi-school program to launch a corrosion of iron experiment to the International Space Station. Catherine also shared advanced science research curriculum with San Francisco Bay Area teachers. The topic of her lesson focused on the properties of carbon and water.

Zachary Moore, Laguna Blanca School, Hope Elementary School District, Santa Barbara

Zachary has been teaching for 22 years and also teaches Physical Science, AP Physics C: Mechanics, Introductory Engineering, and Advanced Engineering. Zachary was a recipient of the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching as a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Integration Specialist in 2019. As the early kindergarten through grade twelve STEM Coordinator, he developed the middle/upper school elective sequence in computer science, engineering, and robotics, which also integrated 3D printers, computer automated drawings, Arduino processors, and design thinking through professional development for fellow faculty. The topic for his lesson served as an introduction to the energy unit and contextualizes personal power usage.

For more information, visit the CDE Presidential Awards for Math and Science Teaching web page or the PAEMST website.

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Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

SSPI Announces 2021 PAEMST Finalists - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

Math Path – Grumpy Old Teacher

Math Path – Grumpy Old Teacher

Math Path

Several years ago, Grumpy Old Teacher (GOT) took a MOOC provided by Stanford University’s Jo Boaler in which she presented ideas about better maths teaching in schools. That’s not a typo, Dr. Boaler is British and they pronounce the subject with an ‘s’ on the end.

GOT is a math teacher and one of the lessons has stuck with him; the one in which Dr. Boaler described a public high school classroom where students were learning by discovery. Observers and visitors could hear the excited buzz pouring out of the room as they came to find out what was happening.

There was only one problem. Parents and others who said, “This is not how I learned math and so no one else should either!”

Sigh.

It wouldn’t help, GOT supposes, to tell you that this is what the Common Core developers have in mind. By now, the phrase ‘Common Core’ is a ringing bell that causes everyone to drool in response, usually a response that involves a lot of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping at the nearest flesh-bearing CONTINUE READING: Math Path – Grumpy Old Teacher

CURMUDGUCATION: VA: Is This The Path To Math Equity

CURMUDGUCATION: VA: Is This The Path To Math Equity

VA: Is This The Path To Math Equity

Virginia is working on a new "math path," and conservative news outlets have gone off.

The initiative itself is loaded with the usual bureaucratic argle bargle, like

Through collaboration with other stakeholders across the Commonwealth, the VMPI state task force will make suggestions for institutional changes that will strengthen the alignment between K-12 and higher education mathematics while ensuring that students are better prepared for college and career success.

The goals include math jargonny ones like "Empower students to be active participants in a quantitative world" and ed-speak ones like "Encourage students to see themselves as knowers and doers of math" and also worthwhile ones like "Improve equity in mathematics learning opportunities." 

Fox and Breitbart and the Washington Examiner and a host of other stars in the right wing constellation are upset because, in its current form, the plan eliminates advanced math coursework in the early grades. 

The handwringing is calculated to stir the usual audience members. Out of the five goals and CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: VA: Is This The Path To Math Equity

On Numerators and Denominators and the Reckless Redistribution of School Funding | okeducationtruths

On Numerators and Denominators and the Reckless Redistribution of School Funding | okeducationtruths

On Numerators and Denominators and the Reckless Redistribution of School Funding

Last week, during debate over HB 2078, Sen. Greg Treat (R – OKC) waxed nostalgic over his  younger days when he was a mathlete in school. In discussing the way he feels school funding should be distributed, he made sure we all understood numerators and denominators. 

I felt like I was watching a scene from Real Genius, which I probably did later in the week. I mean, the movie holds up so well all these years later.

Not many people know this, but I too was a mathlete back in the day. In today’s political climate, I think my teachers probably would have been forced by law to reveal that information to my parents if they suspected it. Sure, I had a C in Algebra, but I did have all those MathCounts trophies.

I’m digressing, but in my defense, it’s early, and I didn’t think I was going to be writing this morning, but a major piece of legislation dropped last night. The bill, a committee substitute for HB 2755, is scheduled to be heard this morning in the Senate Appropriations Committee. It is on the agenda for 10:00. 

In simple terms, the bill has two impacts:

• Beginning July 1, money from building funds and all local- and state-dedicated revenue CONTINUE READING: On Numerators and Denominators and the Reckless Redistribution of School Funding | okeducationtruths

My series of videos about school math finally complete! | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

My series of videos about school math finally complete! | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

My series of videos about school math finally complete!

