Don’t worry if time has been your enemy and you have not been able to complete (or even participate in) the first three missions. Please jump in anytime! The goal of the Explore the MathTwitterBlogosphere is to introduce teachers to everything this vast community has to offer.
Hello all! It’s Julie Reulbach, and I’m so excited to share Mission #4 with you – Listen and Learn!
Apparently, this is what I look like when I’m excited!
In the first few missions we connected through the written word via blogs and twitter. But for this mission, we are going to listen and learn, with a Global Math Department Webinar and an Infinite Tangents Podcast!
Below I’m going to explain what the Global Math Department and Infinite Tangents Podcast are all about. Then when you’re interested is piqued, I’ll introduce the actual mission at the bottom. And for a cherry on top, we have a bonus mission for you…if you choose to accept it.
The Global Math Department:
One of the most amazing things about this community is what we produce together. And, like Twitter Math Camp, Global Math is produced by teachers, for teachers. Global Math was started by Megan Hayes-Golding, @mgolding, and is now hosted by Chris Robinson, @absvalteaching. Megan, who is also a science teacher, had attended Global Physics Department webinars. After attending Twitter Math Camp 2012 (#TMC12) in Saint Louis, she was inspired to develop a similar venue for math teachers.
The majority of the #TMC12 participants had read each others blogs and interacted on twitter. We felt we “knew” each other before we even arrived. However, hearing these dynamic teachers present brought the lessons they had blogged about to life! It made us all want to hear more. Thus, in August 2012, the Global Math Department was born.
“We are math teachers who share what we’ve learned, cause we don’t want our classes to suck the energy from students. Professional development among friends, not just colleagues. Fun! Immediately useful! Interesting!”
– Global Math Department
Global Math is held every Tuesday evening at 9:00PM ET. Educators (mostly classroom teachers) present on different subjects each week ranging from interactive notebooks to rich tasks. What’s awesome is that it’s for us, by us. Professional development based around what we care about! Just LOOK at some of the most recent presentations!
Global Math: Autumn Special, An International Event
On November 2nd, the Global Math Department is having an “Autumn Special”. In order to better reach and serve our international members, Nik Doran, from the UK, is hosting an international Global Math Department event this Saturday, November 2nd at 9pm GMT (5pm EDT, 2pm PDT). It’s called the Global Math Autumn Special. Please visit his blog to read about all of the details of the event.
Don’t worry if you are not able to attend Global Math Department gathering live, as you can still view the event after the fact! One of the best things about Global Math is that every webinar is recorded! Currently, there are over 60 webinars recorded that you can watch!
Overwhelmed by choice (or, no time to peruse and chose)? Here are some Global Math Presentations that you may enjoy watching.
- My Favorites – Problem Based Lessons and Tasks
- Instructional Practices for Mathematics with Steve Leinwand
- Twitter Math Camp: Session Recaps
- Exam Review that Doesn’t Suck
- Interactive Notebook Ideas
- Math Games
- They Noticed, They Wondered, Now What? with Max from Math Forum
Infinite Tangents Podcast: A Mathematics Education Podcast for Teachers
Ashli Black, @mythagon, is the creator of Infinite Tangents, #8Tangents.
“Tangents started due to one simple reason: I love listening to people talk math education. Sharing favorite practices and discussing teaching philosophies with others makes me a better teacher. As 2013 started shaping up to be a year of travel, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to capture these conversations and put them out there for others to listen to.
Infinite Tangents is about the voices in education that can too often be drowned out by politics and policy-chat. This podcast is about the work teachers do daily to make their classrooms places where children can thrive. Episodes focus on happenings in the classroom, teachers reflecting on their practice, and other stories from the front lines. Here are the top three downloaded interviews:
The episode that started it all: @mathymcmatherso
Our Lady of Zen Teaching: @cheesemonkeysf
Math Forum superhero, author, and all-around cool guy: @maxmathforum
Tangents is currently publishing twice a month as I found producing weekly episodes is way more work then I can handle on top of my actual job. Interview episodes are around the 45 minute mark and I’ve broken many into two parts so as not to lose anything I found to be awesome. If there is anyone you would like to hear interviewed or you have questions for the interviewees from specific episodes, head over to tangentspodcast.com and leave a comment! Thanks for listening, and I hope you make a great week for yourself listening and learning about the MTBoS.” – Ashli
** Bonus Assignment: Participate in Twittereen!
I know you all are all overachievers, and love a good bonus assignment!
