Hello From SC

I am sitting in the opening Keynote session and the topic is our education system in the US and how the model is not working.  As I type this, the discussion is about how many teachers are leaving the profession and how little support teachers actually get.  The numbers leaving, due to general attrition versus retirees are 3-1.  That is scary but we all know why.  Schools and the job market is changing but teacher preparation/professional development is not.  I could go on but will stop here because you all know this better than I do!

It is comforting to know that there are folks at the policy level in our national government who are aware of the need for a massive overhaul of our educational system; and that huge numbers of our teaching work force is close to retirement (over 50% in the next few years) and a large percent of new teachers leave in five years or less.

Class Questions

These are the questions that you may blog/journal on.

1) Andrew's principal wants to know what your schools are using for a definition of a cone.

2) Bill would like to know about differentiation of instruction as well as planning tips for short classes.

3) I want to know what everyone has decided on for their masters' project. If you just posted about this you can skip it but if not, please share the idea with the rest of the class. It does not have to be technology.

4) Your reaction to the state tests that you had to give this week.

5) Aha moments you would like to share with us (and the world).

6) I would like everyone to revisit the proof of the sum of the angles of a triangle = 360 degrees. What would you write for this one? You saw one approach in class today.

7) Post a sentence or two about the article you choose to read, from the NCTM Research Book. ("Student Understanding" and "Measure Up" - these items are at the bottom of our course reading list on Blackboard.

Take care and see you in two weeks.