Though I am most likely known to those who read my blog as a miracle school debunker, a TFA watchdog, or a education research number cruncher, the thing that I do most with my time is do math, think about teaching math, and teach math.

Sometimes an ed reform twitter troll will accuse me of just being a nay sayer who has nothing positive to contribute to the discussion and I guess they sometimes have a point that I do spend a lot of time fighting against false claims made in The74 or Education Post or places like that. It is true that they have kept me quiet busy.

What you may not know about me is that I have made hundreds of hours of YouTube videos on my YouTube channel when I try to share what I know about math to whoever in the world wants to learn it from me. While my videos are not as popular as the stuff you see on Khan Academy, they do get some traffic and I’ve received a lot of very nice comments.

Most of my videos are geared at high school students and cover some really esoteric topics like math proofs from the History Of Math, which is a hobby of mine. But I had an ambitious idea over the summer: Create a series of videos where I start with kindergarten math and work my way up, sequentially, until I get to about eleventh grade. Though of CONTINUE READING: My series of videos about school math finally complete! | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Cuomo’s Dishonest Math | JD2718

Cuomo’s Dishonest Math | JD2718

Cuomo’s Dishonest Math

Pitcher is getting shelled. “When you going to take him out?!?!” scream the fans. The manager says “when they have more hits than at bats” Huh? He just said he’s never taking the pitcher out. Idiot. And dishonest. Hits are never more than at bats. Why not just say what he means?

Repression’s getting bad in a far off country. People ask an NGO when they are getting added to a watch list. “When the number arrested is greater than the population” They just said they’re never adding the country. The number arrested can’t be more than the total population.Idiots. And dishonest.

A kid seems to be in the wrong level of a class. He is doing poorly on every assignment, every test. “We should move him back a level” – but the AP answers “we can move him if he gets more questions wrong than there are questions on the test.” She just said that she’s never moving the kid. The number wrong can never exceed the total number of questions. Idiot. Dishonest.

COVID is going up in NYC. When will they close schools. Cuomo says “when the rate in school is higher CONTINUE READING: Cuomo’s Dishonest Math | JD2718

CURMUDGUCATION: The New York Times Adds One Plus One And Gets Three

CURMUDGUCATION: The New York Times Adds One Plus One And Gets Three

The New York Times Adds One Plus One And Gets Three

You might have been excited yesterday if you saw a New York Times editorial board headline talking about "The Wreckage Betsy DeVos Leaves Behind" and thought that maybe, for a change, the greyest lady was going to stands up for public education. 

But then you read it.

Sigh.

There is much that they get right. They open by noting that the department has not just failed, but refused to lead, during the pandemic. It's a cruel irony that Covid arrived during the administration of folks who think that government should not do anything, ever, including helping keep its citizens alive. 

They also correctly note that there is a lot of undoing to undo, specifically in the area of civil rights protections where, again, it was DeVos's devout belief that government should not ever be helpful. 

They note a "striking" contract between DeVos and Cordona, offering the understatement "Ms. DeVos had almost no experience in public education and was clearly disinterested in the department's mission."

Then the board barrels boldly into the weeds.

They accept the NWEA's baloney pronouncements on "learning loss" as gospel, and from there it's CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The New York Times Adds One Plus One And Gets Three

A counting problem, and a real problem with counting | JD2718

A counting problem, and a real problem with counting | JD2718

A counting problem, and a real problem with counting

How many ways can we give eleven identical candies to four children? it is obviously possible (necessary) for some to get more than others, and there is not even a guarantee that each child gets something.

That’s equivalent to asking how many solutions there are to:

 (including 0 in the natural numbers).

Now, you could give all eleven to the oldest, all eleven to the second oldest,… Or ten to the oldest and one to the second oldest, and ten to the oldest and one to the second youngest… This is going to be a long-ish list. In fact, I chose numbers just big enough that listing them would be an awkward exercise.

Solving the same problem, with smaller numbers, might help. Let’s give three candies to three kids: 

Now we can make a list. I’m just writing numbers. 201 means two for the oldest, none of the middle, one for the youngest.

300, 210, 201, 120, 111, 102, 030, 021, 012, 003.

That’s ten ways.

But how do we scale this up?

