10 Minnesota Math Teacher Blogs

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This is a repost of what we consider an important post from November 1 with links to so many valuable resources.

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Sara Van Der Werf
MCTM Past President

her 1This Thanksgiving my personal math blog will be 2 years old. In that time, I’ve posted 80 blog posts. I am currently on a 2 month dry spot in writing (due to time) but I have hopes to finish the 75 blog posts I’ve started on the back side of my blog. I started my blog to house resources I get asked for over and over again. I hesitated to start a blog because I never saw myself as a writer. I’ve since learned from asking others to do a guest blog on my site and/or to write for MathBits and most math teachers do not see ourselves as writers. If I could give 10-year-ago self advice, I would say, “Start Writing NOW!” The way to become a better writer is to write. Not a single person has judged me on my writing in the last 2 years. Writing my blog has made me a better writer and a better teacher. It has forced me to reflect and be honest in ways I never have in my career. I hope this post will encourage many of you to start a blog of your own. Until then, let me inspire you with Minnesota Math Teacher Bloggers.

Here are some of my favorite Minnesota Math Teacher Bloggers. You need to follow each of their blogs. They all have some fantastic things to say. (In no particular order)

  • Christopher Danielson (Desmos, Math On-a-Stick) has 2 blogs you need to know about. I don’t know the rankings of math blogs (if there is such a thing), but in Minnesota Christopher’s blogs are likely the most read anywhere in the world. His personal blog called ‘Overthinking my Teaching’ came first. Several years ago, he saw a need to start ‘Talking Math With Your Kids’ which has a k-5 focus but as a HS teacher I find it amazing. He even has a store to buy things at. One of his favorite posts is ‘Armholes’, check it out.
  • Megan Schmidt’s ‘Number Loving Beagle’ is the reason I started blogging. Megan bullied me (in a good way) into writing up tasks she had heard me talk about. Megan’s blog is one of the most raw and honest math blogs out there. Megan is a HS math teacher in St. Francis and also a leading national math voice for equity an excellent teaching in the online mathematics community. One of her favorite blog posts is ‘An Ode to Elementary Teachers’.   Check it out.
  • Annie Perkins started blogging just over a year ago. Her math blog ‘Arbitrarily Close’, is full of her work as a High School Math Teacher in Minneapolis. Her blog gained national recognition early on as one of the largest collections of non-white, non-male Mathematicians information. One of her favorite blog posts is ‘When you are down, students pick you up’. Check it out!
  • Another blog that is about a year old and full of practical ideas comes from Royalton, MN middle school math teacher Greta Bergman. Her blog is titled ‘Count it all Joy’. She frequently posts resources from how the ideas she finds in the online math community play out in her classroom. She takes ideas and makes them better and gives you her word docs to edit as you like. One of my favorite of her blog posts, ‘Let’s Be Real’, spoke to me as a vetern teacher even though it was written by someone early in her career. Everyone needs to read this post.
  • Sue Benhardus’ blog, ‘A Blank Sheet of Paper’, is one of the newest MN math blogs. She recently described her favorite math review activity, ‘Math Relay’ in a post. Check it out. Sue is a long time middle school math teacher in Minneapolis stretching herself as a writer.
  • Bryan Anderson, a HS teacher from Bemidji, has 2 blogs you should know about. First his personal math blog ‘Math Lab’ and also one he co-contributor to an amazing set of resources called ‘Open Middle’ . If you have not used these resources, you need to now. Great, great stuff.
  • Laura Wagenman, an Elementary Math Specialist in the Osseo School District, is the only person other than Christopher I know blogging about Elementary mathematics in MN. She has great ideas. I wish she blogged more often. Check out her blog, ‘Believe in the Good’,
  • Becky Rahm’s site, ‘Sum Math Madness’ is full of great posts – though she has not blogged in a while. Let’s home the great math voice from the corner of SW Minnesota will start blogging more again soon.
  • MCTM CONNECT is a group of teachers supporting new and pre-service math teachers in Minnesota. The amazing May Vang and others frequently blog HERE.
  • I’ll end with my blog, titled ‘Sara VanDerWerf’ (I’m not too original in naming my blog – HA) The most viewed blog post on my blog (by a lot) is about my favorite game I play on the day before winter break each year, called 5×5. I’ve received a ton of positive feedback on this blog post. Though that is my most popular, I love some of my less popular posts way more like this one, ‘Math as an analytic tool to challenge power, privilege & oppression’, or this one, ‘Stand & Talks’.

I am 100% sure I missed an amazing math blog in Minnesota. If you are blogging about math, we would love to know about you. Please take 3 minutes to fill out this quick survey. We’d love to add you to our list of Minnesota Math Bloggers HERE.

I am going to call out a few people I’d love to see start math blogs in Minnesota. I am calling out Jessica Strom, Jose Sandival, Megan Rubbelke, Morgan Fierst, Stephanie Woldum, Kassie Benjamin, Jonathan Osters, David McMayer, Mike Wallus, Nina Smith, Libby O’Connel, Karen Hyers, Manju Connolley, Ternesha Burroughs, Christy Pettis, Terry Wyberg, Jane Tellekson Juten, Amy Wix, Kathryn Ramburg, Abby Roza, Rob Rumppe, Randy Niemiec, Heather Cracraft, Amber Delliger, Mark Kingsbury, Genni Steele, Chris Robinson, Barb Everhart, Nicole Bridge (even though she lives east, she hangs here once in a while)… and so many more of you need to start a math blog. You have amazing ideas. I want to hear more.

I’d love to see every math teacher in our state start blogging and adding to the community of teachers who are sharing their resources with ideas from their classrooms. If you want to start a blog, my recommendation is to start with WordPress. It is free and easy. (if you are like me and post a lot, a lot, you may need to pay a small amount eventually). If you want my help starting, please reach out to me via twitter @Saravdwerf or via email saravdw@gmail.com. I’d love to help. I am also willing to have you post 1 blog post on my site as a guest. If you have an idea, let me help you make it come to life.