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"Math has been a traditionally thorny subject in many American schools. Lots of children dislike math and many more adults stopped taking mathematics as soon as they are able, even when they were successful in their classes. At the same time, mathematical thinking is a crucial part of many of the most exciting and growing careers in science, technology, engineering and math, not to mention important for a general understanding of the mathematical world around us. So, what can U.S. math educators do to shift this dynamic? Stanford Mathematics Education Professor Jo Boaler is championing a dramatic shift in how many math teachers approach instruction. Rather than focusing on the algorithms and procedures that make mathematics feel like a lock-step process -- with one right way of solving problems -- Boaler encourages teachers to embrace the visual aspects of math. She encourages teachers to ask students to grapple with open-ended problems, to share ideas and to see math as a creative endeavor. She works with students every summer and says that when students are in a math environment that doesn't focus on performance, speed, procedures, and right and wrong answers they thrive. They even begin to change their perceptions of whether they can or can't do math."

"International Dot Day started in a few classrooms in 2009 and has grown into a celebration celebrated around the world. I am constantly sharing links on Twitter and Facebook to encourage more classes to participate, adults may feel free to connect with me. Official Page and Signup: http://www.thedotclub.org is where to send people first. There is a yearly signup and lots of resources and ideas to make your day (week, month, school year) successful. Please encourage people to check out the site and sign up!! "

Two quotes by Albert Einstein point to the importance of creating a culture within our schools (and organisations) that encourages experimentation, innovation, tinkering and indeed failure. If we are serious about embracing change, exploring new approaches, maximising the possibilities of new technologies, applying lessons from new research and truly seek to prepare our students for a new work order, we must become organisations that encourage learning from failure

"We have designed a Mathematical Mindset Guide to help teachers create or strengthen a growth mindset culture. This guide contains five Mathematical Mindset Practices along with links to teaching videos.  The videos all show Jo and Cathy teaching middle school students. There are different stages described in each practice to help capture the journey of a mathematical mindset classroom and the evidence teachers may collect along the way for their own reflection or for discussion with colleagues.  The guide has been designed for teachers to use in the process of self-reflection, or for coaches or administrators to use to encourage a mindset teaching culture. In the interactive version of the guide on this web page, you can click on the arrow buttons in the Expanding descriptors to see a short extract of Jo/Cathy teaching in the ways described. Our goal for the guide is to support a mathematical mindset journey of learning and growth. Teachers can work with the guide individually or in collaboration with others. The guide is intended to be non-judgmental, non-evaluative, and iterative in nature. When using the guide consider the classroom community as a whole rather than the teacher alone. It is also important to note that while the goal of the guide is to communicate all aspects of a mathematical mindset classroom, it is not always possible to find evidence of all practices in one lesson. We encourage teachers, coaches, and administrators to use this guide, and our reflection suggestions iteratively over multiple lessons."

"There's an old saying that the things that change your life are the books you read, the places you go, and the people you meet. But I'd like to add a fourth: the challenges you face (and how you face them) will always change your life. If we want our students to respond to challenges with creativity and inventiveness, we must create the conditions in which innovation is not only possible but encouraged. You don't help students learn to invent by giving worksheets or cookie-cutter assignments. In fact, these one-size-fits-all approaches may actually take up the time that could be used for such creativity. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. According to the Torrance Test-which measures CQ, or creativity quotient-the United States has been declining in creativity since 1990. There has to be a reason. Perhaps it is because we focus on students' weaknesses instead of their strengths. In many schools, we'll put a math genius who struggles with grammar into extra English classes. Should we not give this math genius access to college-level advanced math work, and figure out the basic English requirements he or she needs for a basic understanding of grammar? Why do we think that all students should be good at everything? We can either be average at everything or exceptional at something. With this in mind, here are some things we need to do to encourage student inventors as we nurture student passions, interests, and strengths."

"This is a collection of 100 STEAM Projects created for teachers and educators to do with youth. Each project encourages exploration, modification, and students to pursue their own ideas and curiosities. They are also meant to be accessible, both in approach and availability and cost of materials. Feel encouraged to adapt them to your local learning space."

"When Sasha Ariel Alston pursued her love for coding, she noticed there were never many girls ― especially girls of color ― pursuing it, too. That's why she decided to write a children's book to encourage girls to learn about coding and STEM fields at an early age.  Alston is a 19-year-old Pace University student getting a major in information systems and a minor in marketing. She spent two years writing Sasha Savvy Loves to Code, a kids' book about a 10-year-old who becomes interested in coding, just like Alston. "The purpose of the book is just to get girls interested in coding and to provide basic coding terms," she said."

