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"Fact, I have anxiety about math facts. I have a degree in math. I graduated college with honors. I got the highest score at my university on the Putnam exam, which is supposedly a big deal to get a non-zero score. I taught high school math for 14 years. I am the Queen of Spreadsheets. I code for fun and share my coding projects. I repeated the 4th grade due to math facts. After 2 years of 4th grade, I never passed the timed math tests. If you ask me to do basic arithmetic in my head, even 7×8, I freeze. My heart races. I try to dodge the question. I'm perfectly capable. I'm more inclined to use strategies when doing math problems than memorization. When I'm alone and tallying student scores on a paper, I do great. If I need to design a spreadsheet and apply math, I excel at that. I am not alone. Reading Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler, for the first time in my life I realize I am not dumb."

"Educators often talk about 21st-century skills and the benefits of incorporating communication, creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking into lessons. These are skills students rarely learn straight out of a textbook. The best way to teach them, we've found, is by making these skills a relevant part of their active lives. If that sounds daunting, rest assured, it doesn't always have to be. One way we have taught these skills is through project-based learning (PBL), where students apply what they've learned during a hands-on project that is relevant to the real world - and their lives."

"Are you looking for a fun, hands-on activity to teach basic programming and maker skills at home or in the classroom? Arduino, and specifically, Arduino UNO are an excellent tool to teach and apply basic electronics and robotics skills."

"Educator Mia MacMeekin made this infographic about ways to inspire students to think more deeply about how innovation applies to them. It's a helpful way to begin a conversation about what it means to innovate, a word that sometimes seems to belong in the adult domain of business and is estranged from how students think about living their lives."

"As avid lovers of literature, teachers often find themselves wanting to impart every bit of knowledge about a well-loved text to their students. And this is not just an ELA issue-other disciplines also often focus on the content of a text. However, teaching reading skills in English classes and across the disciplines is an almost guaranteed way to help students retain content. Unfortunately, the tendency to focus on the content is a real enemy to the ultimate goal of building reading skills. ADVERTISEMENT Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, students are being shortchanged in their education. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information on a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills. Here are some ideas on how to incorporate reading skills lessons into a curriculum."

"Design thinking is an approach to learning that includes considering real-world problems, research, analysis, conceiving original ideas, lots of experimentation, and sometimes building things by hand. The projects teach students how to make a stable product, use tools, think about the needs of another, solve challenges, overcome setbacks and stay motivated on a long-term problem. The projects also teach students to build on the ideas of others, vet sources, generate questions, deeply analyze topics, and think creatively and analytically. Many of those same qualities are goals of the Common Core State Standards. (What Does 'Design Thinking' Look Like in School?) I use the following activities to introduce elementary students to the design thinking process. The ultimate goal is for the learners to work on their own, self-selected problems in which they will apply the design thinking. Introducing the general design process to elementary student occurs through showing the following video about the engineering process:"

"Design is an artistic endeavor that values the creative and human centered application of math, science and technology. Using design to help others learn science is not intuitive, however, once practiced you will see how humanistic and authentic it is to incorporate design in any subject. Below is a list of the most promising benefits that I have noticed in the past six years for using design as a framework and making as the engine to empower students as they gain and apply their scientific literacy."

"Understand key programming concepts and apply them using Scratch, with this introductory course for primary or K-5 teachers." Starts in February 2017

"2006 wasn't just the year of the world's most famous TED Talk. It's also the year that Ignite Talks-a rapid-fire presentation style-originated. These bite-sized presentations take up no more than 5 minutes each, and are starting to show up in more and more education venues-spreading virally like EdCamps, and popping up at conferences like ISTE and EdSurge's own Tech for Schools Summits. The movement has grown steadily to a total of 350+ Ignite organizing teams since the first event debuted in Seattle in 2006. Speak with educators and entrepreneurs, and there's talk of applying the Ignite Talk model to professional development, student projects, or investor pitches. Why? According to Ignite Talk co-founder Brady Forrest, it's an easily-approachable format that forces people to talk succinctly and hone their public speaking-a skill that just about anyone who presents to groups of people or students should work to develop. EdSurge caught up with Forrest and a number of Ignite Talkers to learn more."

"We frequently hear students (and even teachers) make comments such as "I'm not good at math" or "I'm just not a math person." Interestingly enough, we rarely hear adults say "I'm not good at reading" or "I'm just not someone who reads." Math, like reading, is a basic life skill that we use on a daily basis in almost everything we do. According to growth mindset, no one is simply "bad at math." Just as you learned to read, ride a bicycle, or have a conversation, you can also learn to solve equations and apply mathematical concepts. In an effort to support student growth mindset in math classrooms, Amazon Education has teamed up with Common Sense Education, Edutopia, Teaching Channel, Stanford University's PERTS (Project for Educational Research That Scales), and others to develop and share meaningful resources for teachers to access anywhere."

"We typically teach students a growth mindset through online programs that demonstrate how the brain changes with learning (how the neurons grow stronger connections when students work on hard things and stick with them) and how to apply this to their schoolwork. These programs also contain testimonials from other students about how they've used a growth mindset to approach their schoolwork and to work toward meaningful goals in their lives. In the wake of the many exciting research results, educators became increasingly interested in promoting a growth mindset among their students. This was extremely gratifying. To see some of the great successes was even more gratifying. However, I slowly became aware that not all educators understood the concept fully."

"The ultimate goals of mathematics instruction are students understanding the material presented, applying the skills, and recalling the concepts in the future. There's little benefit in students recalling a formula or procedure to prepare for an assessment tomorrow only to forget the core concept by next week. It's imperative for teachers to focus on making sure that the students understand the material and not just memorize the procedures. Here are six ways to teach for understanding in the mathematics classroom:"

"Even after teaching for a decade, Pamela Baack found herself battling the calendar as she tried to keep her students on track. She's the first to admit it wasn't easy to change the way she had been teaching for a decade. "We were always on someone else's pace, not our kids' pace," says Baack, who teaches at the Bella Romero Academy of Applied Technology, a K-8 public school in Greeley, Colorado. Most lessons were taught to the entire class, requiring Baack to constantly search for opportunities to help the students who struggled. "It was hard to differentiate, because it was hard to find the time to go back," she says. Today, students in Baack's third-grade classroom work through addition, multiplication, and division activities at their own pace. Some progress through lessons quickly, while others get the opportunities they need to relearn and practice key concepts until they are ready to move forward. Importantly, Baack says, even the students who struggle the most are at grade level. "They're still doing what every else is doing, but at a different pace," she says. "They're exposed to grade-level standards and content and will be able to move up." "

"As one of the commenters exclaims on David Neat's blog of modeling tips: "I feel like I've just discovered the Holy Grail of modeling sites!" David's simple, plain WordPress blog betrays the amount and quality of the content found there. David writes about and teaches model-making and this site gathers the materials from his books, courses, and lectures. More on Modeling Tabletop Gaming -- Modeling Tips and Tricks Top Ten Tips: Designing Models For 3D Printing How to Design and 3D Print Your Own Custom Gaming Miniatures There is a ton of material here, on everything from technical drawing to materials and supplies for modeling, modeling techniques (from the most general to the very specific), and lots more. David even has a Lexicon section with terms used in model-making. Most of what's covered concerns architectural models and models used in set decorating, but the techniques can be applied to any type of building and terrain modeling. I look at a lot of hobby modeling sites and rarely have I seen one with this much depth, rigor, and high-value content. I will definitely be spending a lot of time here in the future."

"Computational thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution(s) in such a way that a computer - human or machine - can effectively carry out. Informally, computational thinking describes the mental activity in formulating a problem to admit a computational solution.  The solution can be carried out by a human or machine. This latter point is important.  First, humans compute.  Second, people can learn computational thinking without a machine.  Also, computational thinking is not just about problem solving, but also about problem formulation.1 The Digital Careers organisation says that students need experience and skills in computational thinking and computer programming (coding) to be successful in their future careers.2 The NSW syllabuses provide a range of opportunities to develop students' understanding of computational thinking and coding. This guide draws out the areas where computational thinking can be applied within the existing NSW K-8 syllabuses. Like the syllabuses, it is organised into stages of learning and subdivided into learning areas, with suggested activities and links to online resources. Not all resources and activities listed in this guide refer to coding explicitly, but they do aim to develop algorithmic and computational thinking skills to better enable students and teachers to reach a coding goal."

"Research shows that reflection is an essential part of learning. That means that we need time to think about -- and talk about -- the ways we have processed and applied new information, concepts, and ideas. Unfortunately, including routine reflection time and activities in our curriculum can be an afterthought for many of us teachers. Here's one reason why student reflection definitely deserves more attention: When students reflect on what they have learned, ownership of that new knowledge increases -- and with ownership comes more application and use of that new skill or knowledge."

"The concept was pretty straightforward, but the logistics were a bit complicated. We wanted to create four mobile maker space carts that could rotate among four middle school libraries in the Knox County School district of Knoxville, TN. It all started when our director of instructional technology, Theresa Nixon, encouraged us to apply for a TeacherPreneur Grant to fund a traveling maker space program. Our funding goal was approximately $50,000. Requesting  this much money meant that we needed a an idea that dazzled. As we prepared the grant application, the librarians representing the middle schools (Farragut, Vine, Carter, and Karns) discussed rotating maker space carts that would dock in each library for nine weeks. We hoped to optimize accessibility to high-ticket items such as 3-D printers and keep our libraries dynamic with new projects."

"Makerspace is a relatively new method of teaching students in a space where they can get hands-on experience working with concepts they recently learned. The point of the space is to make, create, and invent new things. There are many advantages to giving students a place to apply concepts, and those benefits are true for all areas and fields of study. If you have been thinking about creating a maker space in your classroom, here are a few things to consider to help you understand why you should go ahead and do it."

"Having worked closely all year with David Andrews in Year 6, particularly on the introduction of iPads to promote creative and effective teaching, we agreed several months ago that we wanted to apply some of the changes and developments to the traditional end of summer term Year 6 Leavers' Assembly. This blog post describes the approach we took and explores the outcomes."