Student Portfolios 5/11/25

It has been such an honor to work on this project this year. I'm grateful to the AMAZING students and supportive staff team at Harshman. Beyond learning content, middle school students need to learn how to reflect back on their own learning and drive their own progress towards the next goal. We've worked hard to help students build that skill with student portfolios. We are truly doing amazing things and creating transformative experiences for middle school students. I can't wait to see what student presentations will look like this week. 

Geometry Flag Project   11/24/24

Two years ago at NCTM in Washington DC I went to an amazing art and math workshop led by Chicago educators. I wish i had saved their contact information. One of the projects we did used flags and I realized later that it was super similar to Illustrative Math's Modeling Prompt 7 in the Geometry curriculum. As I was getting ready to launch this project I had to take an unexpected sick day with a child so I looked for a video my students could watch and stumbled upon Michael Green's Ted Talk about How Flags Unite and Divide Us 

Later that same day....while I was looking for a place to host an art birthday party for my daughter, I was scrolling the list of the new Factory Arts Building on the near east side and I noticed Flags for Good on the list. I reached out to the owner to see if he would come to talk to my Geometry Students and he was willing and excited. We learned so much about flags! I'm so excited. The students were definitely like, we need a Harshman Flag....so Michael maybe you can take on the challenge for us. 

Here's a link to the whole project if you want to see and/or use it. Geometry Flag Project (credit to Illustrative Mathematics) 

Math Routines in Other Contents (like Spanish Language Arts!)   11/24/24

I'm working on a presentation to share the work of my school to infuse other contents with the best of math education. So many of us are leaders beyond just the math classroom--and cross content collaboration is so important. I LOVE seeing math routines in action outside of math classrooms. I think they inspire all of us to get kids really THINKING! We've been looking at which Math Language Routines (read more about these if they are new to you...they are imbedded in Illustrative Mathematics, our curriculum). So it was an absolute JOY to be in Senora T's 6th grade Spanish Language Arts classroom at watch her do Co-Craft Questions. 

One thing I LOVE about what this teacher did was she had each student write a question, then they found a partner and shared, and then they had to write a new question that merged their two original questions together. They made a class list of these questions and they'll work on answering them as they read the next chapter. They really developed their writing skills in Spanish while they practiced their speaking skills. 

I am sharing because though I come from a math lens...I just really believe that the best of the math ed world can be used in ANY classroom. I work in a dual language school and we really focus on helping students develop productive language (speaking and writing). This sounds exactly like OPTIMIZING OUTPUT. It's just that the content is slightly different! 

School Board Races Matter    10/15/24

In a state where the candidates I vote for sometimes loose statewide significantly....it's hard to feel engaged and committed to the electoral process. But as a teacher and educator, school board races matter SO MUCH to my own working conditions and they are sometimes deciced by literal votes. Here's my own humble opinion on who you should vote for if you live in Lawrence Township or Indianapolis Public Schools Boundaries. (with a tiny shout out to one candidate in Pike Township).

First Lawrence Township....

I have thrived in teaching environments where I have been allowed to grow and be challenged, and also surrounded by a team of teachers and admin who are equally committed to growth and development. Of course that "home" for me is Harshman Middle School. I remember how impressed I was when I first landed at Harshman that the then principal brought in consultants to work with himself (not the teachers!) and I can't say enough good things about how Amy Moore continues that tradition. 

That spirit of growth inspired me to constantly reflect on my own teaching practice and that is what has made me better. It eventually led me to pursue National Board Certification. And embedded in the NBPTS process is a deep committment to continual reflection. I don't think true greatness in education can happen without reflection.  

Lawrence Township: I worked briefly for MSDLT In 2018 to 2019. (1.5 years). To be honest, at the time it was not a place I could thrive.  Raising questions or concerns was seen as stepping out of line and everyone just wanted to talk about how great they were.  When I raised real concerns I ws gaslighted. (Not to mention that all my classes had 36 students in them. I've never seen class sizes like that in other districts.) And I believe that there are a lot of good things happening. But more growth doesn't happen with out talking about what needs to change and trying new things. I've had some great experiences whith MSDLT since then (briefly dabbling in consulting) but I've also been increasingly frustrated by the current school board's refusal to talk meaningfully about any concerns or problems. There have been some 3-2 votes recently on school boards. Maybe the one that sticks in my mind most consequentially is the decision to raise salaries for administrators last year. I'd invite you to read school board member Marta Lawrence's commentary on that here. I want more transparency and more conversation about the things not going well in Lawrence Township. We can do better for our students when we do that. Let's not be afraid of the conversation. Unfortunately I've watched Eric's opponent in this race be more apart of the problem than the solution and I know a vote for her will be more of the same. We can do better! Tough conversations make the district stronger and I know that Eric understands that. 

