Open Middle Problems - The Biggest Bang for a Teacher

Episode Notes Available at: jakemiller.net/eduducttape-episode-49

• Episode Sponsors:
  • PolyUp.com - Fall Math and STEM Challenge - Visit PolyUp.com and click apply for a grant, or AVID schools sign up via polyup.com/c/AVIDrocks
  • TextHelp - Sign up for a free EquatIO teacher account at text.help/equatio-fft
• Today's Guest: Robert Kaplinsky
  • Robert has been an educator since 2003 as a classroom teacher, teacher specialist, instructor for the UCLA, and presenter at conferences around the world. He's the author of Open Middle Math: Problems That Unlock Student Thinking and created the #ObserveMe movement. He's also the founder and president of Grassroots Workshops.
  • Contact Info: @robertkaplinsky on Twitter, @robert_kaplinsky on Instagram, @robertkaplinsky on Facebook, robertkaplinsky.com, openmiddle.com, grassrootsworkshops.com, robert@robertkaplinsky.com

• 2 Truths & 1 Lie
• Educational Duct Tape Question: "How do I teach mathematical problem solving digitally?"
  • "We are coming from a position where we have always taught it without technology, we should give ourselves a lot of grace."
  • In-N-Out burger question
    • Find similar problems at robertkaplinsky.com/lessons
  • Desmos Activity Builder for a real-world problem
    • Desmos has pre-built classroom activities, as well as the "Activity Builder" for making your own.
    • Use drag-and-drop editing to add content to an interactive slide deck (text boxes, sketches, graphs, etc.)
    • Slides can be oneway (providing info to students) or interactive (text questions, drag-and-drop, sketch, card sorts, etc.)
    • Can see an overlay view that is similar to what Pear Deck offers
    • Teacher.desmos.com
    • Desmos Marbleslides
    • Desmos can anonymize student names and freeze student screens
    • Sliders let students explore elements of problems, patterns, and graphs (for example, changing the m or b in y=mx + b)
  • "A lot of the way that we value mathematics in the United States is on getting the right answers quickly and efficiently. As a teacher, I was really good at creating math robots who could get the answers, but really didn't know what they were talking about."
  • Focus on real-world problem-solving in mathematics → mathematical modeling
  • "It's easy to enter into, but challenging to master and that, I think, is very satisfying in general."
  • Open Middle Math
    • Find problems on https://www.openmiddle.com/
    • Learn why educators' like Open Middle problems at #WhyOpenMiddle
    • Open Middle - "Want the Google Slides?"
      • Asynchronous use of the Google Slides - a separate set of slides for each kid, but that makes it more difficult to observe their work
      • Synchronous - collaborative Google Slides
      • Level up - Google Slides with Pear Deck
        • The video of Robert using Pear Deck with an Open Middle problem is in this workshop.
        • or The Answer Pad
  • Open Middle with Desmos Activity Builder
  • The Dunning-Kruger Effect - "The more that you learn, the more that you realize you don't know."
• The Celebration of the Adjacent Possible
  • Apple Podcast Review from Jated Bubbsy
  • #EduDuctTape Flipgrid Question from Andrew Nikola
    • microphones that I mentioned:
      • Samson Q2U Handheld Dynamic
      • Audio-Technica ATR2100
      • Audio-Technica ATR2100x
      • Blue Snowball
      • Blue Yeti
      • Rode