Jonesieblog

Every once in a while, a lesson just comes together beautifully.  I had such a lesson today.  The learning intentions were that we master multiplying and dividing by powers of 10.

The S2 class has only been together for a week, and is quite mixed in ability.  We started the lesson with 10 quick questions, and this showed that about half the class could already do these problems pretty accurately.

At this point, I threw caution to the wind and said “In 10 minutes from now, we’ll do another set of 10 - work together however you want until then to see if we can all get at least 7 out of 10.  If anyone doesn’t manage, we share responsibility - especially those people who did well the first time!”  I didn’t give them any resources, or specify how they should work.  To my delight, they organized themselves into groups around folk who were confident and spent 10 minutes trying to explain to each other the methods.

The next 10 quick questions were answered much more accurately, but we still had a few folk that needed more help.  This presented a challenge for the “experts” as well as those who needed help.  Some “experts” came up to the whiteboard and tried some more explanation, and those needing help gave them some honest feedback about how helpful they had been!  The onus was on the “experts” to explain clearly - those needing help were in the driving seat.

In the end, we got everyone through the last sets of 10 questions with at least 7 out of 10, and one of those needing help got a spontaneous round of applause for a 9 out of 10.

It was a real feelgood lesson that built the sense of community in the class.  I think I’ll being using the idea of a shared responsibility for the success of everyone a lot more in future.

Stumble it!

Today and tomorrow, the S1 cohort at North Berwick High School are all spending a couple of hours in groups working outdoors on some mathematical problem solving activities.  Today’s sessions all went really well - thank to Liz Brookes for organizing the activities, and making it out to North Berwick despite car problems!  Liz took some photos, so hopefully I’ll have something to post here tomorrow.

Stumble it!

These videos sites have some interesting educational stuff in amongst the copyright clips and shots of people hurting themselves. The first 6 minutes of this clip from Google video would be useful as revision for my S3 credit class:

and this one from YouTube (not viewable in East Lothian schools I’m afraid) is good revision for an S4 general class:

There are hundreds if not thousands of these videos.  You could probably put together a complete set of revision clips for every Scottish maths course if you so desired

Stumble it!

Stumble it!

My wonderful S3 general maths class have begun blogging. Mhari volunteered to be scribe for yesterday’s lesson, and produced a great first post, on Prime Numbers. She has set the standard high! Her post does contain one little slip - I’m hoping that someone else in the class will spot it and mention it in a comment, as well as giving her some positive feedback on a great post.
Read it here

Stumble it!