Craig Barton interviews guests from the wonderful world of education about their approaches to teaching, educational research and more. All show notes, resources and videos here: https://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/
Michael is a maths teacher and blogger from the US. I have been a fan of Michael’s writing for a long time, and it was fascinating to get the opportunity to talk in depth about areas of pedagogy that are close to our hearts. We talked about the difficulty of moving schools, our views on problem solving and then the big one… Example-Problem Pairs (spoiler alert: we don’t agree upon the best way to use them!)
For more information about today’s guest, plus links to the websites, resources and ideas they mention, please visit the show notes page: http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/michael-pershan-example-problem-pairs-problem-solving-and-moving-schools/
On this episode of the Mr Barton Maths Podcast I spoke to Michael Pershan.
Michael is a teacher of mathematics in New York. Yes we are going global with this one… although budget restrictions meant I still recorded my end of the conversation in Blackburn. Michael is also one of my all-time favourite bloggers, creating the wonderful Rational Expressions, Math Mistakes and Teaching with Problems. I have been wanting to get Michael on the show for the last couple of years, and I am delighted to report that it was well worth the wait. This is a belter of an episode.
So, in a wide ranging challenging and fascinating conversation, Michael and I discussed the following things, and plenty more besides:
- Why is changing schools so hard?
- What role does the expectation of students play?
- For the remainder of the first half of the conversation, after successfully overcoming our mutual language barrier, Michael describes his process for planning a lesson on subtraction
- Then the big one – what do Michael’s Example-Problem Pairs look like (spoiler alert: they are different to mine!)
- How soon into the process of introducing a concept would Michael include an incorrect example?
- How does Michael provide whole class feedback?
- Michael argues that many problem solving strategies have descriptive, but not prescriptive validity. What does he mean by this?
I think the second half of this conversation – when we really dive into worked examples – is one of my favourites of all time. I’ll dig into this (and much more) in my Takeaway at the end of the episode, but needless to say it has got me thinking really hard about my own approach.
On Twitter, Michael is: @mpershan
Michael’s website is: michaelpershan.com
He blogs at: Rational Expectations, Math Mistakes and Teaching with Problems
Michael Pershan’s Big 3
1. SERP – Algebra by Example
2. New Visions Math Curriculum – Instructional Routines
3. Art of Problem Solving – Alcumus
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- You can help support the podcast (and get an interactive transcript of all new episodes) via my Patreon page at patreon.com/mrbartonmaths
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- My books are “Tips for Teachers“, “Reflect, Expect, Check, Explain” and “How I wish I’d taught maths”
Thanks so much for listening, and I really hope you enjoy the show!
Craig Barton