Twittereen is an epic costume party, where you can “dress up” your avatar as someone else on Twitter! Please visit Megan’s blog to learn all about it! The results are always hilarious! Twittereen is so epic that we even had a special Global Math Twittereen Webinar devoted to it last year! Even if you can’t participate this year, please join in the fun and follow the #twittereen hashtag!
@jreulbach dressed as @mgolding
@j_lanier dressed as @natbanting
@mrpicc112 dressed as @approx_normal
Your mission for this week:
You should pick one event to watch/listen, either Global Math or Infinite Tangents. Or you can do both! We won’t stop you!
- Attend the Global Math Autumn Special Event this Saturday, November 2nd at 9pm GMT (5pm EDT, 2pm PDT). Global Math Autumn Special. I recommend RSVPing to this event because when you register, Big Marker will send you an email reminder. If you can’t make it to the live event, watch a previous webinar.
- Listen to any Infinite Tangents Podcast and then leave a comment on the Infinite Tangents website.
- Write a blog post reflecting on your “Listen and Learn” experience. Please include if you were able to attend the event live, or watched a recording (or podcast) instead.
- Tweet out your blog post. You might use @GlobalMath or @mythagon depending on which you wrote about. Include the #MTBoS and/or #GlobalMathDept or #8tangents hashtag.
- Include your blogpost in the comments here and then read and comment on the blog posts of the three commenters directly above you. Be sure that you are commenting on their blog and not here. 🙂
Exploring the MathTwitterBlogosphere 
Fun mission. I subscribe to Infinite Tangents on my iTunes and have made time for a few of the episodes. I ‘sat in’ on one of the Global Math meetings. I’ll make time this week to go back and have a fresh experience with both of these – then the blog post.
I think I’ll pass on the extra credit.
Reblogged this on I Speak Math and commented:
Mission #4 is live! Come on and Explore the MathTwitterBlogosphere with us!
I’ve joined Global Math meetings before, really enjoyed it. If only they didn’t occur during 2nd period… The International one is better, but 5 am is a little early for me! Guess I need to watch some of the videos. That or get someone to host one from Australia or Asia!
That’s a great idea! Contact @globalmathdept to set it up!
Since I can’t attend the Global Math Department Autumn Special (time zone issues), I decided to have a look at one of the archived presentations. You can read about my thoughts here: bit.ly/1anUuPd and find out why everyone within a 3km radius of my home now knows about the Global Math Department.
Just realised my link didn’t work properly (the hyperlink didn’t show up for ease of clicking). I’ll try again.
http://allthegoryalgebra.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/mtbos-mission-4-global-maths-pd.html
@Kalliistael
Attended Global Math last night. Engaged in alg2chat on twitter Monday. Have plans for Infinite Tangents catching up this weekend. Just posted my thoughts at http://mrdardy.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/mtbos-4-listen-and-learn/
@mrdardy
Enjoyed Global Math session on Review Activities That Don’t Suck and posted my lesson at
http://croitz.blogspot.com/2013/10/mission-4-listen-and-learn-mtbos.html
I listened to the first podcast and blogged about what I heard here: http://mathnerdjet.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/mtbos-mission-4/
Great mission. I intend to listen to some infinite tangents and to watch the global maths vids. I’ve got one in my list already about international teaching ideas.
‘re podcasts: you should check out my favorite maths one: “wrong, but useful” I review it here: http://wp.me/p2z9Lp-3d
I watched a Global Math Department session on math games. I found some practical ideas/resources and blogged about it here: http://educationalaspirations.com/2013/11/02/mathgames/
Jonathan Newman (@newmjh3)
Blog Post: http://wp.me/p2Eyr8-io
I listened to one of Ashli’s early Infinite Tangents podcasts where she interviewed Tina Cardone. Tina talks about a cool math camp and the blog “Productive Struggle”.
