In the beginning

To begin with, let me state that this is neither the beginning of a course nor the beginning of my journey through creating meaningful learning. It is a couple weeks into the second semester of the school year and I have been intentionally working on creating meaningful learning for many years. But, I recently read Jo Boaler's book, Mathematical Mindsets, and I am currently blogging about my experiences in my first year teaching AP Statistics, and I kept thinking I should blog about what I am doing in my classroom to teach mathematical mindsets, and so here we are. It is the beginning of the blog.

What is "meaningful learning"? Students learn all the time whether teachers help them or not. Learning happens all the time in all sorts of ways and it is very presumptuous for a teacher to think that students cannot learn without them. No, my job is not to make my students learn. My job is to help them discover the subject matter and to develop their skills as learners in general. Math is the subject of my classroom, but I teach students. My goal is that they not only learn the skills and topics of mathematics, but that they also learn how to be better learners and are inspired to learn more. I aim to create opportunities in my classroom that allow students to grow.

I do not have a certification in teaching. Though I was a product of public schools, I have only ever taught in private schools and my first employer was happy that I had majored in math and so hired me to teach high school. In those first years, I simply tried to emulate what my teachers had done and what other teachers at my school were doing. And my students learned. But, in reflecting back on my work, I see now that there were many places where my teaching could have been better and that my students could have grown much more. My math homework was of the "drill and kill variety". I followed the textbook pretty closely, following the sequence that the textbook authors thought best. As a department, we did pick and choose a bit which topics from the textbook were to be taught and the pacing, but the curriculum was largely determined for us by the textbooks we used.

My courses nowadays are dramatically different from those many years ago. I am now teaching in my fourth independent school (the more savory way to say "private school"). I have worked with many different colleagues, gone to conferences and workshops, read books, and reflected on my teaching a lot. I have a better grasp of my role as teacher and I have developed and learned new means of teaching, ones that I believe create deeper and more meaningful learning. That is the point of this blog: to share with the readers what I have done and am doing and for me to reflect on my practices so that I might continue to improve and grow.

I have a lot to say on this matter. I plan to blog at least once per week. I would love to engage in discussions with other teachers out there, so please, comment away.

Finally, I will try to share materials and workshops and conferences that I have found instrumental in my growth. Dr. Boaler's book is one such item. Coming in February is the Learning and the Brain conference in San Francisco. Dr. Boaler and Carol Dweck (author of Mindset: the New Pyschology of Success) will both be presenting and I get to go this year. I believe the conference is full, so it is too late to register. But, there are three Learning and the Brain conferences each year and other one-day workshops.