Dustin Purdy Blog

I’m still taking in last week in Denver. Between NCSM and NCTM I learned a lot, reconnected with people I care about and met a whole new group of colleagues. Here are the highlights. My First NCSM This was my first NCSM, and it set a high bar. The theme of bold leadership ran through every room I walked into. Keynote: Anthony Muhammad opened with Transforming School Culture 2.0: Why Culture Is Important Today, Tomorrow, and Forever . It framed the whole conference. Strategy and curriculum only go as far as the culture we build around them. Sessions that stayed with me: Jo Boaler , From Division to Harmony through Inclusive Mathematics Kris Childs , Unapologetic Leadership: Building Impactful Mathematics Environments Eli Luberoff , Who’s Doing the Thinking? This is a question every math leader should be asking in every classroom. Brooke Powers , A Culture Playbook to Bold Leadership Arlene Crum and Dashiell Young-Saver , Infusing Data Literacy into All Pathways . As a data l...

  Oct 18, 2026 · @MrPurdyMath Display a picture, like of a roll of cardboard on the board and ask, "What do you notice?" Within a minute, hands go up all over the room, including from students who rarely talk in math class. That's the power of Notice and Wonder: every student has something to say, and no answer is wrong. This routine comes from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), whose Notice and Wonder lesson plans pair a striking photo with real math. Their cardboard lesson (grades 6–8) is a great example. Its first part works as a five-minute warm-up in almost any lesson. When you have more time, the second part turns it into a full lesson on circles and cylinders. The 4 steps Here's the whole warm-up, using NCTM's photo of a rolled-up sheet of corrugated cardboard. The sample responses come straight from the lesson. Look silently for one minute. Show the image and say, "Take a minute to carefully look over the image." No hands y...

On Friday, October 9, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay. That got me thinking about the prize itself, and about how much a simple picture of its history could tell our students. So I made one. It's a grid of 126 dots. Most are filled. A few are empty. There's no title, no labels and no key. If you're anything like me, you love a graph that starts a conversation before anyone knows what it shows. That's the whole idea behind a slow reveal: students reason about the data first, then get the context a little at a time and revise their thinking as they go. This one takes about 40 minutes, and it works as a 10-minute warm-up if you're short on time. Reveal 1: Just the Dots Start with nothing but the dots. Give students a full minute of quiet think time before anyone talks, then ask the two best questions in math class: What do you notice? What do you wonder? Write down every idea without confirming or correcting it. Students ...

  Oct 9, 2026 · @MrPurdyMath Monday, October 12, is Indigenous Peoples' Day. It's a day to honor the first peoples of this land: their histories, their cultures, and the communities that are still here and thriving today. For a lot of our students, it's also a day off with a name they've never really thought about. That's where we come in. When we take even ten minutes to recognize Indigenous peoples, we're telling students the truth about where they live, and we're showing them that Indigenous knowledge isn't just history. It's math, science, art and language that people are still using right now. If you're anything like me, you've wondered how to fit that into a math class. How do I teach land acknowledgment and explore Indigenous cultures without losing a day of instruction? Here's what I landed on: you don't have to choose. The math is already there. Maya mathematicians used zero centuries before Europe did. Lakota star quilts ar...

What languages are spoken in the United States? How does where you live influence the languages you are likely to hear? And what can data tell us about the communities around us? Nearly 1 in 4 people in the United States speak a language other than English at home. That statistic creates an opportunity to explore percentages, ratios, proportional reasoning, estimation, and data representation while connecting mathematics to language, identity, community, and belonging. I created “How does America say hello?” as a short 5–10 minute data talk using 2024 U.S. Census data to help students make those connections. Starting With Notice and Wonder The routine begins simply. On every slide, I ask: What do you notice? What do you wonder? Students have about 30 seconds to think independently and another 30 seconds to share with a partner. We then hear a few observations and questions before moving into the mathematical prompts. This sequencing is intentional. Rather than telling students what is ...

