How I Came to Blogging

This blog post is for Kate Nowak (@k8nowak) who has requested the online math community to tell me why you blog. "True story" - this is what I always say when I tell a story. Another favourite line of mine is "it is better to make stories than to tell them."

1. What hooked you on reading the blogs? Was it a particular post or person? Was it an initiative by the nice MTBoS folks? A colleague in your building got you into it? Desperation?

I can remember the moment about 5 years ago that I was teaching a lesson on Vectors via chalk and talk on a Friday afternoon (17th year of teaching) and the words/explanations and numbers/formulas were coming out of my mouth and were being written on the board and I was already at my cottage. WOW -  I was disengaged, imagine the engagement of my students - YIKES! SOMETHING NEEDED TO CHANGE!

 

I was fine in my academic classes. (They would of learned without me.) But my at risk classes were doing poorly. I needed to change it up. Thanks to Bruce McLaurin we went down the pathway of activity based teaching. I wrote about it here.

 

I eventually saw Dan Meyer's TedTalk. Followed his blog-it was a game changer.

 

2. What keeps you coming back? What's the biggest thing you get out of reading and/or commenting?

I get great ideas about a bunch of different aspects in teaching. Plain and simple. I get more PD then everyone else. That should make me better.

3. If you write, why do you write? What's the biggest thing you get out of it?

It took a while to get me writing but I am now getting into it. I am a poor writer. I was apprehensive because of it - but I have finally decided not to care about this. Hopefully I will get better at it.

The biggest thing I get out of it - competition. I am ultra competitive - I want to be the best.

Anyone who really knows me would not be surprised by this.

4. If you chose to enter a room where I was going to talk about blogging for an hour (or however long you could stand it), what would you hope to be hearing from me? MTBoS cheerleading and/or tourism? How-to's? Stories?

I could only hope to be in that room. After Dan's blog you were next. Of course I only lurked! and then implemented. I would want to hear your story. Trials and tribulations, successes and failures. A little advice.

GOOD LUCK with your presentation.