The birds have found the feeder. We moved it and a suet holder closer to the house this winter since the trees that used to shelter them were cut down over the summer. I was afraid that their proximity to the house might frighten the birds, but it has not been a problem. In fact, it has made it easier to watch the birds as they feed.

For that special date 11-11-11, NPR's All Songs Considered did a podcast based on the this clip from This is Spinal Tap.

No surprise - my thoughts went to education. I wondered about the ways I try to turn my teaching volume up to eleven. There are certainly times in my classroom where I want to REALLY impress upon my learners the importance of what we are exploring. While this might result in literally turning up the volume, it is more likely to manifest itself in elaborate planning and over-the-top presentation. It might get the learners' attention, and maybe even their interest, but this line of thinking seems too self-centered to be sustainable.

"Education systems, teachers, school districts all over the world are going crazy about problem-based learning - nothing like a good problem to solve. But they are looking at the wrong bit of it. The thing we're neglecting is to find a generation of problem finders."

The above quote comes early in Ewan McIntosh's talk at TEDxLondon. This really connects with my goal to foster sustainable learning. Here is the entire talk (it is well worth the eight minutes).

I received the following email that I would like to share with the greater public community.  The announcement of Matt's Safe School Law brings to fruition the work of many child and student advocates who would like to bring an end to bullying as documented in my blog from March 2, 2011 and told in a summary that I provided in the Fall 2008 issue of Colleagues magazine (pp. 8-9).

In this series of posts, I want to share an approach we use with student teachers to support their development as reflective practitioners. The first post introduced the idea of using an action plan as a way for teachers to identify an area of challenge and seek out support. In subsequent posts, I plan to share examples of this approach in action.

My problem is that I tend to teach as I was taught. I know that research shows that I am not alone in this, but I thought I had gotten over this hurdle. Since 1990, I have been teaching math differently - and I have the student comments and parent phone calls to prove it. The changes I made as a math teacher were one of the reasons I became interested in mathematics education. Unfortunately, these changes did not transfer to all aspects of my teaching.

Today, part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is available in stores. When the movie opened in theaters this past July, I used it as an opportunity to write about teaching as storytelling. In this post, I want to take a look at a particular exchange between two main characters and consider what it might mean for teaching and learning mathematics. Warning - spoilers ahead.

This was the question guest host, Susan Page, asked author, Eric Greitens, on an episode of The Diane Rehm Show. Greitens responded:

At the recent Mathematical Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association [MCATA] Conference, I facilitated the following workshop: Making Mathematical Thinking Visible - Metacognitive Memoirs. Here is the workshop's description: