Tina the Tutor

01/10/2022

I started off the week reading this opinion article in EdWeek by Steven Levitt of Freakonomics. Levitt has been arguing for years for more statistics/ data science to be taught in high schools, as have many other data enthusiasts. While I absolutely agree that we need our high school graduates to be more data savvy, I’m not sure how I feel about his proposal. I’d love for Lisa and Alice to weigh in on what’s happening now, and what’s on the table? 👩‍🏫
The passage in this article that I can’t get behind is, “Instead of teaching our young people obscure trigonometric techniques, let’s help them learn how to interpret the huge amounts of data being produced every day in our hyperconnected world.” As someone who has studied quite a bit of math, statistics, economics, actuarial science, accounting, etc, I’m not sure I agree that one subject needs to replace the other. Trigonometry is incredibly important for future STEM majors. What I think this entire conversation is lacking (unless I’ve missed it??) is the differentiation of future STEM majors, future non-STEM majors, and high school students who don’t plan to attend college. 🤔
Could an introductory statistics class be added as a high school graduation requirement? This could be two years of high school math, at minimum, to include one year of algebra and one year of statistics? Then students who don’t plan to attend college will still leave high school knowing how to navigate the sea of data on this high-tech planet. I’m just not seeing how an introductory statistics class would benefit a student who is already planning to take trig and/or calculus. Perhaps an alternate statistics class could be added for college-bound students who prefer to take a year of rigorous, calculus-based statistics, and save actual calculus for college? 🏫
I’ve been reading up on this hot topic lately and just can’t get enough of it. I’m curious what the opinions of math teachers are on this, and in particular those of you who work with high school students?

08/14/2021

08/07/2021

Does this drive anyone else bonkers?? 🤪 “New Math” does not exist!!!!
The same centuries-old math is now taught using powerful strategies that lead to deeper understanding of concepts. The math itself has not changed. The same old math is now taught using beautiful visuals. The math itself has not changed. The same old math is taught by discovering connections between material that were often glossed over in the past. The math itself has not changed. And these strategies and visuals and connections have always been there, they have just recently been standardized into curricula 📚 used across the globe. The math itself has not changed. The answers are the same. The algorithms are still there. The various branches of mathematics remain relatively unchanged. What has changed is that we have teachers 👩‍🏫who are now better trained to produce young mathematicians! 🎉
Who’s with me?? 🔢 🧮 📐

08/03/2021

I purchased this elementary math dictionary 📕 for my son, who is starting middle school soon, from Ellen’s Usborne book party! I’ve always loved Usborne books. (We have a few, including Look Inside an Airport ✈️, in which my kids must have lifted the flaps a bazillion times over the years!)
I thought this would be a good addition to our home library, for those times when he’s doing his homework and needs to review an elementary math topic (and his math-loving mom 🙋‍♀️ isn’t around).
Anyone else love Usborne books? 📚

07/28/2021

from myself on pretty much one of the happiest days of my life! 🎉
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“I had just asked a room of 6-year-old students if they notice math around them when they’re walking down the street...”

07/27/2021

Really enjoyed the talk on Desmos and its Activity Builder by at the Middle School Math Summit today! 💻 I had no idea that Desmos offered more than a graphing calculator and a scientific calculator! Thanks, Maggie! 👏
(https://www.prealgebrateachers.com/the-middle-school-math-summit-for-middle-school-math-teachers/)

07/26/2021

Watching Robert Kaplinsky speak at the Middle School Math Summit and I am 🌟SOLD🌟! I’ve used Open Middle math challenges before, but would now like to give my children one each daily, as well as include them in my tutoring sessions. Really cool! 👏
(https://www.prealgebrateachers.com/the-middle-school-math-summit-for-middle-school-math-teachers/)

