I can honestly say that the social media platform that I thought was absolutely useless has significantly changed the way I teach.
This wasn’t the first time this has happened in my short experience as a teacher. If you have read my blog, which most people apart from myself haven’t, you may know about the previous occasion – Dan Meyer, Adelaide August 2014. It was in my first year of teaching that I realised that after completing a double degree at University, doing well on two teaching placements, and nailing a 3-year contract in an awesome school, my understanding about teaching was pretty damn minimal. Long story short, I had my mind willingly blown to pieces by the approach popularised by Dan.
The next time this happened was a slightly different experience, but the impact on my teaching has been nearly as significant. It was when I started tweeting.
Most of my friends used to brag about getting “retweets” from big name AFL players and NBA stars, and I honestly didn’t care much about it. To me, Twitter was a weird version of Facebook with less features and served no purpose to me as an educator. Now I can happily tell people that it is some of the best professional learning I receive, and am even more happy to tell them why.
My Twitter feed is the source of most professional reading I engage with.
Before Twitter, I would only occasionally read an article of it appeared via email in a newsletter I thought I had unsubscribed to. Now, I am saving articles to read later on (using Instapaper) and even writing posts of my own. How does this impact my teaching? I am learning from and connecting with leaders and innovators in education and mathematics education around the world. This is something that I was simply unexposed to and unaware of prior to joining the #MTBoS (MathTwitterBlogosphere).
Who to follow
Here are some incredibly inspiring and innovative teachers that I’m following (thanks @nomad_penguin for most of these!):
- @ddmeyer – Dan Meyer
@mr_stadel or @estimation180 – Andrew Stadel
@joboaler – Jo Boaler
@DavidGuerin – David Guerin
@robertkaplinsky – Robert Kaplinsky
@fawnpnguyen – Fawn Nguyen
@mjfenton – Michael Fenton
@trianglemancsd – Christopher Danielson
@nomad_penguin – Amie Albrecht
@MaryBourassa or @WODBMath – Mary Bourassa
@NatBanting or @FractionTalks – Nat Banting
@MrOrr_geek – Jon Orr
@Regolo54 – Regolo Bizzi (Math Art)
@jstevens009 – John Stevens
@mrvaudry – Matt Vaudry
@TracyZager – Tracy Johnston Zager
@jamiedunc3 – Jamie Duncan
@burgessdave – Dave Burgess
@loukaparry – Louka Parry
@miss_seh – Sarah Millar
How I teach maths. 