One way, a common way, is to turn the numbers into a graphic. Lay the three candies out, and like the CONTINUE READING: A counting problem, and a real problem with counting | JD2718

NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005 | Diane Ravitch's blog

NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005 | Diane Ravitch's blog

NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005

Those of you who have followed this blog for many years know that I don’t put much stock in twelfth grade NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores. Having served for seven years on the NAEP governing board (the National Assessment Governing Board), I know that twelfth graders are a perennial problem. Unlike students in fourth and eighth grades, the seniors know the test doesn’t count. They are not motivated.

Bearing that in mind, it is nonetheless surprising that the recently released NAEP 12th grade reading and math scores have barely budged since 2005.

Even if kids aren’t trying hard, their scores should have gone up if they were actually better educated.

I argued in Slaying Goliath that NAEP scores for fourth and eighth grade have been flat for the past decade. And these kids are doing their best.

NAEP scores show the abject failure of “education reform” inflicted on students and educators since passage of No Child Left Behind. NCLB, Race to the Top, VAM, charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, Common Core: a massive failure.

It’s time to throw out the status quo. It’s time for a new CONTINUE READING: NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005 | Diane Ravitch's blog

Commutative? Who Studies “Commutative”? | JD2718

Commutative? Who Studies “Commutative”? | JD2718

Commutative? Who Studies “Commutative”?

It could come in any grade. It could come up in almost any mathematics course in the United States today. But why? What is “the Commutative Property” and why do we study it? Has everyone always studied it?

I may need some help from the mathematicians who read this blog. Which probably means Joel. Maybe Owen. Back in this blog’s  heyday I had literally hordes – maybe 8 or 9 – who peaked in. How far I’ve slipped.

A Little Math (skip ahead)

The real numbers (or, for most of us, “numbers”) are commutative under addition. That means that a + b and b + a have the same value, (assuming a and b are numbers, or, in more technical language, “real numbers”). When people say “The Commutative Property” – and by people I mean People who are not Mathematicians – they mean this fact, which educators label “The Commutative Property of Addition.” They label a similar fact “The Commutative Property of Multiplication,” ie ab = ba. Some teachers also teach students that division and subtraction are not commutative, which is usually fine, but sometimes puzzles children who are still wondering why “five minus seven” is different from “take five from seven.”

There are other properties, and they matter just as much. And they all have longer names, or descriptions, than we remember, or than we usually use. We use shorthand. There’s the Associative Property of Addition for Real Numbers, and the Associative Property of Multiplication for Real Numbers. There’s the Distributive Property of Multiplication over Addition or a(b+c) = ab + ac. There’s a special number called the Additive Identity (that’s just zero) and another called the Multiplicative Identity (that’s just one). And there’s a few more fancy sounding properties for pretty simple ideas like CONTINUE READING: Commutative? Who Studies “Commutative”? | JD2718

My New Video Series — Essential Math For Kids (And Parents) | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

My New Video Series — Essential Math For Kids (And Parents) | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

My New Video Series — Essential Math For Kids (And Parents)

Even though most people who read this blog know me as a critic of ed reform, the thing that I spend most of my time thinking about, actually, is how students learn math and what the best ways to teach it is.

Depending on how you count it, I’ve been teaching math for at least 23 years.  My first year as a professional teacher was in 1991, and that was 29 years ago, but I took a few years off after my fifth year of teaching.  But I was tutoring math when I was a high school student which was back about 35 years ago.  And even before that, one early memory of mine was helping my older sister with counting when I was about 4.  What I’m getting at is that I have been teaching math for a long time.

I teach high school now, but I’ve taught in middle school too, and as far as elementary school goes, I have two children, one is 9 and the other is 12, and I’ve helped them with their math and studied the skills that they have learned in their schools.

In this pandemic, parents find themselves in the position of trying to help their children with their math more than ever.  So something that I’ve thought I might do is create a series of videos that go over what I consider to be the essential skills I think kids should know as they progress through the grade levels.

Depending on whether anyone is watching these, I could see myself making about 50 of these 40 minute videos, starting with lower elementary and going though Algebra II and Trigonometry.  Anyway, here is the very first one in the series and it covers what I think the essential math skills I want my own children to master by 3rd grade.

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My New Video Series — Essential Math For Kids (And Parents) | Gary Rubinstein's Blog