I watched the Global Math Department recording on Problem Solving. While I was sad not to find anything especially relevant to topics I teach, my joy was restored when I found Fawn Nguyen…there are some awesome teachers out here in the blogosphere:)
http://cantorinfinities.wordpress.com/learn-and-listen/
Interactive Notebooks and the Global Math Department…Taking Notes Can Be Fun! http://functionaloutliers.blogspot.com/2013/11/taking-notes-can-be-fun.html
Infinite tangents: Twitter Math Camp and Graphing…find it here http://verticalasymptote.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/infinite-tangents-tmc-and-graphing/
This was a fun one! Hard to find the time to participate live, so I watched an archived discussion. Awesome! http://mathmama95.com/2013/11/03/holy-guacamole-batman/
Mission 4: Listen and Learn, The Powers of Feedback and Questioning
Hey y’all, I blogged about the usefulness of questioning our students in a way to push them forward.
Even more important is the idea of feedback that doesn’t include grades or the answer no!
Loved this week’s mission.
Mission 4: Listen and Learn, The Powers of Feedback and Questioning
Watched the recorded version of GlobalMath and it got me thinking!
Read my blogpost here and the background below:
http://wp.me/p1SjHD-2l
Hey y’all, I blogged about the usefulness of questioning our students in a way to push them forward.
Even more important is the idea of feedback that doesn’t include grades or the answer no!
Loved this week’s mission.
I was able to attend the Global Math Department’s Autumn Special. Please read my “math party” recap at: http://unmuddlemath.blogspot.com/2013/11/mtbos-mission-4-listen-and-learn-global.html
This was a tough mission for me … I’m not an auditory learner. Listening to podcasts doesn’t work for me. And I even struggle with the Global Math webcasts. BUT today, I set aside time for the Autumn Special and I’m glad I did. Much to think about … wrote about those key ideas here: http://algebrasfriend.blogspot.com/2013/11/mission-4-global-math-autumn-special.html.
I think I can consider myself a new fan of the webinars and podcasts. http://mathinate.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/mtbos-mission-4-listen-and-learn/
As a vegan, I guess I do still enjoy a cheeseburger now and then. I blogged about a Global Math Department experience from a couple of weeks ago here: http://mathybeagle.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/vegan-teacher-crazy-about-cheeseburgers/
Finally had time to listen to Global Math Dept’s podcast on Interactive Notebooks, since I didn’t know how IN worked. They’re kind of like my students’ lab notebooks: http://wwndtd.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/mtbos-mission-4-lab-notebooks-for-math/
Here’s my post – took me a week because…well, read the post: http://hermathness.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mission-4-visiting-with-ashli-and-sadie/
Global Math Department Rocks! Without finding it this summer, I’m not so sure I would know about this fantastic community!! http://wp.me/p3OxkP-7o
I finally carved out some time to check out some Global Math Department!
http://1ntegrationbyparts.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/global-math-department/
I’m late again… Marks for consistency?!! I loved Mission 4 – thanks to all involved… Here is my very waffly blog post: http://jemmapduck.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/more-estimating-and-mission-4/
PD network? What PD network? Whats a PD network? Do you have a PD network?http://bcarrera.edublogs.org/?p=91
Had trouble posting on-time partially because joining the Global Math Department Autumn Special live at 5am was more difficult than I thought. But I’m glad that there is an archive that I can use. Here’s my blog post about the Global Math Department and proximity questions: http://www.coetail.com/wjmarkert/2013/11/08/global-math-department/
Trying to catch up with my blogs! Here is my blog for mission #4: http://cindyflim.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/mission-4-listen-and-learn
Gregory Taylor (@mathtans) reporting at:
http://mathiex.blogspot.ca/2013/11/mat-creative-math-endeavours.html
“What’s the point here? Basically, I’ve been keen on ‘Infinite Tangents’ since I first found out about it.”
Nik Doran
http://spectatormaths.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/exploremtbos-task-4-more-listening-more-learning/
“INFECTIOUS ENTHUSIASM”
Global Math Department: Review That Doesn’t Suck
http://rparis315.wordpress.com/2013/12/07/mtbos-mission-4-listen-and-learn/