07/21/2021

Today’s “Where’s the Math Wednesday” event is all about math at the Olympics! 🤸🏻‍♀️🏋🏾‍♂️🤼⛹🏻‍♀️And as my kids both participate in swim team all year, I thought this would be a good opportunity to start talking about meet results with my older one. 🧒🏻 (My daughter is 8 and doesn’t seem to care too much yet about how quickly she swims. 👧🏻)
My son and I watched a video of the 2016 Olympics in Rio in which Team USA won the Men’s 4x100 Freestyle Relay, and then I researched their times so that we could have a math chat about it. He was surprisingly interested in the numbers we discussed! 🎉
As Michael Phelps is a swimmer who Elliott has heard of, we decided to compare their times. At Elliott’s age they swim a 50-meter freestyle, not 100, so I asked him what we should do with his best time of 38.2 seconds in order to compare it to that of Phelps. Elliott knew to double his time. (Although it’s pretty unlikely that he would have been able to keep up that pace for another 50 meters!) That gave us 76.4 seconds for Elliott’s theoretical 100-meter freestyle. 🌊
Next we drew a number line to see how those numbers compared. We could see that Phelps was just past halfway to Elliott on the number line, but it wasn’t until we started chatting that the meaning of these numbers became clear. I asked, “Does this mean that you were twice as fast as Michael Phelps?” He knew this was silly, but it wasn’t until I asked, “After 47.12 seconds, how much of your race was done?” And Elliott realized, “Ohhhhh, a little more than half!” Because he understands basic percentages but hasn’t yet learned how to calculate them, I showed him that the actual amount was around 62%. 🏊‍♂️
This got me excited to watch the Olympics this summer and with my kids! 📺
Thank you to for inviting me to participate in this “Where’s the Math Wednesday” event! ❤️ For more ideas about math at the Olympics, check out the hashtag!

07/19/2021

Can we talk about checking answers? ✔️ The picture that I posted yesterday of eggs got me thinking about my process when answering math questions. 🤔
As a kid, I almost never got math questions wrong, and I believe this was in part because I *always* check my answers…sometimes multiple times when there’s no hurry. And, whenever possible, I check using a method other than how I initially solved the problem. Why? (1) I’ve noticed that I’m less likely to catch a mistake when doing a math question in the exact same way for a second time. And (2) I’ve always just enjoyed thinking flexibly about math, and looking at math questions in many ways! Anyone else think this is fun?? 🎉
So what do I mean by this? If asked to multiply 45x28 using the standard algorithm, I might first multiply:
45
x28
And then check by multiplying:
28
x45
Or maybe I’ll imagine an area model with partitions in my head, and check the answer mentally.
I strongly encourage my students (and my own kids) to use this sort of flexible thinking when doing math work, if time allows. 📝

07/17/2021

How many eggs did we cook this morning? How did you count them? 🥚

06/16/2021

Today’s “Where’s the Math Wednesday” event is all about math at the beach and in the sand! 🏖 This got me thinking about an ocean-life worksheet that I used to do with K enrichment classes (appropriate for pre-K to 1st) . 👧🏻👦🏼👩🏻‍🦰🧒🏽
“How many limbs?” 🐙 ⭐️ This simple activity works well for so many reasons:
1️⃣ As mentioned, it’s very simple, and easy for all to understand.
2️⃣ There’s a story that goes along with it. I’d start out by saying that we were going to pretend that we were at the beach, and took a boat out into the ocean. Along the way, we noticed octopuses and starfish. Let’s count the number of limbs! Kids LOVE stories. When working with young kids, I try to include some sort of story (and/or visuals or manipulatives) with every activity. This draws them in, and suddenly the math is real to them. Which makes me wonder, at what point in a child’s development do their beloved stories become EEEEEEK!! 😱 WORD PROBLEMS😱 ?? Maybe if we started them earlier with math questions that include a real-world context, these wouldn’t be such a shock when they’re older? 🤔
3️⃣ The number talks that naturally flow from this task are so exciting! Kids will often notice that they can skip count the starfish by 5’s. Then, decomposition comes in with realizing that an octopus is made up of a 5 and a 3. So what is 8+5? How about if we broke it up into:
5+3+5 =
5+5+3 =
10+3 =
13
👍
4️⃣ The questions slowly get more difficult, with kids gaining confidence along the way.
Thank you to for inviting me to participate in this “Where’s the Math Wednesday” event! ❤️ For more ideas about math at the beach, check out the hashtag!

06/15/2021

Summer reading! 📖
What’s on your list this summer? 📚