I recently saw a wonderful TED talk online by a teacher named Dan Meyer. Here is the link to the video http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html
I highly recommend watching it because Dan talks about something he calls “patient problem solving” which unfortunately, he claims that today’s textbooks and curricula do not teach towards. After you watch this, I’d love to hear from people to start a discussion of what they think of his thoughts. In many ways what he’s talking about in rewriting the problems from textbooks (or writing your own) is basically what my colleagues and I have done, but not as technologically savvy as he has become. The goals, however, are the same. To not be as “cookie-cutter” with how we teach problem solving in mathematics. I’d actually love to see him in action sometime.

As the year winds down, I am getting geared up for the PEA conference and looking at my class evaluations from my geometry course. Summarizing student thoughts are always the way that I look at ways to improve this course for the fall. I would be happy to share all of that with you this summer. Talk to you soon! Enjoy the video.