Indianapolis Public Schools....

The struggle to maintain district control of schools is alive and real in Indianapolis Public Schools.  We are crushing it as a district run middle school (remember that just a few years ago Harshman teachers had to fight to maintain district control of our schoool.) Please help us elect strong advocates for public schools that will support teachers.

1. District 1 – Alan Schoof is a strong advocate for public schools to be stable and serve the student interests in the IPS District. Having served on the Superintendent’s Community Advisory Committee, he brings a unique perspective on the Rebuilding Stronger initiative and how to best serve students.

2. District 2 – Dr. Gayle Cosby has previously served as a member of the IPS Board of Commissioners. She is a strong proponent of strong public schools and serves as the Chair of Education Program at Ivy Tech Community College. She is concerned about the fiscal stability and the demographics of the IPS District.

3. District 4 – Allissa Impink though unopposed has a genuine concern and interest in the district she serves. She has been an educator in IPS and is an advocate for strong public schools, accountability, and diversity.

Pike Township....

I' m deeply out of the loop in Pike Township but my former teaching neighbor's husband is running for school board and has the endorsement of the Teachers Association there. Check out Steve Hoofer for Pike Township.

We Can Do Hard Things!     4/18/24

This week has had a lot of lows: Some studnet relationships I worked hard at building started to unravel. I almost cried in front of students (but mostly held it together). I got mad. I had to tell a student we needed a break and we could talk the next day. Sometimes it feels like the work we are trying to do is SO overwhelming and so hard. Several times I wanted to give up. It's ILEARN next week and the stakes are high. I've looped with these kids and I feel the ones that fell just short of their goals last year personally. I WANT so badly for them to do well...and care about the test a whole lot more than they do. And quite a few times I've thought, what am I really doing here? But here are a couple of amazing things that have really reminded me that I have had an impact.  

Impact #1: A few years ago when I returned to Harshman--I suggested we hold a free book fair and give books to all students with a literacy focused grant. (I was just copying ideas from the great Kelly Looper at Guion Creek Middle School.) That book fair is still going strong and students were super excited to take home their books this year. Its so joyful to watch them get excited about reading. And I think it gives the staff joy too to talk about our favorite middle grades books and share ideas for the following year (and of course to watch our students read.) 

Impact #2: A Social Studies teacher and colleague was so inspired by Building Thinking Classrooms in my math classroom that she ordered white boards. The folks that funded our book fair asked what else we needed and we talked about Building Thinking Classrooms and suggested a whiteboard grant for all classrooms. Kids are moving and talking and collaborating at Harshman in a whole different way than before. Of course part of this is great admin and a school wide focus on strong instructional routines. 

Impact #3: There was this one teacher on my team who really loved direct instruction. He didn't like the students getting up and moving. But he's made such progress this year that I overhead him say to his class, "You know how much I love G-walks. We're doing one of those next." (He's talkign about a gallery walk) and then the kids were talking and moving and collaborating. 

And then I was recognized as a state finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. I've been a little bummed that the White House is 3 years behind choosing national winners and that it might be a very long wait to see if I won this award. But it was nice to be recognized today. And I think the icing on the cake were these sweet words my principal wrote about me. 

When Ella returned to Harshman Middle School in 2020, at the turn of education amidst Covid, she brought with her an inquiry-based teaching style that was refreshing for math instruction. She helped her school lead the district in a transition from Gradual Release of “I Do, We Do, You Do” to a modernized math style of teaching where students learn math by doing and playing with math. She has used the best and most current research to make this happen, including the books: The Five Practices in Practice, Building Thinking Classrooms and Productive Math Struggle. Beyond just teaching math, Ella has promoted the value of the struggle and its importance in the learning process, and she has helped her school community be a little less helpful for students and push students to try hard things. 

