About the Author
I, Mark Pullen, teach third grade in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition to teaching, I am the co-founder of www.onlinemathleague.com, an innovative website that provides online math competitions to 2nd-9th grade students from around the world. (If your students aren’t already in our contests, they should be!) I also enjoy doing some freelance writing about issues pertaining to elementary education.
Comments about the blog? Looking for a freelance writer? Curious about the Online Math League? Just want to chat about great new ideas in education? Feel free to contact me at mpullen98@gmail.com.
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1.
Jim Hansen | September 16, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Hi Mark,
I just wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading through your blog the past couple of weeks. You have some very thoughtful and right on posts!
2.
Jen | September 28, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I love the math game board idea/concept. But I was wondering if you could email me more about how you ran it to teach small groups their needed mini lesson, how did students advance on board, how often did you do the mini lesson, did you not teach daily from the required curriculum? Is it posible to get a sample of the board you use and pretest to get an idea? Also how did you manage the other students not working with you? what were they doing?
Did you send a letter home to parents explaining this? This whole unit replace a unit in your math curric.
thanks
Jen (email sent to you)
3.
Sandra | October 11, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Hi Mark,
I am an elementary teacher in Texas. I was looking for some online information about the students’ right to daily recess….and I saw your proposal. My Principal has terminated this “privilege” for all students at the school “until scores go up” (?). Would you please suggest me where to find some information to back up a petition to reinstate this right?
Thank you,
Sandra
4.
Madison | October 29, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Hey Mark,
I am a undergrad student about to graduate with a degree in Elementary Education. Before graduating, I am completing an study on silent reading, more specifically how to teach students to read silently. I think it is interesting that you say sustained silent reading is dead in one of your blogs. I disagree. I agree that silent reading w/out proper instruction is a clear waste of time, but the more we practice a behavior, the better we get at it. The more students read, the better they will read. I was just curious to more of your opinion on the subject of sustained silent reading or of how to teach silent reading.
Thanks,
Madison
5.
Chris Holt | November 10, 2008 at 6:55 am
Hi, Mark. I arrived at this page because I’m doing an undergrad. project on merit pay and found your website by searching for that topic. Any way, my comment today is in response to Sandra’s post about recess. It has bothered me for a while that teachers often take away recess when kids don’t finish their work. This seems counterproductive. If we sit all day working, do we get more done than if we take a walk now and then? The answer seems obvious to me. How much more so do kids need time to move around and just be kids. In fact, it seems to me that the more we include play in the classroom, the more chance we have of kids succeeding. Thanks for listening to me as I branch off topic (as usual!).
6.
mark robert | November 18, 2008 at 6:51 am
each day our children tell us by their words and actions what is wrong with our schools. each day this information is wasted. schools, which may have worked for some children one hundred years ago, work for none today. where attending school once provided more information in which to understand and reason it is no longer so. any home now provides more information than our schools permit. how lacking, those who run our world are.
7.
Leticia Magallón | February 22, 2009 at 10:45 am
Excelentes ideas, me dedico a la educación, ojalá puedan traducir ésto al idioma español. Muchas gracias.
Leticia Magallón
8. Source Note: The Future o&hellip | February 22, 2009 at 8:59 pm
[...] http://mrpullen.wordpress.com/about/ [...]
9.
Bruce Deitrick Price | June 23, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Mark,
You might be able to use “36: The Assault on Math” on Improve-Education.org….and maybe even THE EDUCATION ENIGMA, which is a short book that covers dozens of topics. On Amazon.
I have to say it’s astonishing to see a future teacher agreeing that silent reading is a “waste of time.” What do people do all day but silent reading?