Helping without Hurting Is helping always helpful? I thought the answer was “yes”. Why wouldn’t it be? But then I had an encounter where I told a student how to do a problem, but then just a few seconds later his hand shot right back up into the air, looking Read more…
Mind Your Moments How powerful is a moment? Can you make a moment powerful? Throughout my life I can think of a handful of moments that have led to drastic changes in my life, my relationships, my teaching. I think of these “defining moments” as historical markers where something significant Read more…
What is your relationship status with mathematics? A productive way for me to think about how best to teach mathematics is to consider facilitating a relationship between a student and mathematics. What are things that I can do to improve the relationship? And how can I avoid damaging the relationship Read more…
Mentorship and the Patience of the Padawan What is a mentor? And where do I find one? As someone who can point to several mentors in my life these might seem like silly questions. But after my conversation with my friend, Dr. Gary Williams, Vice President and Director of Athletics Read more…
More with Less What if you could focus your time and energy on the critical few things that will make the most impact? Listen in as Joel explores learnings from the featured book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Subscribe iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play 0:00 – Opening0:55 – Introduction and Read more…
Good tasks are out there. The rice on a chess board task. The handshake task. The names of these tasks are familiar to most math teachers (if not, google them) as classic problems that have been leveraged to teach mathematical concepts to many a math student. Finding a good task Read more…
Warm up Subscribe iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play The Warm Up to E002: Act as Love has listeners considering the question “What does it look like to _____________ as an act of unconditional love?” as a way to prepare for Episode 2 of the Amidon Planet Podcast which features the book Love Does: Discover Read more…
Warm Up Subscribe iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play The Warm Up to E001: When is a Why features the idea of a chronotype from the book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink. Use this link to identify your chronotype. When is a Why Subscribe Read more…
The Answer is K(NOW)N Subscribe iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play Below is the timeline and the mentioned links from the inaugural episode of The Amidon Planet Podcast: E000, featuring the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual by Jocko Willink 00:00 – Opening & Purpose01:41 – About Joel02:22 – Structure Read more…
Sometimes things do not go exactly to plan… As any teacher can attest, there are times when the intended outcomes of a lesson do not simply materialize when the bell rings. The same principle exists for the professional development of teachers. At the annual conference for the Association for Mathematics Read more…