At the center of this push is her belief that ALL students can achieve.  Equity has always been a primary motivator in Ms. Hereth's math education focus. She has worked to create a more equitable Algebra program that ensures underrepresented minority groups are included AND encouraged to try challenging classes, and then provides the supports for all students to thrive in those rigorous spaces.

Ms. Hereth is using her unwavering love of both students and math, partnered with her research-based practices, to deeply impact the ​frontlines of education.  And that impact is felt near and wide: locally her influence is felt at the school level with decisions that are made regarding school improvements, and also at the district level with decisions that are made regarding curriculum adoption for the entire middle school experience in Indianapolis Public Schools!  

Ella Hereth very much deserves this acknowledgement and celebration as PAEMST award recipient. 

Amy Moore

I'm thinking about all of this of course because the revolution is slow and boring and it happens one person, one student, one relationship at a time. And it has taken such a collaboration. Me, other teachers, admin, coaches. It's been a school effort. But I think things are happening. I'm so excited for the future of Harshman. And I think on many levels, I needed this week to remind me that I too can do hard things. All of us can. 

Reflections on Teaching Illustrative Mathematics Grade 8 Unit 7     3/22/24

I’m heading home from my very first IM Certified Facilitator retreat. It’s been almost one full year of using IM officially after many years of supplementing with it. It was great to learn from amazing IM facilitators. I have insights into facilitation of Teach and Learn PD events in the future but maybe more importantly I am bringing home new dedication to my own teaching with the curriculum AND to my leading a department of teachers at my school. 

I’ve been meaning to reflect on teaching grade 8 Unit 7 for a while. The first half of this unit is Exponent Laws. Every time I teach this as an educator, I remember my first year of teaching at Harshman. It was my first time teaching 8th grade and I asked the school’s math coach how to teach exponent laws. I remember she told me, “oh, just use the upstairs/downstairs rule. When the exponent moves upstairs or downstairs it changes signs.” I know now this is horrible advice but the internet is full of such advice. Here is one of the first videos that came up when I googled this. In this video he says, “we’re going to call it the “flip flop.”

I’m very certain that my own educational experience around negative exponents involved tricks like this and I think it’s a huge part of why I later struggled with exponential functions and logarithms in Algebra II. 

It’s one reason why teaching exponent laws with Illustrative Mathematics is so refreshing. In all of the Grade 8 Unit 7 lessons on exponent laws the students are asked (before a rule is introduced) to try to complete a table that looks something like this.

And before you ask, negative exponents are also an extension of a pattern in a table! The below picture is from Grade 8 Unit 7 Lesson 5. Teaching exponent laws like this is so transformational and in 8th grade I think provides one of the best examples of how Illustrative Mathematics helps kids identify the concept and develop that understanding themselves rather than memorizing rules. I’ve had numerous conversations with math teachers across the building about how we valued Unit 7’s ways of teaching things and the deeper conceptual understanding our students have of exponents because of this approach. I can’t wait for other teachers to experience this curriculum. 

Well that was supprisingly easy. First week down 23/24 SY. 8/5/23

This is me and my family OUT ON A FRIDAY NIGHT after the first week of school. I am almost always too exhausted to go out on Friday. But this is the year of more art in my life and a big part of that means making time for First Friday and other art experiences. And guess what. I was suprisingly NOT EXHAUSTED on this first Friday of August. 

I had a surprisingly easy first week. It's Friday and I'm not exhausted. I thought I would be. My wife was out of town. I shuttled kids through camp and day one of school. I taught a full 5 days with students. I have a side project now with insane deadlines. I also painted the basement and put together furniture this week. But I'm not exhausted. Here are some reasons why. 

1. Illustrative Math: I have spent my entire 12 year career (prior to this) trying to infuse thinking routines like the 5 Practices, WODB and Notice Wonder into math curriculums that don't contain them. It has been exhausting. Sometimes I've given up and just used IM or Desmos when I wasn't supposed to. I got good results so folks looked the other way. For the first time in my career, I have a curriculum I love. The fact that I don't have to do all of the huge mental work of trying to modify the curriculum has freed up a huge part of my brain. I have more energy to think about how I present, questions I ask, and facilitation skills. I worked hard to make this curriculum adoption happen and to get the right to use it a year early at Harshman. So maybe now I just get to reap rewards! 

2. Looping: For the first time in my career, I am looping with about half of my students. The ones I didn't teach last year were on my team though and I know many of them through field trips and book clubs. I know that knowing these students and their families is helping already. 

3.  Co-Teaching: We are in a unique position this year and I get to co-teach with an amazing math teacher. We are learning a lot about each other and growing together every day. And we are sharing the work and not doing all of the planning/grading, etc. 

4. Back on the PLC Train: I am using a curriculum I love, planning with teachers who think like me, and we are essentially teaching the same things on the same days. The joy of not having to do it all myself and to borrow activities from my colleagues. Amazing. 

5. Supportive Leadership: We had a change in leadership in the days before students showed up. While our acting principal was AP before, her role has definitely changed as AP. This week she did this little thing where she walked into our classroom and left my co-teacher and I a note about how great it was and how much she loves seeing the joy our students were having as we all did math together. It's a little thing but I haven't gotten a note like that from a principal in years. IPS leaders if you are reading this Amy Moore for Principal! 

Some folks asked about a math timeline activity I shared photos of on twitter so I'm sharing the images below of the slides I used to introduce it as well as some other first week photos. (photos are from 8th grade Algebra I so all those awesome data analysis photos come from Unit 1 of the IM Algebra curriculum.) I love that unit as a novel way for students to talk to each other and get to know each other. 

Lawrence Township Learning Summit 7/20/23

Building Thinking Classrooms Conference 7/2/23

I recently returned from the innagural Building Thinking Classrooms conference. It was great to reconnect with colleagues and to learn about new ideas for implementation. My co-workers who attended had a good time. Look at how cute we are! And I think my workshop went really really well.  

Here are my presentation slides (with links to some Desmos Activities imbedded for my model lesson: Building Thinking Classrooms in Action. 

The conference was fun and well attended and I think Keep Indiana Learning did an amazing job for their first event of this scale. I did notice however, that the conference was also really white. I hope that at future conferences there can be intentional space for discussion about equity and access and more highlighting and celebrating educators of color. I'm noticing that NCTM and state conferences often do that very well and while I know we are sometimes questioning their relevance, let's not loose sight of that! Equity and Inclussion needs to be a major focus of everything we do.  

What a Year of Recognition 5/1/23

As I logged in to update my teaching blog I realized that 6 months ago when I last updated I was fighting for the survival of the school community I loved so much. A lot has changed. I am so thrilled to say that we won that fight and that the final Rebuilding Strong Plan included keeping Harshman a fully district run school. The next time I was at the school board meeting it was to celebrate my accomplishments as a Nationally Board Certified Teacher and also a Presidential Award for Excellence Finalist for the state of Indiana. On top of all of that my colleagues elected me Teacher of the Year for my building and I am a district top 6 finalist.  

This could have been a deeply challenging year and I am very glad that the school board and IPS leadership pivoted to allow us to continue to build the future of Harshman. I'm so excited about the work that my math team is doing next year and we are able to hire for a few open positions. Might this be a good fit for you? 

The Future of Harshman 11/5/2022

If you have followed the IPS Rebuilding Stronger Plan at all you know that big changes are in store for Harshman. One of the most troubling parts of IPS's Rebuilding Stronger Plan is the decision to co-locate a gifted and talented (public and district run) school with an innovation charter school in the building. Those of us who have worked so hard with so many sacrifices to build the magic of Harshman know this won't work. 

If you know me as a person, you know that dual immersion is always in my heart. I know the challenges of raising bilingual kids firsthand. It's hard hard work....and the best way to do it is a consistent school experience. Harshman and Potter retain teachers and recruit highly qualified ones. Our working conditions are student's learning conditions.  IPS students deserve a public dual immersion option....and ideally a K-12 program that could start at Potter--feed to Harshman--and end at Tech. 

If you are a Harshman friend, supporter, or ally....please join me in sharing your concerns with the board. https://myips.org/district-school-board/school-board/

Math Community 10/29/22

This weekend I drove to Naperville, IL with my colleague Andrea Perry to attend ICTM-Illinois. After a challenging fall where district leadership has announced plans to massively restructure IPS middle schools and a challenging season of "Strategic Control" where "strategic controllers" don't always have any idea what good math instruction looks, sounds, and feels like.....I really needed some motivation. It's sometimes a lonely space trying to transform math instruction in Indiana. I feel like we are always a little behind our colleagues in Illinois. 