It’s that time of year again— conference season . One of my favorite parts of being an educator is the opportunity to step outside of my own classroom, connect with other educators, share ideas, and learn from the experiences of others. Conferences give us a chance to pause from the day-to-day demands of teaching and think about the bigger questions: How can we create better learning experiences for our students? How can we make mathematics more meaningful? How do we ensure every student sees themselves as a mathematician? This year, I’m excited to have the opportunity to present at NCSM, NCTM, AMTNYS, and AMTNYC . While the sessions have different focuses, there are some common threads running through all of them: student agency, meaningful mathematics, data literacy, equitable access, discourse, and creating learning experiences that center students as thinkers. NCSM: Data Stories for Justice At NCSM , I’ll be presenting Data Stories for Justice: Empowering K–12 Students to Investiga...

Every day, our students encounter data. They see statistics in social media posts, sports highlights, advertisements, news stories, weather forecasts, health claims, and infographics. They are constantly presented with graphs, percentages, averages, rankings, and claims about what the numbers supposedly tell us. But being surrounded by data does not automatically make someone data literate. As mathematics educators, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to help students think more critically about the data they encounter in their daily lives by asking deeper questions about the meaning behind it. Questions like: Where did these data come from and who is the source? How were they collected? What does this graph show—and what might it hide? Whose perspectives are represented? Whose are not represented? What patterns or variability do we notice? Is there potential bias? And perhaps most importantly: What conclusions can we reasonably make from the evidence? These questions are at th...

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate the rich history, culture, and contributions of Hispanic and Latinx communities. It is also an opportunity to learn about the people and ideas that have helped shape our society. This year’s theme, “Together We are More,” really made me think about how we define a pioneer. When I hear the word pioneer, I usually think about someone who was willing to try something different. Someone who questioned what had always been done and decided to take a different path. Someone who opened a door that others could walk through. There are a lot of pioneers in mathematics and it is important that we help our students recognize that they can be pioneers! Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15, which coincides with the independence anniversaries of several Latin American countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days shortly after on September 16 and September 1...

Some of the most meaningful moments in my career have come from learning alongside passionate educators who challenge me to think differently, grow professionally, and ultimately become a better leader and teacher for my students. That’s why I am incredibly excited and honored to share that I have been selected as a member of the 2026 Texas Instruments (T³) Teacher Leader Cadre. This opportunity is more than a professional milestone—it’s an opportunity to join a community of educators who believe mathematics should be engaging, accessible, and empowering for every student. Throughout my career, I’ve been passionate about creating classrooms where students are encouraged to explore, ask questions, take risks, and discover the beauty of mathematics. Technology has always been an important part of that vision—not as a replacement for thinking, but as a catalyst for deeper understanding, curiosity, and meaningful problem solving. As a member of the 2026 T³ Teacher Leader Cadre, I’ll have t...

I recently joined Nicole Hamilton and Lucas Owen as a panelist in a webinar titled “An AI-Resistant Approach to Teaching Statistics,” which explored how statistics instruction must evolve in a world where generative AI can quickly perform calculations and produce answers. Rather than focusing on limiting AI, the conversation centered on designing learning experiences that emphasize human reasoning, curiosity, and authentic data exploration.One key takeaway is that statistics instruction should move beyond procedural calculations and instead focus on sense-making with real data. When students investigate authentic datasets, pose their own questions, and interpret patterns, the learning becomes far more meaningful—and much harder for AI to replace. We also discussed how student engagement plays a critical role: when students are working with data that is meaningful and relevant to them, they are far less likely to rely on AI because they are genuinely invested in exploring and understand...

March 14th — the day we celebrate the most famous number in mathematics. Grab a slice of pie and explore the infinite wonder of π. My Pi Day Passion: Fun & Philanthropy Pi Day is an event that I look forward to every year and is truly my favorite event of the year. I love seeing students dive into fun explorations, from digit memorization contests and pie-eating challenges to engineering pi-throwing machines and lively relay races. But most importantly, this time of year marks the St. Jude Math-a-Thon for my classes, a special event where my students engage in service learning. They solve math problems and fundraise for St. Jude, ensuring no family ever receives a bill. St. Jude has help push childhood cancer survival rates from 20% to over 80% and the Math-a-Thon is a way for students to help support that mission. You can visit my schools fundraising page to see our progress or contribute, or learn more about the Math-a-Thon here . What’s All the Fuss About Pi? Pi (π) is more tha...