Tile Farm Teacher Fellowship: January Recap
The first month of the Spring 2026 Tile Farm Teacher Fellowship focused on “How Many”, a Tile Talk activity centered on creative question asking. Teacher Fellows were invited to play with the activity on their own, try it out with…
Healing Teachers’ Relationship with Math
For many students, math anxiety doesn’t begin with numbers, it begins with adults. A growing body of research suggests that teachers’ and caregivers’ attitudes toward math can significantly shape how children experience the subject. When adults feel anxious, uncertain, or…
Tile Talk: A Free, High-Impact Resource for Joyful Math PD
Some of the most powerful professional learning doesn’t come from lengthy presentations or complex frameworks, it comes from interactive experiences full of genuine mathematical curiosity. Tile Talk was originally designed as a student-facing math discussion resource: low-floor, high-ceiling activities built…
Experimentation, Play, and Great Thinkers
What’s the best way to develop great scientific and mathematical minds? It can be helpful to draw inspiration from some of the great thinkers of our era. As a kid, Vera Rubin used to watch the stars drift past her…
Infinite Room to Grow
When people ask what age groups Tile Farm Academy is designed for, they are often surprised by our answer: PreK to PhD. In fact, our entire team regularly plays, experiments, and makes new discoveries inside Tile Farm Academy. To some,…
Secret Codes & Creative Thinking
By Alex Romero In addition to wearing many hats at Tile Farm, I am a lifelong teacher and look for any opportunity I can to get back into the classroom. This past summer, I had the opportunity to teach a…
Inside a District-Wide Adoption of Tile Farm in a Large Public School System
Tile Farm is proud to partner with Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) on a district-wide adoption of Tile Farm Academy for STEAM and make labs, supporting creative, visual, and student-centered mathematics learning across the district. This partnership builds on a successful…
Joyful Math in a Pasadena Unified After-School Program
By Julian Romero and Lauren Romero In addition to our work with Tile Farm, we have both spent many years teaching and always welcome opportunities to return to the classroom. This past fall, we taught an after-school course at San…
From Research to the Classroom: An ESSA-Aligned Approach to Intervention
Tile Farm Academy meets the criteria for ESSA Tier 4 evidence (“Demonstrates a Rationale”), meaning it is supported by a clearly articulated, research-grounded logic model and ongoing efforts to study its impact. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Tier…