But this conference--with the keynote by Peter Liljedahl--was just what I needed. Highlights included lunch with Desmos Fellows Justin Brennan, Annie Forest, and Michelle Torres, meeting other fellows Adam Poetzel and Scott Miller. 

I have wanted to attend Jackie Palmquist's Number Talks Session for years and finally got the chance to. Thanks for re-inspiring my own Number Talk routine. 

And of course Peter was inspirational. I came home and wrote a summary of Building Thinking Classrooms for my own district...who should know enough about this to recognize it when they see teachers implementing it--at the very least. Ready to recommit to Toolkit #2 in action this year. 

Some Thoughts on Assessment by Portfolios 10/1/22

Students have such trauma with math assessments....particularly students who don't always do well on them. I feel like I spend every fall trying to figure out how to assess in a way that actually helps students learn. I recently went to a PD with math leads in my district and we discussed the idea that all assessment should be formative. If that's the case....we need to be adapting and changing what we are doing so that students are still thinking about the problems....even if they get them wrong. 

This fall I tried three things so far to try to make sure that my students were still learning during assessments. We also created three portfolio artifacts for our math portfolios. 

Unit 0 Artifacts: Explain how to do this on one paper.

• This was for my Module 0. I wanted to review the 6th grade skills of area and perimeter and also of the coordinate plane before we learned about scale and scale drawings. I also spent this time building culture and teaching students HOW to learn math. I always start with a Module 0 no matter what my district's pacing guide says. Sometimes you have to move slow to move fast later. I have no regrets but I spend each fall repeating myself like a broken record and trying to protect the other teachers at my school from admin pacing questions. Can we move past this already? 

• For the prompt for this question, I told students to explain how to solve the problem. Every little detail they could think of.  I used assessment questions from the 6th grade Desmos Curriculum to do this.  

Unit 1 Artifacts: How do you solve this question you got wrong. 

• The topic for this unit was scale and scale drawings.

• For this unit, we took a traditional quiz on a Wednesday. Then I had to miss two days of school because my baby sister got married. (yeah!) and I created a video going over the quiz when I handed quizzes back. I had students create a portfolio page explaining in as much detail as possible one of the questions they GOT WRONG on the QUIZ. I really liked this as a way to correct mistakes AND dive deeper into a question you didn't initially get correct. 

Unit 2 Artifacts

• This unit covered Proportional Relationships. 

• For this Unit I used one of the Desmos Curriculum Paper Pencil Lessons (Four Representations). I had them create a proportional relationship from a random list of things and then create four representations of that relationship. (Words, Tables, Equations, Graphs). I love this idea and the way it helped students make connections across the different ways to represent these relationships. 

• I've done similar things before but I love the idea from Desmos of giving them a list of things first and they have to choose from that list. It created just enough freedom to keep it interesting and just enough constraint to get them started quickly and give them a focus. 

My goal was that students continued to think deeply about these problems beyond just a right or wrong answer on a test. I think I accomplished that. I'm going to try to design some student interview questions about this experience to help judge this as well.

I would love to hear ideas from other teachers as well on alternative assessment. I have done digital portfolios before but I'm really finding that this balance of doing this on paper this year is helping balance out the digital and give students a break from their chromebooks. Reach out by twitter @MsHereth or send me an email herethe@myips.org. 

Desmos Art Final 5/20/22

I literally made it 2.5 years into this pandemic without getting COVID, but it finally caught me. It's such a bummer to miss Honors Day for my 8th graders and also Harshman's first annual Desmos Art Show. I was able to get the art printed and to school though so a colleague could hang it. 

And the student work is super cool. Next year I will totally add a random ordered pair requirement for the center to cut down on cheating from the internet. That way, even if they find something they want to copy they are learning a lot by shifting the graphs to the right locations. But MOST of my students did a great job without copying graphs from the internet. 

If you want to check out this project here is the link to the Desmos Activity Builder: Parabola Monster Graphing Art 

Below are some student artwork with anonymized names: 

Thoughts on how we talk about teaching....  5/2/22

"Will you still have to teach classes next year?" "Oh she has moved up out of the classroom." "She's more than just a teacher." "You would be a good administrator, have you thought about that?" 