"I'm always looking for new ways to encourage my students to read. If you're a primary teacher, I know you do, too. I encourage students to read alone. To read with their teacher. To read to a classmate. To read to a big buddy. To read to their parents or siblings. The more you read, the better reader you will be, so it just makes sense. Because our classroom is connected with so many people OUTSDE the four walls of our physical space, I have sometimes been able to find a pre-service teacher or someone else who is willing to listen to my students read via Skype. When this happens, I have the students choose a book ahead of time. Then, I just make a list of the students who will be reading, post it near the computer and make sure the first student is connected and ready to go. As each student finishes reading, she tells the next student on the list that it is her turn to read. I am free to work with other students while this "reading center" runs itself."

"Teacher or Facilitator: Is it just semantics? What is the first thing that comes to mind when someone uses the word, "facilitator"? Perhaps you think of words like planner, coordinator, promoter, developer, or designer. All of these definitions lead us to think of a facilitator as someone who sets up, designs, and oversees an environment that is conducive to the goal at hand but they are not at the center of the scene."

Think of the mathemagician's role as "Encourage and Engage" supplanting the old "Command and Control." The affordances of multiple inexpensive or free social, communications, and information technologies, most of which are available through cyber-space networks, creates a changed world for workplace training, for community building, and for personal learner.

ollaboration Tools Collaborative learning is essentially people working together to solve a problem, create a product, or derive meaning from a body of material. A central question or problem serves to organize and drive activities, and encourage application, analysis, and synthesis of course material. While the landscape of technology that can be used to support central activities of collaborative learning is vast and varied, it is often lumped together under a single label: "collaboration tools." Given this vast and distributed landscape of tools, the difficulty of finding one or a set of tools to meet your goals can be time intensive. We are here to help. For faculty who are interested in learning more, want to explore, or try out a tool, contact us to talk with an Eberly colleague in person.

Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.

Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences.

"Cooperative learning is as much a skill for students to develop as it is a reflection on how we work and interact in any career or group situation. With an endless number of different techniques and strategies, try using some of the below examples to group and encourage cooperation with your students. Mix and match techniques, take from one, add to another and venture forward to invent and create your own. Each of these strategies has been sourced from the Creative Commons text 'Educational Psychology' authored by professor of educational psychology at the University of Manitoba Kelvin Seifert and Dr. Rosemary Sutton."

Recently I have been thinking about the role I play in encouraging my students to think and to trust in themselves as capable learners. This is largely due to the topic of our Term Four Unit of Inquiry.

"This morning, I spent a happy 20 minutes wandering around my back garden taking photos of grass, flowers and trees to decorate a virtual patchwork elephant. I am 37 years old, and not ashamed. The Elmer's Photo Patchwork app isn't really for me, though. It's a children's app released this month by developer Touch Press, based on the popular series of Elmer books. And it's one of a growing number of apps trying to encourage kids' real-world play, rather than cannibalise it. The best iPad apps for kids of 2014 Their features vary, but their common goal is to get children to look up from their screens, whether it's taking photographs, making papercraft animals or spotting constellations in the night skies. Here are 10 worth investigating with your children. It's iOS-heavy, which sadly reflects the priority being given (or, rather, not given) to other platforms by developers of these kinds of apps"

"I believe that every single child is gifted and that every kid has a talent which we as educators should help uncover. This is not easy when you have a curriculum to follow and tons of material to teach. But that given we need to make time to work with kids in a different and more creative setting. It's important to let them explore new things that may not be present in your curriculum but are in your students' heads all the time. This is how we can awaken curiosity in young children and help them develop creative thinking. Interestingly though, this idea does not originate in education or teaching practice. It was actually inspired by Google's "20% Time" rule, which encourages employees to spend 20% of their time working on their own projects and ideas outside Google. This concept inspired the idea of a "Genius Hour" at school."

"When a school makes the decision to actively engage its diverse community of families, the benefits far outweigh the effort. Check out these eight ways to do it."

"Recently our administrators were given iPads to use in order to increase efficiency. After soliciting my PLN and doing some hands-on research I have compiled a 'getting started' app list. Here are the apps I encourage you to check out if you are just getting started with using your ipad."