2017 Week Two Round Up of #MTBoS Blog Posts

Here are all of the posts about Soft Skills for week two of the 2017 Blogging Initiative! Below are the posts, sorted by grade level, with general posts at the bottom. Take time to read and comment if you would like! Be on the lookout later today for the prompt for week 3!

Grades 6 – 8

Jdaomath @jdaomath, has a blog named mathemusings..
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Soft Skills: Building Confidence” and the author sums it up as follows: Exploring different structures and strategies that build student confidence. Student jobs, Open Ended Warm-ups, Error Analysis/ My Favorite No.

David Walker , has a blog named Common Core Geometry.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled The MTBoS, Week 2: Two Important Soft Skills” and the author sums it up as follows: One important soft skill is how to ask the students questions. A second is how to listen to their answers.

Tom Hall @trigoTOMetry, has a blog named Trigotometry.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled #MTBoSBlogsplosion: Positive Praise” and the author sums it up as follows: My growth in using positive praise this year and how I want to use it in the future.

AnnaMarie Pacura @ampacura, has a blog named I Am a Math Teacher.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled The Soft Skills of Teaching Middle School Mathematics” and the author sums it up as follows: My reflection on the unique set of soft skills that are needed to be a great middle school math teaching, including the passion of being a learner, and the delicate balance that is teaching middle schoolers.

Cathy Yenca @mathycathy, has a blog named MathyCathy’s Blog.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Teaching ^(Adolescent Humans) Mathematics #MTBoS #MtbosBlogsplosion” and the author sums it up as follows: Check out a few classroom-culture-building experiences that have evolved in my middle school mathematics classroom.

Algebra 1 or 2

Laura Jenkins @mrsjtweetsmath, has a blog named Mrs. J’s Classroom.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled These are a few of my favorite things…from the #MTBoS” and the author sums it up as follows: 3 things stolen from #MTBoS that you can use in your classroom today!

Pre-Calculus

Aimee Shackleton @aimeeshack, has a blog named Techsponential learning.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Favourite websites – Desmos classroom activities” and the author sums it up as follows: An introduction to using Desmos.com in the classroom, focusing on classroom activities.

Fracqua , has a blog named Matematici.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled How to test a lot without testing much” and the author sums it up as follows: Here I talk about my struggles in the search of a balance between testing students often and freeing students from tests.

General

Sam Shah @samjshah, has a blog named Continuous Everywhere But Differentiable Nowhere.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Girls and Math” and the author sums it up as follows: This post takes snippets of my year that revolve around encouraging girls in mathematics. It is not a success story, nor is it a failure. It has just given me some food for thought.

Micaela Newman @altmath, has a blog named Alternative Math.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Soft Skills: MTBoS Blogging Initiative ” and the author sums it up as follows: Reflection on what we mean by soft skills and how they sow up in my teaching. Also..be kind to yourself. If you are thinking about this, you probably have some skills 🙂

Liz Mastalio @MissMastalio, has a blog named Mastalio. Math. Mavericks..
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Honestly, the Math is Secondary” and the author sums it up as follows: The most important thing you can do is get to know your students as people. Even when they don’t want you to. You just have to be sneaky about it.

Pat Ciula , has a blog named Just MSU.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Week 2, With Time to Spare!” and the author sums it up as follows: Not feeling like I could add anything significant about Soft Skills, I shared two remarkable and insightful contributions made by others, and included some Talking Points.

Nolan Doyle @ndoyle1015, has a blog named Math Mulligans.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Soft Skills” and the author sums it up as follows: I believe every interaction you have with your students involves soft skills. There are some soft skills I feel come naturally to me yet others that are much more challenging. For those more challenging soft skills, I have to set goals and create structures in my classroom and instruction to help me improve.

Anna Blinstein @borschtwithanna, has a blog named Borscht With Anna.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Why Might Students Be Motivated in Math Class” and the author sums it up as follows: One aspect of “soft skills” is motivating students to care about your class and put work into learning mathematics. I have recently been thinking about the ways that different groups of students might be motivated or connect to the class in different ways and how we might need to structure the class and our interactions with them differently.