These are things that have been said to me over the past few weeks that have really bothered me.  They were all said by well meaning individuals who believe in public education. Sure I might be a good administrator....maybe I could get jobs outside of the classroom....but I'm also a great classroom teacher.

As a highly skilled and qualified math teacher, I've worked really hard to be good at my job. It's not easy. I'm 11 years in and I'm finally feeling decently good at teaching math....but still growing and improving every single day.  And there are not enough of me. But your children (and the whole community) really benefit by having me in the classroom. Remember that. If every good teacher's goal was to work their way out of the classroom....we wouldn't have good teachers in the classroom. Broader community of friends and family...your words to teachers matter. If you value them, value their work in the classroom. Honor it as a challenging trade that they have worked very hard to develop and craft.  Don't assume their goals are to leave the classroom.  And certainly don't push them out by implying that the classroom is just a stepping stone to something else. 

Teachers are guilty of this too. Because we sometimes talk about some mythical leadership as a ladder to climb. Teacher--> instructional coach --> assistant principal --> principal. I'm not knocking those on this path. But can we also work to create other paths and other forms of leadership? What would it look like for teachers to lead on professional development from the classroom. To create master teacher cohorts. To do research and try new things together. But to still get to watch students do math every day and have those "oh" moments that fuel me so much as an educator.  For so many years I wanted to be an Instructional Coach. Then when I started getting offered those jobs I've negotiated to keep my classroom.  I don't think I can authentically lead teachers from a quasi-administrative role. I've never wanted to be a boss. Instructional coach is definitely not the goal for me.  

So this teacher appreciation week, think about how you talk about teaching to the teachers in your lives. Is what you saying to them valuing their work in the classroom? Or is it pushing them out of it? 

Also feel free to fund my many projects to make my classroom even more amazing: https://www.donorschoose.org/ms-hereth 

#ShareStudentBrilliance 3/19/22

I was so lucky to get the opportunity to attend NCTM Regionals in Indianapolis. It has been a long 2.5 years since a professional conference and like 10 years since I went to NCTM Regionals. Since that time, I've made a whole bunch of mathy twitter friends and done some pretty cool things in my classroom (see below.) 

One thing that struck me was that all of the presenters spoke about the importance of watching student's be brilliant. Peter Liljedahl told a story of a teacher he met 10 years ago who said to him, "I'm 2 years from retirement, but I'll try Building Thinking Classrooms strategies."  He's still in the classroom 10 years later because he's having so much fun he doesn't want to leave. I watched 50 math teachers have the time of their lives at a professional conference solving a task Peter introduced to us. 

In our session on Desmos when Jessica Breur introduced the Challenge Creator she talked about the "delightful discussion that happens in your classroom when students do something "crazy."

So this year...the teachers around me are miserable and everyone says it's so hard, but I'm having the opposite experience. I think I'm having the best teaching year of my life. I've grown so much as a teacher that I spend a lot of class watching my students solve math problems and blow me away with their brilliance. It's fun. I told my boss that sometimes when I talk to my department I'm too positive and they've told me that.

I want to avoid toxic positivity. I'm sure that a part of this is luck. And also how hard last year was for me (as an educator and a parent of small children.) I got lucky with a pretty fabulous group of kids this year...despite behavior challenges of returning to the classroom.  But there is also a lot of joy in watching kids do math. I see teachers working really really hard and I see how exhausted they are at the end of each day. I want to find ways to help teachers talk less and watch more math happen.

I've been talking to this with friends--specifically Sarah Furman. We are both feeling the need for a positive space to share student math brilliance and talk about ideas for eliciting even more. A few years ago, an ELA colleague Martie Hoofer made it a point to tweet something positive each day. She used the hashtag #ShareThePositive and I wondered if something like that might help. So for the next few weeks....I'm going to try to tweet (I'll settle for 3 times a week not every day) using #ShareStudentBrilliance. Join me? 

Ideas and Experiences that Make the Magic Happen 3/11/22

Tied into Krall's ideas of academic safety are lessons learned from Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. To make students feel safe, you have to love them and listen to them and let their stories fill the space. In my classroom students do this through story telling and talking and explaining to each other.