Does blogging about your blog count? If so, this is post No. 61. I dunno. Hence, the asterisk.
Reflections in the Why debuted, in earnest and to much fanfare, in September 2011. Initially, I set a personal goal of publishing one post per month. Expect No. 62 in October 2016.
This look back comes at this time because (1) I’m introducing a group of teachers to the mathblogosphere on Friday, and (2) I missed the obligatory 2012 year in review post.
According to my WordPress.com annual report, the top two search engine terms that land users at my blog are tarsia and…
My most viewed post? My 7-year-old daughter keeps beating me at Spot it! In this post, I wrote about walking away from the very same thing that, as it turns out, drives much of my blog’s traffic:
I finally asked, “Why am I doing this?” Okay, so the game might be fun for some students, but would it increase their conceptual understanding? Of course not. We’re talkin’ about practice.
And isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
I tend to write what I would like to read. The bloggers that I enjoy reading the most:
- tell stories about how children make sense of mathematics (e.g., Christopher Danielson’s Guess the Temperature),
- share lesson ideas for topic x while making it about so much more than that (e.g., in addition to linear and quadratic functions, Fawn Nguyen’s Patterns Poster is about problem-solving, communication, visualization, differentiated instruction, perseverance, etc., yet she doesn’t have to hit you over the head with this)
- make engaging connections between mathematics and the ‘real-world’ (e.g., Matt Vaudrey’s Mullets: The Only Lesson They’ll Remember)
- write about professional development and collaborating with colleagues, a large part (the largest?) of my current job (e.g., Patrick Brandt’s Mumford and Math, which also receives bonus points for the music reference)
- make me laugh (e.g., Geoff’s We must get rid of Algebra because Roger C. Schank can’t behave at parties, knows weird mathematicians)
If tarsia or practice landed you here, in the same spirit of, but not necessarily in the same league as, the list above, I encourage you to check out the following:
Chris Hunter 
Thank you for still going strong. I really enjoying reading your blog, so I’m glad you got started. Also, thank you for introducing me to two new bloggers. I’m enjoying reading their blogs as well.
I’m pretty sure you have exceeded your goal though… which is a good thing for the rest of us. Here’s to the next 60 posts.
At a rate of about 1 post per 8.5 days, Chris, we hope to see #62 within the coming week. I’ll always remember your kind tweet about a post I’d written when I first lurked about on Twitter back in spring of 2012. Hope we get to meet this summer. You’re awesome, Chris. Thank you.
David, I enjoy reading your blog, too. Glad I could introduce you to a couple of my favourite bloggers. I just discovered a new (to me) blog through a recent post over at Fawn’s. Any K-7 recommendations? Or bloggers who use the term ‘maths’?
Fawn, 1 post/8.5 days sounds better than 0.12 posts/1 day (#unitrateschat). If not this summer, it’ll happen eventually.
Thanks for the kind words, both of you.