Jonesieblog

New National 4/5 Maths Qualifications with Mr Topping

• no more NABs!  Items will be on NAR and we’ll have to assemble them into unit assessments
• Nat 5 will not be Int 2.  Carving off of apps into Lifeskills Maths means that the harder stuff can permeate all 3 units better

Other random stuff that occurred to me or was said to me through the day:

• make textbook work richer by having pairs take it in turns to answer questions, explaining their thinking to their partner as they go
• use local carry-out menus for money work
• use a google docs form to perform something like a diagnostic interview with a whole class at once (pupils logged into GAE)

Quite a lot of ideas for one day.  I guess it made the early start on a Saturday morning worthwhile!

Stumble it!

Julie Arrol asked me this question yesterday on Twitter:

What are your views about amount of time to spend whole class teaching in maths vs. individual/group work etc.?

I told Julie I’d get back to her, but my response needs more than 140 characters – hence this short blog post.

The short answer is that there is no answer!  All three modes are useful, and an effective teacher will use all three, but it is not useful to attempt to prescribe an ideal mix.  At the risk of setting up a straw man, I think it’s important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect lesson, and that a lesson which suits one learner very well may fail completely to meet the needs of another member of the class.

Having said that, the reality is that learners still spend the majority of their time in secondary maths classrooms either being taught from the front or doing individual work.  This is especially true for the more academically successful learners in S3-S6.  One could argue, therefore, that there is room for more group work!  I think the work on cooperative learning in maths is very interesting, as is the critical skills model of group working.  But we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bath water – those of us old enough to have used the SMP individualised maths program remember students who could pass a test on ratio, but pronounced it “rat-ee-o” because they had never heard anyone say the word!

I suppose the bottom line is that teachers and departments need to find their own answers to this question – guided by discussion with colleagues and learners, and by honest reflection on their own practice.

Stumble it!

We set by ability in S2, and my S2 class is a small set of the least able students.

This week we were doing the old “join the dots” investigation from Standard Grade which looks at how you can generate circular patterns from simple formulas using modular arithmetic. They completed the bits I had intended them to do in a period of one hour.

The next lesson, boy A asked “can we do some of those join the dot patterns really big today – like on a poster?” My lesson plan did not involve anything to do with the investigation, but I didn’t rule it out. I asked them to think individually in silence for 2 minutes about exactly how we would do what the boy had suggested, then gathered the thoughts of the class.

They identified that the two key  problems would be: drawing a really big circle on a poster and; marking 18 equidistant points on the circumference.

We had a fruitful discussion about ways of drawing a big circle, until boy B  said (obviously excited about his idea) “draw a big circle on the [interactive] whiteboard and we can hold our posters up to it and trace it.” Following this, girl C  said “and we could use the protractor on the whiteboard to mark out the points around the edge.”

Problem solved!  Now, this episode felt very different from usual class discussion, for at least these two reasons:

• the problem was authentic, in the sense that failure was a real possibility, and failure would mean that we would return to my original lesson plan;
• I did not have solutions to the problem up my sleeve.  I had no idea how we might proceed.

They were really fired up about making the big patterns, and a member of senior management happened to come in to the class about 20 minutes before the end of the lesson.  I made a point of telling her in earshot of the class how boy A had come up with the idea for the lesson, and how boy B and girl C had come up with the creative solutions that had allowed the activity to take place.

Boy B, who has serious emotional and behavioural problems, was obviously delighted with his achievement, and left the class with fists in the air saying “that was my best maths lesson EVER!”

A magic moment.

Stumble it!

Inspired by John Johnston’s post, I borrowed some GPS devices from Geography today and took a small class out onto the astroturf, where they tried to draw giant quadrilaterals.

We ended up being rather short of time, and had a few technical problems, but a good time was had by all and the students had to think about the properties of quadrilaterals in order to be successful. I’ll hopefully have a google map to add to this post on Monday.

Here’s the map.

Stumble it!

Here’s what I would have said if I’d had more time:

I have grabbed one hour per week in an IT suite with my class of level B/C S2 mathematics pupils. We have spent some time using Tutpup, which has been good fun, and has caught the students’ imaginations. But it does not fill an hour per week – 20 minutes is about enough at one time.

The biggest success has been the work we have done on creating mathematical stories. We happen to have been using GoAnimate, but I think this would work just as well with Comic Life, Digital Video or any medium which has some depth of skill acquisition but delivers rapid initial gratification.

Here’s an (unfinished) example of one of the animations:

I am pleased with this project for several reasons:

The pupils are enjoying learning how to make animations. Enjoyment is sometimes a bit thin on the ground in maths for some of these students, despite my efforts to jolly things up, so I’m delighted to see them turning up early to the computer lessons, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

The pupils are experiencing success. Some students who find maths very challenging seem to see maths as being either babyish (their definition of the maths they can do) or impossible.  This project has enabled them to experience success at learning how to create animations, a task they consider to be cool enough to be worth mastering.

Pupils are learning from each other as they explore the functionality of goanimate. It has been delightful to see the pupils helping each other out as they learn.  I’m hearing things like “Paul [fake name] – how do you add that explosion?” or  “that’s cool, but the frame is a bit quick – here’s how you can slow it down a bit.”  These positive interactions have  definitely improved the atmosphere back in the maths classroom.

Pupils are actively considering real life applications of numeracy. I presented the students with a simple challenge once they had developed some basic skills with goanimate:  create an animation that shows how you use maths in real life.  I made it clear that animations without mathematical content would not do.  This led to some interesting discussions, and some great animations.

I have no idea yet how the rest of the year will pan out – please let me know if you have any bright ideas!  I should finish by saying that I have found most the web applications I have used this year through the blogs and twitter messages of my “personal learning network”.  They are a superb resource!

Stumble it!