Jamie Garner @mavenofmath, has a blog named mavenofmath.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled My Math Story” and the author sums it up as follows: Every teacher has a story. Here is mine.

Jennifer Abel @abel_jennifer, has a blog named Mathsational.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled #MTBoSBlogsplosion Week 2: Soft Skills – Collaboration” and the author sums it up as follows: Using Kagan Strategies to to structure collaborative assignments.

Karen D. Campe @KarenCampe, has a blog named Reflections and Tangents.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Exams Ahead!” and the author sums it up as follows: Preparing for semester exams: how to be successful and not overwhelmed.

Gregory Taylor @mathtans, has a blog named Mathie x Pensive.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Soft Skills: The Middle Ground” and the author sums it up as follows: I claim I have soft skills, but only use them by request, in part because dealing with people is exhausting. Is that just me? Also, a tip about finding “the middle ground” between love and hate, and how familiarity can be a factor.

Denise Gaskins @letsplaymath, has a blog named Let’s Play Math.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Math Inspirations: Why Study Mathematics?” and the author sums it up as follows: If you or your students are singing the “Higher Math Blues,” here are some quotations that may cheer you up — or at least give you the strength of vision to keep on slogging.

Jenn Vadnais @RilesBlue, has a blog named Communicating Mathematically.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Teacher Moves – Soft Skills” and the author sums it up as follows: The post provides concrete examples of how teachers can use soft skills in their daily interactions with students.

Nathaniel Highstein @nhighstein, has a blog named 17Goldenfish.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled MTBoS 2017 Soft Skills: My Grade 8 Exit Trip” and the author sums it up as follows: This post includes some details of a trip I organize each year at the end of 8th grade. Students have a chance to showcase some academic skills, but the important message is that we love them and that they are strongest when they demonstrate that they love each other.

Cheryl Leung @MathEasyAsPi, has a blog named Math Easy As Pi.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled A Matter Of Belief” and the author sums it up as follows: My post is a sideways examination of soft skills. I wrote about a young woman gaining confidence in her abilities in math and the things that I think might have helped her discover her very real strength.

Marissa W @viemath, has a blog named La Vie Mathématique.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Soft Skills: Encouraging Perseverance #MTBoSBlogsplosion” and the author sums it up as follows: This post is about how I encourage perseverance by using vertical and horizontal non-permanent surfaces, and Sara VanDerWerf’s Scale of Persistence videos about people stuck on an escalator and a beagle going after a chicken nugget.

Pamela Rawson @rawsonmath, has a blog named rawsonmath.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled “I’m not good at math.”” and the author sums it up as follows: A brief glimpse into how I work with my students to get them to move from “I can’t” to “I can.” Teaching skills through problem solving teaches my students that they are capable of doing more than just arithmetic or following algorithmic solutions.

Janet Hollister @JanetHollister, has a blog named Pi R Sqaure.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Soft Skills – Building From Strength” and the author sums it up as follows: In this blog post I remember a student that was an amazing problem solver when it comes to 3-D puzzles and struggled with procedural math. We used his visualization skill to help him find success in mathematics.

Wwndtd @wwndtd, has a blog named What Would Neil deGrasse Tyson Do?.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled #MTBoSBlogsplosion: Soft Skills” and the author sums it up as follows: Distancing their verbal responses from the specter of “correct” has been really useful in getting more kids to talk more often.

Mark Chubb @markchubb3, has a blog named Thinking Mathematically.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled The smallest decisions have the biggest impact!” and the author sums it up as follows: How do we know how much scaffolding to provide? When do we give it? What does it look like? This post offers thinking behind our little decisions we make, and what those decisions mean for our students.

Julie Reulbach @jreulbach, has a blog named I Speak Math.
The post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Student Blogging Class, 2017” and the author sums it up as follows: This post is about a blogging class that I teach during the Winterm week at my school. I love that I get to share blogging with students, and that I get to teach something other than math for one week of the year.