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Anna McQuillan @mcqmath

I share math teaching stories and learn from my students every day. IG: mcqmath 🌾 Treaty 6 Territory and Homeland of the Métis. she/her

Joined April 2011
  • Tweets 676
  • Following 145
  • Followers 538
108 Photos and videos
My time at @BethlehemStars is over. Next year I’m moving to @HCHSCrusaders. I’ll miss the students, families, & staff I’ve made connections with over the past several years; thank you all for your kindness.❤️ Hope we can keep in touch because I want to hear all your updates!😉
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Why haven’t I been posting lately? My classes are larger this term, with greater needs, and I can’t do it all. It’s demoralizing. I want to be able to share the mathematical joy I see in my students, but frankly, it’s just another thing on my plate, on top of the high demands.
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Teachers are continually being asked to support students with less. Recently, @GSCSNews shared this infographic. Will @SaskParty ever realize that an investment in education is an investment in our province? Constant cuts hurt our province. But most importantly, cuts hurt kids.
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Here is this year’s Desmos art 😍 Check out the animation that one student made with colour gradients! 😍😍
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A lovely family gifted me this mug last year and it happens to have the perfect angle for the “lip”, but unfortunately I’m drinking NeoCitran out of it. The illness wheel in our family has spun back around to me. 🤧😷
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One of my favourite tasks to start setting norms in a new semester: four 4s!
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Final assessments are marked, so naturally I’m procrastinating doing report card comments by washing all my mini-whiteboards 😆😆
Dry erase boards hanging on a laundry line.

ALT Dry erase boards hanging on a laundry line.

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Anna McQuillan retweeted
Matt Enlow@CmonMattTHINK
28 Jan 2023
Yesterday during a class break I heard an Alg II Honors student making comments about how "stupid" she is. (This is a S who aces almost every assessment.) I'd heard her say similar things offhandedly in the past, but I decided I needed to address it directly. 1/6 #iteachmath
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Thanks for sharing the Calc activities all term Jamie. When I try some next term I’ll report back. Re collab note: what tech access do your students have? When did this happen — class, home? Using their phones or tech provided by the school? Some formatting is quite involved!
Jamie Mitchell@realJ_Mitchell
27 Jan 2023
It's the end of semester one. I've been tweeting about the different #ThinkingClassroom activities we did in Calculus and Vectors. One thing I didn't mention was how I encouraged meaningful notes. Interested in what we did?
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Aww, Alex! File that one away in the memory box. 🥹 Also, I’m sure this student articulated what many of the others are thinking!
Alex Overwijk@AlexOverwijk
24 Jan 2023
“You actually cared to teach us the theoretical cognition behind the mathematical content, in a way that was accessible to students who weren’t necessarily inclined towards STEM. I really appreciate that.” Someone cutting onions-must be my old age!
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After the many extra hrs I worked this past week to re-assess outcomes, plus the end of term emotions of leaving good classes, I went to the lake with the girl. #rest The boy stayed home for his bball. He has already phoned his sister THREE times before 9am! #twins
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Today, our last day before finals, I did a course eval in one class: 20 Ss felt there was good balance of #vnps vs indiv work time, 5 want ⬆️ indiv time, and 3 ⬆️ #vnps. I work hard to improve my #ThinkingClassroom each term so it’s rewarding when student feedback reflects that.
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Student #MenuMath quotes: “Can we have the whole class for this because I really want to figure it out.” “Wait! We’re trying to figure it out in three.” “Can we do this tomorrow? It was really fun.” Who says students aren’t intrinsically motivated to do math? #ThinkingClassroom
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In our curriculum, these students haven’t yet formally studied “proof by contradiction” but it was such an intuitive thing for them. In my opinion, the “justify” part of the #MenuMath structure is where some of the richest thinking occurs.
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…but this year, a pair of students did this: Suppose you can do it in 2 fns. But constraint A can’t work with these 6 other constraints. That means those 6 have to work together to make 1 function. But a contradiction ensues because at least two of them can’t work together.
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This year, and in prior years, most groups explain that it can’t be done in 2 functions because of the position of the vertex. They typically identify three constraints (not always the same ones) that need separate parabolas. But…
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Parabola #MenuMath today to jump into some prior concepts from the course. Each year, I love seeing the progression as students think through this task. Even though it was the first day back from break, students got into #flow so quickly: the power of #ThinkingClassroom! 🧵
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My heart is so full today after the genuine and heartfelt holiday wishes from students. Beautiful souls valuing real connection post-covid. Given an emotionally safe environment, and opportunity to show it, teens are so kind and generous. ❤️ The kids are gonna be all right.
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During this last week before holidays, students are feeling lots of stress and anxiety. However my grade 11s did amazing on their unit assessment today even through the frenzy of the last week. I’m so unbelievably proud of them! Here is what I think made the difference:
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- optional 15 min extra time for those that wanted to start early to calm their nerves and settle their brains and - mid-eval individual check-in to be sure students are on the right track
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I made a special and deliberate effort these last 2.5 weeks to help students feel prepared, comfortable, and lower their anxiety over this crazy busy time of year, and it paid off! I am so proud of these Gr 11s!
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