Instant Relevance

Instant Relevance Book Published Today

By Denis Sheeran July 29, 2016 August 2, 2016 0

Book Publishing Day! I’m ridiculously excited to announce that my book was published today on Amazon. It’s called Instant Relevance, Using Today’s Experiences in Tomorrow’s Lessons. Thank you to Alice Keeler for connecting me to Dave and Shelley Burgess who believed in me and my message and for provided the publishing …

Extraordinary Connections That Made a Difference

By Denis Sheeran June 19, 2016 June 19, 2016 0

A little while ago I sent out a survey to teachers asking them to share stories of how their lives and the lives of their students were affected by time spent together outside the classroom. As the 2015-16 school year comes to a close, I’d like to share those stories, …

I See Math, People

By Denis Sheeran June 5, 2016 June 5, 2016 0

Ever wonder if you’re the only one who sees things differently? After years of teaching math and looking for real world applications to help my students connect the math to life, I’ve realized that this is entirely backwards. We should be looking for the math in the real world around …

Teaching Algebraic Thinking With Spreadsheets, Rube Goldberg Style

By Denis Sheeran May 23, 2016 May 23, 2016 0

When I was teaching high school I developed a course called Senior Math Topics. It was a fourth year of math for future non-math majors. We incorporated history of math, classical problems, the math behind music, art, architecture, encryption, voting and machines. In particular, I had students build a Rube …

Tomorrow’s Classroom Today 2016: Why You Should Have Gone

By Denis Sheeran May 22, 2016 May 22, 2016 0

Giving up a Saturday for a professional development workshop used to be an idea I quickly tossed aside because I, the well respected high school math teacher, was doing just fine. Talk about your fixed mindsets. Now I consider myself to be a relatively creative guy, and was proud of …

Mercury, not Freddie, not Rising, not Sable…but the real Mercury

By Denis Sheeran May 18, 2016 May 22, 2016 1

This is me, in 1998, in a space suit. They say you have to dress for the job you want, so… As a math person with aspirations to become an astronaut one day (NASA application submitted!!) space related matters always catch my attention. So when Alice Keeler (@alicekeeler) sent me …

It’s Data Season…2 Ways to get web/pdf data into Google Sheets

By Denis Sheeran March 26, 2016 May 22, 2016 0

I’m not the violent type, but I did grow up in the Looney Toons era. So just as a reminder of the afternoons many of us had in common as children: It’s that time of year when Spring brings with it the nice weather, the casual jogger, and all of …

My Top 3 Google Sheets Add-ons

By Denis Sheeran February 15, 2016 September 26, 2016 0

I’m a fan of spreadsheets. For this, I do not apologize. Some teachers I’ve spoken to are still big Excel fans, (not that there’s anything wrong with that). They site the time back in 2011 when they tried “the google sheets” and it wasn’t as good as excel. That statement …

Teaching Math with Google Apps: A 4 in 1 Approach

By Denis Sheeran February 11, 2016 September 26, 2016 2

One of the people I love talking to about teaching math is Alice Keeler (@alicekeeler), author of 50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom. She’s almost excited as I am about the direction math instruction is going…almost. So naturally when we collaborate on math teaching ideas, not only do we …

Problem Solving: 3 Ways

By Denis Sheeran February 9, 2016 February 9, 2016 0

I was in a 3rd grade math classroom the other day and the teacher wrote a problem on the board for the students to solve. I was observing this teacher officially and she was nervous for some reason (post coming soon on observation for growth, not punishment!) Due to her …